Following on some load development (and a post) from a couple months back, I did some testing with the 143gr ELDX in my Bergara 6.5cr and the 37.6gr charge of H4350 grouped the best of any of the testing I did.

With that, I made 25 rounds today at different seating depths (from jam to 0.160 off the lands), in 0.040" increments. I loaded them in 5-round batches at each seating depth, but on the fourth batch I noticed my brass was deforming at the shoulder during the seating stage. Pictures below, but I figured out that I'd maxed out my seating die in the die plate, and the seating die was impacting the shoulder on my brass.

The impact is seen in the comparison below, where the cartridge on the left has a much more rounded shoulder due to the maxed out seating die, vs the one on the right where I backed off and adjusted the seater from the top.

My question is. Are these rounds safe to shoot or have I potentially overworked the brass? I remade 5 more rounds at the same seating depth after adjusting the seating die so that it wouldn't impact the shoulder profile (which, if they don't shoot well, then this may be a moot point).

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]


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