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Location: Yakima, Washington 145 miles from "NUTS"
J. Scott, Sir:
I am afraid my band wagon follows High power. A rimmed cartridge headspaces on the rim. You must be short sizing them and allowing the small case shoulder to hold the cartridge where you want it. That seems to me that this arrangement would be more conclusive to the dreaded misfire you speak of. A hard primer could cause the cartridge to ride the firing pin forward mashing the case shoulder into the chamber neck and deforming the brass.
I do not think the .218 Bee is a high enough pressure cartridge to worry about case separation unless the brass is really old and work hardened. After all it was pretty popular in the Winchester M92 and I believe your Contender to be much stronger then a M92 in that respect.
Now if you wish to speak accuracy you may have a point to having the round tightly fit the chamber. Being a single shot, cycling function is not part of the equation so a stiff closing is not relevant.
I guess what threw me was the long protrusion of the gauges actuator rod. Now seeing what it does I probably would have made the holder longer to protect/hide the shaft.
Just my two cents worth.
You would hate to see a full dollars worth!
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But only valuable if it is shared.
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You fellas are both right. The .218 Bee is a rimmed case, low pressure round. But even though it will head space on the rim it will still head space off the shoulder of the case when resized properly. By keeping the head space to a minimum I am trying to wring the last ounce of accuracy and case life out of these cartridges.
I bought 100 of these cases new 3 or 4 years ago. Now they are only available on the auction sites and going for crazy high prices. If I am careful with them they should last me the rest of my life! I'll keep you posted on accuracy results which hopefully will be in the next couple of weeks.
JScott, proud to be a member of MetalworkingFun Forum since Mar 2014.
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Location: Planeta Rica, Colombia
Just a couple more pictures that show the components I am using and zeroing the gage.
Here is the gage zeroed on a kitchen tile (surface plate is on the way from Amazon Prime!).
And here is an assembled round.
JScott, proud to be a member of MetalworkingFun Forum since Mar 2014.
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(04-07-2015, 08:30 AM)JScott Wrote: But even though it will head space on the rim it will still head space off the shoulder of the case when resized properly.
OK I
think I know what you getting at now. But saying that you are 'head spacing' off of the
shoulder is where the confusion comes in. As rdhem2 mentioned rimmed cases head space off of the rim (only). You
can have 'zero' head space on the rim, and still have the case shoulder meet the chamber, yes. But
technically pushing the shoulder forward is not adjusting head space.
So the question becomes, what is the actual (rim) head space on the gun now?
SAAMI specs .065" - .072"
It's different story for rimless or semi-rimmed cases that actually do head space on the case shoulder. I have a .223 barrel for my Contender. Do you really have .008 - .009" protruding from the barrel face?
You might try putting a ring of plasti-gauge around a case body ahead of the rim and chamber it, then close up the action. Remove the case and measure it to see how much clearance you have on the rim.
Willie
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Willie, yes the head of the cartridge is protruding 0.008" above the face of the barrel. And yes, technically the original use of the rim on this case is for maintaining proper head space.
My method of sizing the cases uses the shoulder instead of the rim to head space the cartridges at 0.001" to 0.002" from the breech face. Now, the rim on my .218 Bee is used only for extraction and there is indeed a gap ahead of the rim. rd's concern about the head of the cartridge having less than full support is correct but it is only missing full support by 0.008" and since this is the web where the cartridge case wall is strongest it won't cause any problems.
All this typing is making me thirsty!
JScott, proud to be a member of MetalworkingFun Forum since Mar 2014.
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Location: Yakima, Washington 145 miles from "NUTS"
April 7th is National Beer Day you know.? Prohibition ended 4/7/33 as if I need a reason to down some suds.
I personally do not care for Contenders as the grip I use either opens the action about half the time or bangs my knuckles so I really do flinch. Badly. Two friends of mine do well with them. One in .30 Herret is hell on pistol silhouette targets and another turns in some very respectable 100 yard groups in .223 Rem. I'll stick with my .38's, .44's, and .45's. Ninety percent revolvers. Yes, they do still exist!
Go Get 'em Tiger. Keep us all posted on the results.
We all carry valuable knowledge.
But only valuable if it is shared.
Youth is our future.
Train one today!
