At a loss here!

erikc641

erikc641

Private
Full Member
Minuteman
Apr 9, 2017
740
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Las Cruces, NM
#1
Hopefully someone will know what the cause of all this is. Before I get started, and I can't stress this enough, it involves new in box 338 Lapua Magnum ammunition from one of the big mfgs.

So I went out to shoot my new 110 Elite Precision this morning and noticed that on every single round, the bolt would close about 1/4" and come to a hard stop. EVERY SINGLE ONE. No problem, I had another mfg's ammo and proceeded to shoot that with no trouble. When I got home, I used my comparator and noted that the shoulder was about .006" under a once fired piece of brass. So I moved on to the bullet. Marked it with a sharpie, tried to chamber, checked it and no marks. Next up, I pulled one of them and as expected that piece of brass chamber without any difficulty (did not size it or do anything else with it). I used my tools to measure how long I could seat the bullet. The factory ammo was seated about .070" under where this particular bullet would touch the rifling. So without doing anything else, I re-seated the pulled bullet to the original length of the factory ammo and it chambered like normal. What the heck is going on here!
 
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#2
“bolt would close about 1/4"

Can you explain this? The bolt was only going forward 1/4”? Getting to within a 1/4” of being closed? Rotating into battery only 1/4”?

It sounds like you mean it was getting to within 1/4” of being closed…as in all the way forward.
 
#4
2405C0FE-96AC-46B8-A0E9-5683F3B83DCC.jpeg
 
#5
Thicker case head not getting under the extractor?

Thicker neck dimension?

Super long brass impinging into the rifling?

Sharpie the front half of one and see if it comes out with marks? Seems unlikely to be a chamber dimension issue if the same round fed after being taken apart.

Was the one that chambered normally after being rebuilt single-fed while the others were mag fed?

After shooting some of the other brand did you go back and try again with the non-feeders?
 
#6
OREGUN said:
Thicker case head not getting under the extractor?

Thicker neck dimension?

Super long brass impinging into the rifling?

Sharpie the front half of one and see if it comes out with marks? Seems unlikely to be a chamber dimension issue if the same round fed after being taken apart.

Was the one that chambered normally after being rebuilt single-fed while the others were mag fed?

After shooting some of the other brand did you go back and try again with the non-feeders?
Click to expand...
Brass was measured right at "trim to" length, so no issues there.
I will sharpie the brass and see if it marks it.
All were single fed, even the other mfg that I didn't have problems with.
Yes, I started off shooting the other brand, no issues. Tried the problematic ones, got frustrated and went back to shooting the other again.
 
#7
Could be your chamber doesn't like the shape of the brass near the neck. This happens to me with a particular brand of ammo and one of my chambers. My chamber is cut sharp like the black line. The brass has more of a sweep instead of sharp transition as seen in the red fill. This was preventing the bolt from closing.


1630108210291.png
 
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#8
Sharpie on the brass revealed a ring around the shoulder just above the body junction. I don’t see how, if that’s the problem, how pulling the bullet would allow it to rechamber normally with no sizing operation or normal chambering when I reseat the bullet. Maybe when they seated the bullet it buckled the case slightly? 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
#9
erikc641 said:
Sharpie on the brass revealed a ring around the shoulder just above the body junction. I don’t see how, if that’s the problem, how pulling the bullet would allow it to rechamber normally with no sizing operation or normal chambering when I reseat the bullet. Maybe when they seated the bullet it buckled the case slightly? 🤷🏻‍♂️
Click to expand...

Post a picture of what your sharpie revealed.
 
#10
Savages are famous for being short chambered. Are you 100 percent sure you reseated the bullet to the exact original dimension? Was the other box of ammo different bullet weight/style?
 
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#13
I like something along the lines of the extractor not getting over the case rim although I’m not sure the bolt would roll at all if that was the case.

Measure the seated neck dimensions of the two types and the neck diameter of the fired case.

Usually a bolt coming to a hard stop is the bolt/action. A bolt coming up short against brass or copper feels “soft”…like you could force it if you had to.
 
#14
The pic doesn’t show up particularly well but it is wearing a ring maybe right at the shoulder body junction. In the second picture it is just below in one spot only.
 

