I seat my 240 grain SWC loads at 1.600 COL. I recently picked up some 215 grain SWC and if I seat them the same they don't reach the crimp groove. What gives? Should I seat them deeper?

I chambered one in my Encore at 1.600 and closed the gun. Which lead to the gun not opening all the way.... which lead to me having to tap the hinge pin out to open it all the way.... which lead to me calling MGM .... which lead to them saying the extractor is too long.

All I wanted to do was work a new load up. Now, I have no new load and a broken gun. Damn.

Advice?

You should take the barrel off the gun.
Set the freebore roughly .020" of the rifling lead
Then you will have no issue
It's a single shot you can almost ignore the crimp groove unless you plan to shoot the same rounds out of a wheel gun.

H2OBUG,

I don't plan to shoot these in my Ruger.

Here's what perplexes me .... at 1.600 the 215's seemed to not want to chamber ... like they were contacting rifling .... least that's the way it felt when I closed the gun. 240SWC's and XTP's of all sizes have chambered fine.

I'm really pissed at myself cause I feel that chambering that round fubar'd my new gun. If the extractor had been too long I don't see how the gun would have functioned so well before today.

A DIFFERENT [SHORTER]NOSE PROFILE ON THE 215 GR CAUSING THEM TO SEAT LONG AND ENGAGE THE RIFLING. JUST RESET YOUR DIE TO SEAT THEM DEEPER.[SORRY ABOUT THE ALL CAPITALS HAD THE CAP LOCK ON.] Have you tried putting one of the 215 gr in the gun close then open if as far as it will go. Then drop a cleaning rod down the barrel to tap out the loaded round. It should have marks on the front of the bullet if it is engaging the rifling.

Size a deprimed brass and then grind a slit down the side from the mouth to ~half-way-down. Then put in one of the new bullets in question in the brass and leave it sticking WAY out with a much longer COL then normal. Chamber it in the gun and then extract and measure the length. If you do this a couple times and it stays consistent then you have the MAX COL for this particular bullet in this particular gun. If it doesn't stay consistent, you are either not reaching the lands with the bullet (leave it sticking out farther), or you are moving the bullet in the case when extracting (squeeze the mouth of the brass a little tighter).

This doesn't help the extraction issue on the Encore, but it helps you work up loads for new bullets. As said before, crimping usually isn't necessary in single shots.

Thanks much guys. I now see what's going on. Hopefully I can get the Extractor issue taken care of and be back in business.

In a roundabout manner I solved my issues today. I removed the barrel and pushed the extractor in. I then plunk tested the rounds as I seated them deeper to find the sweet spot. At 1.535 the rounds dropped to the rim of the cartridge exactly like my XTP loads at 1.600.

As far as the gun itself, I removed the extractor to inspect it once more. Finding it was not bent, I did notice that the forward face of it had a dimple where the frame pushes it rearward when the gun is opened. MGM guessed it was too long, so I gently filed the dimple out and polished the face carefully maintaining its angle. Once reassembled, the gun worked flawlessly.

Lastly, I made a trip to the camp to try the gun and new load. Both turned out well ... gun was spot on and my new 215 SWC's print to same POI as my 200 XTP's.


All in all, a good day.

Thanks again

Great to hear! Glad you solved it!