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Posted: 4/30/2013 4:29:10 AM EDT
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Good morning friends,
I have a problem that is causing me a great deal of frustration. I have a batch of .223 that is getting stuck in the chamber. It is not every round, and seems to very intermittent; however when they get stuck, it will usually not allow the bolt to lock into battery. At the same time when I try to extract the round, it requires a great deal of force on the charging handle or a strike of the buttstock while pulling on the charging handle to free the round. Seriously stuck! This is occurring on several different rifles, with as many different barrel manufacturers. I'll start with a little back story I have been reloading for a little over six years. I have made many thousands of rounds without ever encountering this problem. Nothing in my brass preparation or loading process has changed. The only change in materials is the brass I am using. I have always used LC once fired in the past. Our current situation has forced me to start using commercial range pickups. Obviously this is where my problem lies, but I'll be damned if I can figure out where the issue exists, how to identify it, or how to correct it. The issue does not appear to be isolated to one brand of brass, but does have a higher % of problems in Winchester. That said, I have plenty of Winchester's that appear to be fine. I can't seem to identify what is specifically out of spec. Like I always do, every one of these rounds went through a Dillon case gauge after they were completed, and all pass with out sticking. Since this problem started, I have started taking measurements at various locations on the stuck cases and comparing them to the cases that are chambering properly and again against my load manual, bu I can't seem to put my finger on what is out of spec. Everything seems to be within .002 +/- of one another. In some cases, a round that I suspect would be out of spec after taking measurements, chambers fine. I am just so frustrated right now! I have nearly 1500 of these rounds and don't know what to do with them. They have recently cost me two matches, and are completely unacceptable as is. I obviously have a lot of money tied up in components here. Running them into my chamber while trying to diagnose this is not doing the rounds any good, as I am damaging some of the jackets doing this, and causing bullet setback on others that I have run in multiple times. These will obviously need to be set aside and pulled down later. At the end of day two of troubleshooting, I am no closer to identifying the problem, let alone how to go about fixing it. As a last point of reference my load is as follows: 55gr Hornady FMJBT with a canular, 25grs of H335, CCI #41 primers, in mixed headstamp commercial brass. I am loading on a Dillon 650 using a Dillon FL sizing die. All the brass was trimmed to 1.750 on a Giraud trimmer. So what do I do with this? Where should I go from here? Is there any specific area I should be looking at. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Matthew Roddy |
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You have a Dillon case gage did you use it to adjust your dies? Make dummy rounds initially, 5 or so and see if they cycle in your gun, a lot safer if they get stuck You'll probably want a bullet puller, since you have a lot of rounds to pull get the Hornady collette puller type not a kinetic one http://www.midwayusa.com/product/851547/hornady-cam-lock-bullet-puller |
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Are you crimping? If so could you possibly be over crimping with a roll crimp. It don't take much to slightly bulge a case.
I don't think the commercial range pick up's are your problem. That is what I use the most and have no problems with it. Another thing you can do is take one of the rounds that gets stuck and paint it with a sharpie or dye chem blue or similar fast drying thin coating then chamber it. The coating should show you where the contact is being made. |
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Quoted:
After making sure your chamber is good and clean with no visable issues get some Hornady chamber guages and make sure you're sizing your brass enough. I agree; that would be my first step. I think your Dillon case gage is possibly lying to you and may be a bit lax on QC. Second step would be to meticulously examine your case lube methods and products to be certain that there isn't some sort of gummy film or varnish build-up on the finished cartridge. Maybe your case lube went bad over time? (Or the oil in the chambers of your guns, as already addressed -just make SURE!) Step # 3 might be to run your loaded brass through a small-base sizing die (RCBS makes them, as well as others), with the expander plug removed. (Be very careful doing this. Depending on the situation, it may be dangerous to size loaded rounds. I'd call RCBS and see what they suggest. They'll probably tell you to pull down the loaded rounds before re-resizing.) Step #4- Double-check your micrometer's accuracy against a test-gage, and pay extra attention to neck diameters on loaded rounds. I suppose there's a small possibility that you're running into thick brass, and may need to turn necks (?). Edited to add: see my next post below before applying Step 3. |
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Quoted:
Are you crimping? If so could you possibly be over crimping with a roll crimp. It don't take much to slightly bulge a case. I don't think the commercial range pick up's are your problem. That is what I use the most and have no problems with it. Another thing you can do is take one of the rounds that gets stuck and paint it with a sharpie or dye chem blue or similar fast drying thin coating then chamber it. The coating should show you where the contact is being made. Good point, Motor1! That is actually a very likely scenario. Your cases may be bulging (usually right where the case body and shoulder meet). And it may not have anything to do with crimping. It may be occurring during the bullet-seating process if you're not putting a clean chamfer in the case mouth to ease the downward pressure on the case when seating the bullet. Also check your chamferring tool's angle; it must be appropriate for the bullet's base angle, IE-VLD bullets require a VLD chamfer tool for best results, etc. A dusting of dry mica in the case mouth also helps reduce seating pressure a great deal. Midway sells a mica kit with vertical brushes that make it simple to apply. I'd also get away from any crimping process that crimps during the seating process. Set up your seating die to NOT put any crimp on the mouth and do your crimping in a separate operation instead, preferably with the LEE Factory Crimp Die. (Best crimping tool available by far.) |
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Some case gages (my RCBS Precision Mikes) are relieved back and do not examine the shoulder-to-shank or shoulder-to-body transition. The little .223 case has relatively weak shoulders due to annealing (normally not a bad thing). It is easy to distort the aforementioned transition which will behave exactly as you describe in autoloaders.
The deformity is difficult to catch visually. It often occurs in the seater die if the roll crimp function is performed simultaneously with the seat function in one ram stroke. It can also occur due to a poor fit between the bullet and neck ID during seating or just over crimping like Motor1 points out. A worn expander button in the FL sizer die can cause a small neck ID and increase insertion force to the point of causing the deformity. 
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Yes, I have had this happen before also. Had to hold down the charging handle and hit the other side with a rubber mallet to get the loaded round out of battery. As explained in the previous posts, either your seating die is also applying a bit of crimp or you don't have enough chamfer and when you seat the bullet it is pushing the shoulder back and maybe bulging the neck also. Sometimes it was very hard to see. I noticed it by accident. I originally thought it was the range pickup brass, and all sorts of other issues.
Back your seating die off, and make sure you have a nice chamfer, or always use boat tails.. If you need or want to put a crimp on your rounds purchase a lee factory crimp die. don't use the crimp feature of a seating/crimp die.. |
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I know I said that I doubted that the commercial brass was your problem but there is a possibility that it is a little less stiff or a little softer than the milsurp brass you have been loading and could be allowing the situation that has been discussed in the last few posts. Just a thought......
I use a VLD de burring tool for all my case mouths and only crimp rifle ammo with a Lee FCD. I currently don't crimp any .223 ammo but if I did it would be with the FCD, not a roll crimp. |
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Yup, Yup and Yup to the three posts previous to this one, as well.
CCW's photo clearly shows the buckled shoulder with the increased diameter right at the juncture of neck and body. Those cases will stick upon chambering, guaranteed. Classic example of the result of excess downward pressure on the case when seating. Some of the causes have been described pretty well so far. I'm now almost certain that this is OP's problem, and the good news is that it is an easy fix, once the cause has been established. |
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