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#15
The above round, I was able to get the bolt to close about 1/2 way. It took not a crazy amount of force but more than I wanted to apply. I've certainly experience the description above about the "soft brass or copper feel". This was like that but tighter.
 
#16
Did you mean to say earlier that the overall brass length is max book length? If you have a trimmer I would try to shave off a bit, put the bullet back in and see if that closes smoother. Looks like your case mouth has some marks in your pictures.
 
#17
When I pull the bullet from the factory ammo, the brass measures 2.714-2.715".
OAL for the factory rounds are 3.630. My rifle will allow (once pulled) to chamber easily at 3.700.
The picture above, is a factory round, not pulled or messed with by me other than the sharpie. The whole weird thing about all of this is that once the bullet is pulled, the bolt closes normally. If I reseat the bullet at 3.630-3.700, the bolt closes normally.
 
#18
Ok spitballing here ... Are the primers sticking out a hair and when you seat the bullet you are subsequently seating the primer? Remember I said spitballing.
 
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#23
Another idea, try seating one of the bullets deeper on a stuck case about 0.010 or so without pulling first. If that get's stuck, then somehow pulling & reseating is changing the brass enough to chamber.
 
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#24
Trim a little further. Had something very similar happen a while back and even though I was below max trim length for some reason the once fired brass would chamber all the way or was a very hard bolt close. Turns out I needed to trim a little more and bam, problem solved.
 
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#25
Darkside-Six said:
Trim a little further. Had something very similar happen a while back and even though I was below max trim length for some reason the once fired brass would chamber all the way or was a very hard bolt close. Turns out I needed to trim a little more and bam, problem solved.
Click to expand...
I don’t see how this solves anything. This is factory new ammo. It won’t chamber as loses from the factory. If I pull the bullet it chambers normally. If I reseat to the length it originally was it chambers normally. I’m not trying to be an a** but don’t understand the logic. I do however appreciate the responses.
 
#26
KZP said:
Another idea, try seating one of the bullets deeper on a stuck case about 0.010 or so without pulling first. If that get's stuck, then somehow pulling & reseating is changing the brass enough to chamber.
Click to expand...
I’m thinking that maybe when they were seated at the factory it took more pressure than normal causing the case to deform slightly. By removing the bullet it was relieved somehow.
 
#27
As close as possible, measure a case that chambers…and the one that doesn’t…right where that mark in the sharpie is showing up.

Is there a chance the cases just didn’t get “sized” correctly in manufacture? Not so much headspace length but diameter at the shoulder? Do you have a case gauge by any chance? Dunno what would make things change when you pull and reseat but…

Might be worth stripping the bolt and feeling a “new” case vs. a pulled and reseated case. Does the latter have any resistance or does the problem COMPLETELY go away?
 
#40
The weight of the bullet/powder slamming in the inertia hammer must be enough to straighten out that shoulder junction just enough to eliminate the interference. If the necks were super tight at seating, maybe the cases squashed a touch at that junction? Just throwing things....
 
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#43
Even if you found some of the factory stuff that would chamber, I don't think I'd shoot it. If the neck tension was all messed up, could have pressure problems. Better to pull them all, resize and shoot the brass with a starter load to get it squared away.
 
#47
For this issue, just find a super flat surface, like a glass sheet or similar, and roll some of the factory rounds and see if you can see the bullet tip wobble. If there is meaningful runout, I'm thinking it would be big.
 
#50
Now I’m curious. What’s the fired brass measure at that junction, compared to the various other samples?

The going theory about neck tension and the inertia puller sounds good to me. When you pull them do you lose the powder (never used an inertial puller). If you can pull and replace without changing the powder, do it.

Assuming there’s a measurable difference between fired neck diameter and seated neck diameter, there’s absolutely no risk to just jamming that bolt closed and shooting them. A little jam fit at the shoulder won’t hurt anything and there’s no way in hell, as long as there is sufficient neck diameter in the chamber (can you slip a bullet in to the fired neck of one of the other cases? If so, you are good) that you will have pressure problems from the “neck tension”. Hell, you could lightly tap around the diameter of the shoulder with a hammer until they would chamber and shoot them. Might not be pretty but you are just mildly fireforming here…similar to making an ackley out of a standard case.
 
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