I was given a box of .404J and they are stiff to feed and very difficult to extract. I mean you have to hit the bolt to extract. Seems a shame to throw them away.

Factory loads? That would be odd, so I am thinking handloads.

I never shoot anyone else's handloads in any of my firearms.

Too much can go wrong in the handloading process and I have no idea what was done or not done.

If you reload, I'd pull the bullets and dump the powder. Then resize the brass. If the resized brass won't easily chamber in your rifle toss the brass. If it chambers OK reload with your normal load. I'm assuming that the ammo you normally use chambers easily and the problem is the new ammo and not your rifle.

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I never shoot anyone else's handloads in any of my firearms.

Too much can go wrong in the handloading process and I have no idea what was done or not done.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This. I had a large very mule deer in my sights years ago and was preparing to shoot reloads that a friend had handloaded for me. He told me that they would cycle fine. They would not cycle in my rifle, although they would in my friend's rifle. We had the very same Model and Caliber of Rifle. I should have tried to cycle every round in my rifle before the hunt just to make sure-I relied on his representations and didn't do so. My bad. The mule deer walked off. I gave the two boxes of reloads back to my friend. Never again.

Andrew, it sounds as if you’re shooting handloads and one of two problems is likely. #1, whoever loaded them may have only neck sized and his chamber is slightly larger than yours. Or, they may simply not have been properly sized to begin with.

I’d follow Labman’s suggestion and pull the bullets, dump the powder, full length RE-size them and see if they chamber more easily. If so, load them with whatever load you shoot and you should be good to go.

Thanks all and suspect they are hand loads so I will dump them. Just out of interest would they be sticking on the shoulder?

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Originally posted by fairgame:
Thanks all and suspect they are hand loads so I will dump them. Just out of interest would they be sticking on the shoulder?

Could be, or the base, or the bullet may be hitting the lands. I have seen all three.

May also be too much roll crimp, it takes very little to be too much.

A black marker can show where the hang-up is, but I would pull down, resize, and reload with known powder if it were me.

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I should have tried to cycle every round in my rifle before the hunt just to make sure-I relied on his representations and didn't do so.

Hindsight is good vision

Yes pull down and resize.

BTW I have ran across cases that were shot in my rifle, full length resized and then not cycle??

Very common with belted magnum cases. In order to properly resize those, a collet type die works really well. It gets a little bit more squeeze on the part of the case just above the belt, which is where those belted cases tend to hang up on reloads.

Pull the bullets,dump the powder, FL resize the brass, try as you go testing eachh case, since you don't know the brass might be a good idea to anneal??? reload and go hunting..Not an uncommon experience as chamber vary...

Even ones own handloads should be run thru his gun before going on safari including factory..