I recently bought a Reminton 798 (Zastava 98 Mauser) in 375 H&H. Also with the gun came 100 rounds of Remington brass. The guy had shot the brass at least once and then primed it. He'd used Lee dies with the "factory crimp" die. Most of the brass has a distinct ring around the case mouth.

I loaded up and shot the brass and got good accuracy. However, some of the brass comes out of the chamber looking like this:





I am rebarreling the gun anyway, but I'm wondering if this soot pattern is caused by the over crimping of the brass by the Lee factory crimp die or is it perhaps caused by an overlarge barrel chamber. Anyone have any ideas?

I just got a Redding die set and will be neck sizing these cases to see if that solves the problem. I just don't like the idea of gas traveling that far back. Usually I see a little soot seep back around the neck, but not like this.

Thanks.

Wow. Sorry about the huge size of the pictures. I've had problems with too small pictures, I'll take smaller ones next time out. The iPhone works too well!

I've used Lee's factory crimp dies on a few different rounds over the years without seeing what you see. But then again, I don't think I over crimped any of the rounds. Did you use a factory crimp die on the rounds you loaded? Looks like a bad chamber to me. Did the fired brass extract easily?

Dave,

I use a LFCD on many of the catridges (also 375H&H) I load and as far as the crimp marks on the brass go mine pretty much appear the same as the ones you've show above when they've been fired, too.

I do not consider my crimp too tight, either and such cases load fine again after being resized. I've seen similar from factory ammo that has been crimped, also.

As for the soot going all the way back to the belt; IMO it could be a number of issues the two that jump quickly to mind are; either a very sloppy chamber or reloads using a slow powder or a minimum charge of of slow powder which would fail to seal the catridge case against the chamber walls when fired resulting in gas & soot flowing back into the chamber.

I'm with Gerry. I've seen that kind of "soot pattern" when I loaded minimal charges and didn't get the kind of case expansion necessary to seal the chamber at the case mouth and prevent it. It's hard to imagine a chamber so sloppy that a full-house round wouldn't expand the case sufficiently to provide the gas seal you should expect.

Those soot pattern on those cases are what you see with low pressure loads.

quote:

Originally posted by Grumulkin:
Those soot pattern on those cases are what you see with low pressure loads.

That's what I'd say! It isn't the reloading die, it the low pressure.

Yup, +3 low pressure.

low pressure....

yes, low pressure.

Well, that's interesting. I hadn't thought of that. My loads were middle of the road from the load books, but what you all say makes sense.

One thing I've found sort of similar is .308 cases I've picked up at the range. The case necks and a good part of the body show a distinct striping pattern. Someone told me it was a characteristic of a H&K G3.

If I have the chance I'll load the same load with virgin brass and also load the other brass with a more stout load.

Thanks for the responses.

quote:

Someone told me it was a characteristic of a H&K G3

Yup - that's the culprit. It has a striated or fluted chamber.

My Buddy's throws cases so far front-right that you're lucky to find a spent case. The original concept for Fire & Forget.

Some Guys say the cases outa H&K still load O.K. after being mangeled suchly - O.K. but his still appear pretty beat-up.

Those cases recovered from the H-K "fluted" chamber definitely reload just fine. Yes, they look a little weird....but clean'em up and handle them just like any other fired case and they reload like any other case.

You may want to go with a little faster burning powder.