Need advice; buggering up cases trying to convert .223 to .300

[PFDD]

Frank,

I sincerely appreciate your thorough reply.

What you've said makes perfect sense that I'm trying to expand the mouth of the case in the region of the die where I should be resizing it down. I may have slightly buggered up my expander button too.

Understood on the instructions, but I've gone through many cycles of feverish interest in one aspect or another of shooting/reloading and then let it go dormant for many years before dusting stuff off again and heading in some new direction. Changing calibers recently on a Dillon 650 was a major evolution to me because I hadn't done it in probably 10+ years and had to relearn how on top of cleaning and relubing it in the appropriate places. Fortunately the Dillon instructions are thorough and laden with pictures..! My experience base has big time gaps in it and I've never reformed new cases, yet I suspect I could have figured this out if I tried harder to analyze the steps as they were happening. As you've stated forums like this make a huge difference to someone like me, and I appreciate the efforts and suggestions of all involved. Leveraging the experience of others is the best asset I've had.

I keep the South African cases around as sacrificial offerings to the trimmer gods and such when changing case holders on the Giraud trimmer or setting up dies. I've spent some time with long range shooting so I match condition my cases short of neck turning and along the way there are steps which chew up a few pieces of brass. The last thing you want to do is chew up a Lapua match case when you can offer up some South African as long as you're not screwing the equipment up. LC cleans up nice and performs well as does IMI match brass and with match prepping and sorting is about as good as anything else. I use a lot of LC cases and that's what I intend to use with the .300 when I've got it dialed in.

I suspect with the expander in the right position within the die, my brief flurry of intense forum activity will end. I'll confirm when I've got them coming out properly.

Thanks again,

Brad