Posted: 3/18/2017 4:24:53 PM EDT
|
I've been reloading 308's for longer than I can remember. Never had a problem. I always size & trim the brass and run each loaded round through a Lyman case gauge. This has always worked just fine UNTIL I bought a Savage 10 BA Stealth. Now about 60% of the cartridges will not chamber at all. You can not get to the point where you would turn the bolt handle down. The other 40% are no problem whatsoever.
Friday I took out most of the cartridges that would not chamber in the Savage and tried them in A Ruger Precision rifle. No problems whatsoever. The problem has got to be in the brass but exactly what is going wrong I don't know. Any suggestions? |
|
Pretty simple and likely cause:
Your shoulders and/or case walls are not being sized down correctly for your Savage chamber. I use the Hornady headspace comparator set on my calipers. I measure unfired cartridges or virgin brass that is known to chamber and work in my rifle that I am loading for. I then measure my fired brass from that particular rifle. I bump the shoulders back about .004-.005" in gas guns, and .003" for bolt guns. |
| I will also add that the cases might need annealing, once they start getting harder the the brass will spring back when trying to size. When you used to bump the shoulders back .004 it is now only bumping them back .002 (random numbers for an example). If your cases are not all on the exact firing schedule, this would explain the 60% problem. |
|
Quoted:
Pretty simple and likely cause: Your shoulders and/or case walls are not being sized down correctly for your Savage chamber. I use the Hornady headspace comparator set on my calipers. I measure unfired cartridges or virgin brass that is known to chamber and work in my rifle that I am loading for. I then measure my fired brass from that particular rifle. I bump the shoulders back about .004-.005" in gas guns, and .003" for bolt guns. |
| I suspect that your loaded cartridges are too long for that Savage chamber. What is your overall length versus the bullet manufacturer's recommended OAL? Will the sized cases fit? Were these cases fired in this rifle? Also, I have some decade old reloads that will not fit my new Remington 700. These cases are old military and I wonder if they "grew". By that I mean sprung back in shape from a bigger chamber. |
|
Quoted:
I am betting that the headspace is real tight on the savage. a lot of them come that way from factory, its almost like they pride themselves on setting the headspace as short as possible. 
easily fixable. |
|
Quoted:
I've been reloading 308's for longer than I can remember. Never had a problem UNTIL I bought a Savage 10 BA Stealth. Now about 60% of the cartridges will not chamber at all. You can not get to the point where you would turn the bolt handle down. The other 40% are no problem whatsoever. Friday I took out most of the cartridges that would not chamber in the Savage and tried them in A Ruger Precision rifle. No problems whatsoever. The problem has got to be in the brass but exactly what is going wrong I don't know. The chambers and headspace are obviously different. Go get a sharpie and color up the entire surface of the loaded round. attempt to chamber it. carefully extract, and there will be a marking where the problem is. |