Long story short I started in the 300BLK bolt game with the AAC Remington SPS 700 which was a mediocre experience (inaccurate, misfires, etc) and since apparently it was a semi-common issue, I switched my handloads to using Fed 205m/CCI 400 only.
then I sold the barreled action and got a Defiance anTI with a prefit thinking it would resolves the issue which I felt was caused by excessive headspace and Remington firing pin size.
the new build actually has a tight chamber and I had to bump the shoulder back on my new brass so that it wouldn't be stiff to close the bolt. Out of habit, I kept using Fed 205m for my loads both subsonic and supersonic and it's been 99.9% reliable.
This week I ran out of Fed 205m so I decided to experiment. I cleaned and dried the bolt, made sure the striker spring had good tension and no debris in the channel.
I tried some 7 1/2 and and CCI BR4 and sure enough I got a good 20% failure rate on the BR4 and 5% failure rate on the 7 1/2. Most of them would ignite on 2nd try but few BR4 did not ignite at all. All rounds were primed by hand and I made sure the primer was all the way in. The primers look like they have a really good dent.
So is this a sign that there could be potentially something to investigate ? It's not so hard to just buy a few Ks of 205m and be done but I did notice that the "magnum" primers tend to have tighter SD with subsonic load so would have been nice to be able to use them. Not sure what else could be done beside a stronger striker spring but then it comes at the cost of a heavier bolt lift.
Trigger is a TT 2 stage set at 1.5 lbs, I use the same trigger on my Nukes and RimX without any issues.
then I sold the barreled action and got a Defiance anTI with a prefit thinking it would resolves the issue which I felt was caused by excessive headspace and Remington firing pin size.
the new build actually has a tight chamber and I had to bump the shoulder back on my new brass so that it wouldn't be stiff to close the bolt. Out of habit, I kept using Fed 205m for my loads both subsonic and supersonic and it's been 99.9% reliable.
This week I ran out of Fed 205m so I decided to experiment. I cleaned and dried the bolt, made sure the striker spring had good tension and no debris in the channel.
I tried some 7 1/2 and and CCI BR4 and sure enough I got a good 20% failure rate on the BR4 and 5% failure rate on the 7 1/2. Most of them would ignite on 2nd try but few BR4 did not ignite at all. All rounds were primed by hand and I made sure the primer was all the way in. The primers look like they have a really good dent.
So is this a sign that there could be potentially something to investigate ? It's not so hard to just buy a few Ks of 205m and be done but I did notice that the "magnum" primers tend to have tighter SD with subsonic load so would have been nice to be able to use them. Not sure what else could be done beside a stronger striker spring but then it comes at the cost of a heavier bolt lift.
Trigger is a TT 2 stage set at 1.5 lbs, I use the same trigger on my Nukes and RimX without any issues.