Advice Needed - Savage 10-FCP Extraction Issues

[DubGunner]

This is a fairly new rifle to me, only about 150 rounds through. First 50 rounds through it were Federal Sierra Match 168gr factory ammo, the bolt would stick on extraction one out of about every 10-15 rds or so. No big deal, I chalked it up to being new and needing a thorough chamber cleaning.

I reloaded that brass and some other federal .308 brass I had with fully prepped (trimmed, full-length resized, polished, primer pockets, etc) brass. I had far worse results (extraction-wise) with the reloaded rounds. I shot another 80 rds using this Federal brass, Sierra 168 gr and 175 gr bullets, in increments of 41, 42, 43, 44, and 45 gr of IMR4895.

With 41-42 gr of powder on the 168 gr bullets the rifle performed fine, but once I got up to 43gr+ of powder the cases were getting stuck nearly every single round. It was even worse with the 175gr bullet. I've seen that others have had some extraction problems with this rifle as well, but I'm not sure if my issue is the rifle or reloads, although I'm inclined to believe its the rifle.

Any advice?

 

[kobeer1980]

Re: Advice Needed - Savage 10-FCP Extraction Issues

i did a cycle test with my savage fcp with 5 differnt types of ammo and noticed that with match ammo it doesnt cycle as well as when i cycled some federal fusion soft points. they cycled from best to worst in this order: federal fusion 165gr,hornady zombie max 168gr,hornady super perfomance a-max match 168gr,federal premium SMK BTHP 168gr and then the worst was Prvi Partizan 168gr BTHP

 

[asmith5144]

Re: Advice Needed - Savage 10-FCP Extraction Issues

I am still working on being able to reload myself, but I have a good buddy that has a good amount of experience reloading. These are the specs he reloaded 30 rounds for me in just to see how well the hand loaded match ammo would group with my savage 10fp .308 would group with these loads. The hand loads grouped really well, but the bolt was very sticky for every round I fired. I inspected every casing as I fired it, but found no defects. We think maybe the brass was not trimmed back far enough to begin with, but other than that we did not find any definite answers. Maybe the rounds were just a little too hot. I haven't had a chance to try any other hand loads yet.
LC Brass:2.005
CCI 200 primer
45.3 gr. CFE223 
175 SMK
2.800 COL
The same day I fired these rounds I also fired a few different types of factory loaded ammo and all of those rounds ejected fine.

 

[DubGunner]

Re: Advice Needed - Savage 10-FCP Extraction Issues

So I got an opportunity to test this a little more last night. What I found is that the spent cases that were giving me trouble at the range still seizing up when chambered on the bench. I'm also noticing that it looks like the shoulder to neck on the brass is a little stretch. The length of the brass is within spec, but the tapered area below the neck is a little distorted. Also noticing that some of these are still a little difficult to chamber.

So I tried running them through the full length resizing die with seemed to fix the extraction issue for most, but not all. Some of them just seem to be trashed. I use Lee Standard Dies, and I'm fairly new to reloading as well.

Could this all be caused by the brass? Is it possible there's a headspace issue in the rifle?

 

[dwtaylorpdx]

Re: Advice Needed - Savage 10-FCP Extraction Issues

Like rifles the quality of the dies does matter, Lee are not the smoothest interior finish in my experience. If I can I use Forester otherwise Redding then RCBS, and I lap/polish the interior with JB... Of course the first couple sets I ever bought were Forester, so when I tried the lees they really felt rough...

Just a thought... Not to say the cases did not wear out they do that...

Dave

 

[Beepy]

Re: Advice Needed - Savage 10-FCP Extraction Issues

I have tried both the Lee dies, Forester and Redding dies. Forester and Redding were the nicest, though the Lee dies gave the least amount of runout out of the three. If not using competition dies I would polish up the Lee's.

 

[tip2oo3]

Re: Advice Needed - Savage 10-FCP Extraction Issues

My old savage started developing extraction problems and I scratched my head while the extractions got worse. I had rust build-up in my chamber even though I didn't have any exterior rust showing. I'd shine a light in your chamber and inspect it real good.

 

[DubGunner]

Re: Advice Needed - Savage 10-FCP Extraction Issues

Update on this, issue doesn't appear to be with the gun at all, but with the novice reloader.

It appears I didn't have the sizing die setup perfectly which meant I was short-stroking the sizing operation. The shoulder was too long on these rounds by about .02", causing the chambering issues. I'm now left with the task of disassembling a couple dozen loaded rounds, and re-reszing a few hundred pieces of brass. Just glad I found a solution, and that the rifle isn't involved at all.

 

[hahco]

Re: Advice Needed - Savage 10-FCP Extraction Issues

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: DubGunner</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Update on this, issue doesn't appear to be with the gun at all, but with the novice reloader.

It appears I didn't have the sizing die setup perfectly which meant I was short-stroking the sizing operation. The shoulder was too long on these rounds by about .02", causing the chambering issues. I'm now left with the task of disassembling a couple dozen loaded rounds, and re-reszing a few hundred pieces of brass. Just glad I found a solution, and that the rifle isn't involved at all. </div></div>

I haven't had any extraction issues, but I know what you're talking about. I use an RCBS full-length sizer. on my Savage 10 PC, fired cases require a little muscle to size. fired cases that come out of my 700p don't require nearly as much effort. I concluded that the tolerances on the Savage chamber are a little more to the loose side than the remington chamber. As a result, the brass gets worked harder.

keep an eye out for the throat, too. a round that fits in the long-throated 700p can leave land imprints in the Savage.

 

[DubGunner]

Re: Advice Needed - Savage 10-FCP Extraction Issues

yeah, I followed the instructions regarding setting the die height, but honestly I don't know why you need to set the die height so close to the top of the press stroke. I mean, you're supposed to set the die at the top of the press stroke plus another 1/4-1/2 of a turn. Honestly, I added another two-three full turns to the die depth to make sure that I didn't short stroke the sizing operation, and to be sure I had full, solid firm stop at the top of the stroke. I think i was too close to the top of the stroke before, and instead of compressing the brass the needed .02 to resize the press was camming over and there was too much play between the die and the press. Not enough force transferred to the brass and resizing not successful.

Next time I'll probably just size the necks and see how that goes. Trail and error I guess, but I learned some things.

 

[JohnnyK]

Re: Advice Needed - Savage 10-FCP Extraction Issues

9/64 ball under the extractor. Savages lift hard