Although I've read of this...I've never seen this one before..and don't much want to again. My buddy was shooting my Springfield M1A last weekend and when the shell was due to eject all that came off was the back 1/2" of the cartridge, leaving the bulk of the case in the chamber. I put a cleaning rod down the barrel to no avail. I can still see the remaining portion of the case in there, but wanted to ask before I did anything too stupid.

By the way, just because foreign ammo says it's NATO doesn't mean much of anything.

Any ideas, please let me know. I always shot Federal Gold Medal Match before and had no problems...that's the brand that I am sticking with after this nightmare.

Rich

You need a broken shell extractor

www.creedmoorsports.com/C2308.html

oh and buy some chamber brushes and clean your chamber every time you clean your bore.

Was that round a reload? Too many loadings result in case head separations just like that. Also, as 308wood mentioned, a filthy chamber that has never seen a chamber brush will also give this type of problem. Until you find a ruptured case extractor, stuff a brass brush into the case from the chamber end so that the brass bristles are a quarter to half inch past the front of the case (a good use for a worn out brass brush that is no good for anything else). Then push the brush back from the muzzle with a wood dowel or cleaning rod. The bristles should catch the front edge of the case and hold it on the way out.

I'm willing to bet that it was cavim ammo. If it was, throw that shit in the garbage! I ATTEMPTED to use it in mine, but every single round stuck in the chamber so hard, it was all I could do to get 'em out.

 Also, once you have removed the offending case and cleaned the snot out of the chamber and the bore take a penlight and look down the chamber as far as you can ( this takes some manuevering and neck twisting ) make sure the chamber is free from defects like deep grooves or scratches from the original chamber cutting and reaming process.

I have shot about 1K rounds of CAVIM through mine without a single hickup.  That includes reloads with CAVIM cases.  However, I rarely load a CAVIM case more than twice, just to be safe, because the brass seems to be a bit on the soft side.

The same thing happened to my SA M1A Standard.  I was shooting some ammo a friend gave me, Squires Bingham brand, and the entire rear of the case was ripped off by the extractor, leaving the rest of the case stuck in my chamber.

Since I didn't have a broken case extractor it was  time for a trip to the gunsmith.  He had it fixed in 5 minutes.  I am much more careful now about what ammo I put in my rifles, and have never had a repeat of this incident.