Just watched today’s video on youtube. Couple of times it was mentioned that Reloaders don’t like reloading belted magnums.
What problems does the belt cause?
Have both 7RM and 300WM, but right now I don’t shoot either enough to justify reloading for them. Just curious
none if you set your dies properly. Obviously you cannot full length resize past the belt but that does not matter either.
Some complain about short neck on 300WM as well. I have not had issues with either.
Dies don’t size the bottom (head) of the case. When the die is lowered onto the brass, it pushes down on the sidewalls of brass but it can’t push past the belt.
After many reloadings, it can form a bulge in the brass above the belt and make the brass be no longer useable.
It frankly isn’t that big of a deal, but it’s just annoying when the belt has zero modern function since chambers headspace off the shoulder anyway.
So it’s like having a cartridge design with tonsils and an appendix that really do nothing for you, but can potentially cause issues.
Again, it’s very minor, but at the same time isn’t the IDEAL design for a reloader.
Agreed but … I assume you would agree that the belted magnum case design is probably only surpassed by the 06 case as the most significant case design of all time. The belt was not an unneeded appendix. The 375H&H gave us the case capacity to do wonderful things way past the 06. I don’t know but there must be 30 or more chamberings based on the 375 parent case? And even more amazing it was not a government designed case I don’t think like an 06 that had the resources of the US government behind it. As most know but I repeat - the belt was for headspace on the no shouldered 375 which was designed for smooth feeding when hunting dangerous African game in a bolt action. And that case can hold almost 50% more powder than an 06. The 06 case is like a dividing line where so many down from there and the 375 covers up from there. Of course exceptions. But the belted case will probably not have any equals ever in the history of rifle cartridges imho. I would also say that many many millions of belted case mags have been reloaded with no issues.
Agree with rossk. Nothing wrong with the belted cases, other than they are not named “PRC”. Non-belted cases swell at the base also and if not fully sized will prevent loading into the chamber as well. The belt provided a more consistent and rock solid means of extracting a cartridge to fire a follow up when a life depended on it. If you get a precision die made to the dimensions of your chamber, which reduces the amount of stretching in the brass from reloading, it will help with the life of your brass in belted cases. If you want to know what a belted magnum is capable of in terms of performance and accuracy, go watch some of the Quarter Minute Magnum videos and focus in on the 300 Win Mags and 7 Rem Mags that are built.
“Base” in my post being defined as the lower end of the case wall. Jim is correct about the actual base, where the cartridge is gripped for extraction.
thanks
QMM had a 7mm Mag last video that he was shooting with different size bergers in clover leaf 3rd groups with a custom barrel he built.
I have a question about belted brass and annealing. Is annealing the base a thing? Would this help with brass life at the belt?
Rossk, nope we wouldnt do that process on the base. The base needs to be strong to handle pressue and keep the primer pocket solid. Belted magnums headspace off the belt, but we then adjust our dies to minimize the should bump. That decreases the back and forth stretching, which creats the point on the brass just above the belt where it begins to weaken and seperate, eventually into two halves if is used continually. We anneal generally in the top 30% of the case or less to ensure the brass remains flexible in how it grips the bullet when it is seated. Over used brass becomes brittle and will not have a uniform grip strength overtime, so from shot to shot we will get poorer groups due to wide variances in neck tension. It is possible to ruptur a standarless beltless case also but firing it over and over while bumping the should back without regard to adjusting it based on chamber deminisions. Magnum cases just start showing the signs quicker due to the larger powder charges generating higher pressures which works the brass more. Take a look at this video.
JV
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