I noticed with mine that the bolt is a little stiff to close on factory eldm. Not hard to close but you can feel it a little bit. Seems a little snug.
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- Thread starter karagias
- Start date
I was getting great groups with mine shooting 140eldm with 41.8gr of h4350. Peterson small rifle, cci 400. Pretty cool how you are having good groups at a very similar charge.
I have shot Berger 140 Hybrids, reloads from the harvested Lapua brass, and some American Gunner 140 ....no problem closing on them at all. But I did notice my bolt will not close on a GO gauge. I contacted ARC and they claimed the headspace was made tight and they had seen the same thing when assembling them.
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This is wack the bolt handle to get it to close snug (6mm creedmoor)
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Let me start by saying I absolutely love this rifle & it's a hammer. Thank you Ted for this awesome deal.
@karagias - I'd like to here your thoughts on my theory below? The short of it is, I think you may want to consider specifying the required chamber chamfer geometry on your barrels going forward. I think the correct geometry would ensure CRF runs smooth as it should. The correct chamfer geometry spec would also be very helpful for prefits & people ordering barrels to be home assembled on your CRF actions.
It's easy to take for granted what a good smiths like LRI does when they barrel an ARC action. I know LRI chamber polishes, function checks (checking control round feed function), and test fires.
I had the same issue as @**DRB** above when I function checked my (6.5C).
It felt clunky trying to feed a Win 125grain round from the mag, it hung up before going all the way in and then very hard bolt close.
I then checked brass pattern. Picture on the left (not relevant to hard bolt close) shows scratches from mag feed lips. Pic on right shows where brass was scraping on entry to chamber. obviously these pics were taken after firing the rounds, scratches looked worse before firing.
Sharp mag feed lips is standard and an easy fix on a convoluted deburring wheel followed with a little 600 paper.
The chamber scrapping issue is what I think the culprit is for hard bolt close.
Here's my theory:
For the controlled round feed the case rim is released from the mag, but not yet fully clipped under the extractor. It appears to me this happens as the shell begins to enter into the chamber. As it straightens into chamber the case rim is pulled up into the extractor. On mine the case was biting on the sharp edge of the chamfer instead of just pulling up the rim. I suspect brass shavings were then causing the hard close.
It stands to reason that the chamfer geometry @ back of chamber would be more important on a controlled round feed like these.
Look at this picture showing chamber chamfer at back of barrel. I suspect these did not have the edge between chamfer & chamber polished & chamfer is minimal. Note this picture was taken after I did some additional chamfering & fired 60 rounds. If you zoom in you can see all I really did was break the edge.
I have an unmodified PVA Creedmoore barrel here for comparison (pic on right with about twice the chamfer).
To fix I shaped a fine cartridge roll to about 50 degrees on a bench grinder (while spinning on die grinder). This trues it to the die grinder & removes most of the grit from the shaped edge. I then went in and kissed the chamfer to brake/round the sharp edge a little.
This was a little crude but I wanted to getur done and head to the range. I'm sure there are better methods.
The picture at right is a fired Berger Lapua case showing result.
After the above I ran 60 rounds through it Sunday. 4 different factory loads all fed flawlessly. None had hard bolt close & brass had no marks. For the hell of it I chambered a fired Lapua case & the bolt closed without any additional effort.
Here's the first 12 rounds out of the Independence day special. Shooting off bench with bipod & rear bag @ 100 yards. I'm no pro shooter. As of yet untrained, but improving.
First 4 were Winchester White box 125grain open tip range. Bottom left is first shot for scope zero aiming center large diamond. Next 3 after adjusting scope. squares are 1"
Next 3 are Hornady 140 ELDM (only had 3 left). POI slightly left.
Next 5 were Hornady 147 ELDM
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Received and installed her, I hope, forever scope today. Might have to bear out the Dallas heat and hit the long range this weekend to test the 140 ELD-M load I worked up...
Mine will be headed back to ARC with a headspace issue. As much as I try to forgive PVA for the J Hancock issues, if this issue is due to PVA rushing trying to produce stuff it will be the last straw for me. (I just want a rifle I can shoot!!!)
What is your headspace issue? My 6.5 will not close on a go-gauge, although Federal and Berger factory rounds seem to load just fine. ARC says they noticed the same thing and the spacing was just at the minimum. So far mine had not shot terrible, but nothing special either.
Factory Nosler 105 match grade ammo / Factory Hornady 105 Match / Reloads / Resized brass - Bolt will not close on loaded ammo without extreme force (2 hands or some body weight) resized empty brass is extremely tight and almost feels like closing the bolt is resizing the brass. Worse than any Mosin Nagant Ive ever owned (whack it with a 2x4 to open the bolt)
Did you try sliding a factory round in the chamber all the way & then closing the bolt? See my post up thread. Maybe your issue is different, but mine was the chamfer.
