I bought a new Vanguard 30.06 since last hunting season and planned on hunting with it this year. I put a Timney trigger and a Bell & Carlson Medallion stock on it. I haven't had time to do any reloading because of work and bow hunting so I bought one box of Federal Premium's with with 180 grain AB's. I figured I'd just shoot a few of the Federal's to get it sighted in and go hunting. I shot 4-3 shot groups and could never get a group smaller than 2". I decided to reload the 12 cases that had now been fired in my rifle and come back for another try. When I started trying to reload them I noticed that of the 12 cases 6 had ejector marks and 4 had real lose primer pockets. I pulled the bullets, removed the powder and primers from the remaining 8 cases. The cases were far from full and the powder was a conbination of real fine ball and tiny/short spherical powder. The charges varied from 51.5 to 52.2 grains. I hope this isn't normal. Has anyone had a similar experience with Federal Premium ammo?

Are you saying you can buy ammunition already loaded up? I knew they did such almost 50 years ago, but thought it was a thing of the past. Sorry can't help you. What town in Texas?

Well, you now have the choice of believing that the ammo or the gun is at fault. One good way to get an indication is to buy another box of factory ammo (e.g. different brand) and see if that also develops pressure sign. Alternatively, you can shoot the suspect ammo in another .30-06 chamber and see if the problems persist.

Of late, I came into a (semi-custom) factory rifle in .270 WSM. The gun shot really well, but Federal factory ammo showed clear signs of high pressure. We found we could load for and shoot the rifle without pressure signs - but we could not go to max loads from all sources. So was it the ammo or the gun causing the high pressure? I personally believe the gun was at "fault", but strictly speaking I can't be sure as I did not shoot other factory ammo.

- mike

Silverado,
I assume that you removed the barreled action from the stock. When you did replace it, how tight did you get the bedding screws on the stock? On a synthetic stock, find an inch/lb torque wrench and tighten both of them equally to 40 inch/pounds. See if that helps, but it sounds like you may have gotten a box of ammo that is loaded off.

I recently rebarreled my childhood 243 my father bought me when I was a kid.

I had some factory Winchester and Federal ammo laying around that I used as my ammo to break in the barrel. Both of these factory ammunitions showed pressure signs by marking the bottom of the brass.

Afterwards, I was looking to load some 80 gr Barnes TSX and was determining the lands length to seat the bullets at the proper depth. I found the lands to be much shorter than I expected, which likely put the factory bullets very close to the lands, which probably accounted for some of the pressure signs I was seeing.

Having said all that, I believe you can certainly see pressure signs using factory ammo when dealing with a rifle that is extremely close to spec measurements.

Thanks for the replies. This is the first box of factory ammo I have bought in over 25 years. I never had any problems with factory ammo before that. I suspect I have a large chamber since I measured a .007" difference at the shoulder between the unfired and fired cases after I sent the original post. I'm going to fireform the new Lapua brass I have and give it another try. When I installed the new stock I did it per Bell & Carlsons instructions:
1) Tighten the rear trigger guard screw first to 30 inch pounds.
2) Align the barrel to the center of the barrel channel in the fore stock.
3) Tighten the front trigger guard screw to 30 inch pounds.
4) Tighten the rear screw to 50-55 inch pounds.
5) Finally, tighten the front trigger guard screw to 50-55 inch pounds.

I live in Cedar Park, Texas and hunt in Lampasses County a couple of miles east of the Colorado River.

I don't have a "Medallion" stock. I have the Bell & Carlson Medalist stock with the aluminum bedding block.

quote:

I have the Bell & Carlson Medalist stock with the aluminum bedding block.

Silverado, recently a couple of guys on various sites reported issues with that stock and had to skim bed them. That seemed to fix it.

I'm a little confused now. I loaded 18 cartridges with H4350 starting at 55gr and went up to 57.5gr with .5 gr increase (3 of each charge). I used new Lapua brass for 55gr through 56.0gr and the previously fired Federal brass for 56.5gr through 57.5gr. I went to the range yesterday and all of these loads shot less than 1" at 100yds so the rifle shoots good like I hoped it would. The new Lapua brass I used now have ejector marks and the previoulsy fired Federal brass now have 2 ejector marks. There were no other pressure signs. I thought maybe the ejector was sticking, wasn't compressing all the way or the spring pressure was excessive. I could easily compress the ejector. I compared the spring pressure to a new .243 Vanguard I have and the spring pressure felt the same. I shot a box of Hornady SUPERFORMANCE 95gr SST's in the .243 and the accuracy was excellent with no ejector marks. This the first time I've had a problem with any rifle. I know a good gunsmith but he's real busy right now. I have other rifles to hunt with so this isn't a huge problem. I'm just disappointed I won't be able to hunt with this 30-06 this year. Any ideas?

Nothing wrong with using a .243. 30-06 same same. Either way you don't have a problem.