I recently reloaded some nosler bt 125 g in win. .308. I had a couple cases smash and the rest where very tight. It almost looks as if it gaulded the bullet all the way in. Anyone else have this problem? I'm fairly new at this and could use some advice.

Did you use a full length resizer or a collet when you started processing the brass for reload? What rifle you using?

what is the inside diameter of your sized brass case neck?

Did you Chamfer/Ream the case mouth when doing brass prep?

Brand new Winchester brass. Shooting out of rem 700 sps tactical.

I'll measure next time im at the shop. Bullets measured good.

Still didn't answer the questions.

It still needs FL sizing, trimming, chamfer and deburring even though it's new brass.

Sounds to me like you got in A hurry. Stop & do each step in the preparation for loading or one day it will not be A Pretty sight!!

the only new brass that I know of those steps are already done for the reloader is Nosler, Lauppa gets very close.

Learned many years ago there are no shortcuts worth taking, did not chamfer/deburr case mouths and got exactly what the OP described.

Thanks for the input, will do next time.

Also, once you have at least 5 pieces of brass fired from your rifle measure your head spacing. The distance from the case head to the approximate midline of the shoulder all 5 cases. Get an average, and reset your FL die to bump the shoulders back .002" to .003". You will get all the velocity available from the powder charge, as well as not over working your brass.

Virgin Win brass (as do a lot of new brass) has a slight edge on the inside of the case mouth. If you chamfer the inside of the case mouth, it won't "shave" the jacket of the bullet. Also, the mouths of Win brass out of the bag are oblong and out of round with many dents in the case mouth. You have to straighten the mouth up. I run it up into the die to "kiss" the mouth onto the expander ballto round it out. Once you do this and chamfer the mouth, you won't have any problems shaving the bullet, and it will go in much smoother. I recommend a VLD chamfer tool, instead of the normal hand held 45 degree angle one.

Also, I don't size new brass. I've never had a problem with it. I only straighten the necks out with the die.

Thanks, this is great. I really appreciate the info. Do you think I should shoot these shaved rounds? Should i just pull the bullets and start over?

Would start over, better to waste a few dollars of loading supplies than a rifle barrel, or injury yourself. I always like to error on the side of caution when it comes to handloading.

Most new brass I have dealt with has very tight necks from the factory. I normally will run an expander in them then straighten them out by sizing. I use almost exclusively Lapua and I wouldn't just seat and shoot without expanding the neck and resizing....they are pretty tight and generally speaking I don't like a lot of neck tension.

Thanks for the input. I would like to say that this is not the result of me trying to skip steps or be lazy. It was simply a lack of knowledge. I thought that new brass would come ready to load. I guess thats what you get when you assume. Now that I know the problem and solution, I will automatically run all brass through all the steps. Again thanks for the input.

I've never had this problem with a boat tail, but I've never used
that specific bullet. You could probably pass the mouth through an
expander ball and then chamfer/deburr if you wanted to get away
with the minimum on that bullet. I've always had excellent results
loading .308 Win. new Winchester brass with case no prep.

This is the first time I have had this issue as well. I load 165 g hornady btsp and 168 g amax with no issues. That's why it baffled me with these. Seems I'll just have to try again.

Both those bullets are boat tails. As you seat the bullet, the boat tail can act as a wedge to straighten the neck up as you seat it. It's not how I would recommend doing it, but it will work. The 125 SP are a flat base bullet, and does not have anything to aid it into the case mouth to straighten the neck. Therefore, it crushes or damages the bullet and/or case mouth.

Makes sense. Thanks for the input.