So, my rifle is back from ARC (6mm Nuc 1.2 from the 4th of July sale) The headspace was really really right (had to really force the bolt closed on a live round)
The guys at ARC took the rifle back and reamed it. It now closes on a live round fine.
I am now having the issue where its beating the heck out of the brass, similar to @celltech, where I get a significant gouge in the brass. I have had two of the 20 round fail to feed into the chamber completely, feeling like as I ran the bolt forward I ran into something (no, there was no obstruction) Upon inspection, it looked like the round had not engaged the bolt face for controlled round feed and was trying to be push fed into a hard shoulder.
Can I really have this bad of luck or am I just a damn idiot doing something wrong?
(ammo is still factory Nosler and Hornady. Mag is ARC. I only have 20 round through. I stopped because it was frustrating just to get the rifle to feed)
The guys at ARC took the rifle back and reamed it. It now closes on a live round fine.
I am now having the issue where its beating the heck out of the brass, similar to @celltech, where I get a significant gouge in the brass. I have had two of the 20 round fail to feed into the chamber completely, feeling like as I ran the bolt forward I ran into something (no, there was no obstruction) Upon inspection, it looked like the round had not engaged the bolt face for controlled round feed and was trying to be push fed into a hard shoulder.
Can I really have this bad of luck or am I just a damn idiot doing something wrong?
(ammo is still factory Nosler and Hornady. Mag is ARC. I only have 20 round through. I stopped because it was frustrating just to get the rifle to feed)
Sorry you are having problems, but I have -0- issues with feeding/extracting/ejecting/brass condition...it comes out looking great and I have reloaded the same brass multiple times now. I put in a 16lb firing pin spring and it makes quite a difference in the bolt feel as well as lowering the trigger pull by several ounces. Function wise the package is flawless.
I am, however, still chasing an accurate load. A carbon ring snuck up on me and was hell to clean out, but I am hoping it does better on my next outing. So I am not sure what I think of PVA barrels at this point.
Can I really have this bad of luck or am I just a damn idiot doing something wrong?----Could be either one really, but lets see if we can figure it out.
Are you running the bolt very slow? Or more like you would run the action at a match or while hunting? Ted didn't design the actions to be run slowly, so sometimes that doesn't work. Not sure why you would ever want to run an action artificially slow anyway, but it's definitely been an issue on this forum several times.
Magazines are another issue that can cause problems if the feed lips aren't adjusted to allow the cartridge the right amount of reveal. Take a look around on here and search for some pics of what that's supposed to look like. Adjusting feed lips is easy, so that's a simple fix.
Check those things and then get back to us here and I bet we can get it figured out without another trip back to Washington.
@**DRB** - Did you check the chamfer on your chamber?
I now have a 3rd PVA Shouldered ARC barrel pictured below (6GT). Made sure the chamfer edge was not sharp before screwing it on.
It chambers/extracts without issue.
Compare to the 2 pics I posted #107 up thread. The 4th of July barrel has about half the chamfer of the other 2.
I now have a 3rd PVA Shouldered ARC barrel pictured below (6GT). Made sure the chamfer edge was not sharp before screwing it on.
It chambers/extracts without issue.
Compare to the 2 pics I posted #107 up thread. The 4th of July barrel has about half the chamfer of the other 2.
Can I really have this bad of luck or am I just a damn idiot doing something wrong?----Could be either one really, but lets see if we can figure it out.
Are you running the bolt very slow? Or more like you would run the action at a match or while hunting? Ted didn't design the actions to be run slowly, so sometimes that doesn't work. Not sure why you would ever want to run an action artificially slow anyway, but it's definitely been an issue on this forum several times.
Magazines are another issue that can cause problems if the feed lips aren't adjusted to allow the cartridge the right amount of reveal. Take a look around on here and search for some pics of what that's supposed to look like. Adjusting feed lips is easy, so that's a simple fix.
Check those things and then get back to us here and I bet we can get it figured out without another trip back to Washington.
Thank you for the reply.
No, not running the bolt slowly. If I did, it wouldnt feed at all (the round wont snap up into the bolt face all the way causing it to run into the chamber at a steep angle)
I will check the magazine feed lips / cartridge reveal, thank you.
Wow, mine looks nothing like that. Very interesting. Thanks for the reference and info, this is very frustrating to have this rifle run worse that my $700 Ruger
Working to a resolution. It appears there might have been a few things going on.
Interesting to note, Josh / Joe from PVA commented that the smaller than previously seen barrel chamfer is 100% on purpose and should have NOT caused the issue Im experiencing. While the issue is not completely resolved, I will hold a final opinion. I will say to this point both American Rifle Company (Justin) and Patriot Valley Arms (Joe / Josh) have all been spectacular to deal with. If we can get this sorted out between both companies I will certainly own a lot more ARC / PVA product in the future.
Carbon rings aren't really the fault of the person chambering.... carbon rings show up randomly in my experience. Good cleaning procedures can mitigate the chance... its a touchy subject but there are alot of variables in my opinion.
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