I shot some loads from my 6mm AI, 45-47.5 grains RL 22 under a 105 grain Amax.

At 45 grains, and had most cases give me the shiny extractor mark, but primer was still rounded. All higher charges were still giving me a round primer, but had no extractor mark.

Being a relatively new reloader, I'm concerned about whatever gave me the extractor mark on the 45 grain loads, what was going on here?

Steves pages with 100 grainers:
RL-22 From 44.1 grains to 47.1 grains

With 107:
RL-22 From 43.2 grains to 48.9 grains


Can I continue working up to 49 grains or should I stop lower even if my primers look fine?

Note the ones with stars have prominent extractor marks and also have a slightly different headstamp, but were from the same brand new bag of brass. Hmmmm, a culprit?

quote:

Originally posted by Tyler Kemp:

Note the ones with stars have prominent extractor marks and also have a slightly different headstamp, but were from the same brand new bag of brass. Hmmmm, a culprit?

It looks like a hard brass soft brass issue.

You possibly should be looking to segregate those cases. Had one of my Stevens' ejecters get jammed by a similar event. roger

I think I can continue loading hotter on the brass that has no marks, they look fine, right?

Your ejector hole may be burred and you may have some out of square case heads. I would put the marked cases into a small sub group and see if they did it the next time they are fired. If the primer pockets get loose the brass is too soft. If not there maybe be something else going on.
I know the Remington circular ejector hole marks brass like this for no good reason sometimes while a Mauser slot rarely does.

I have no clue why it only did this on the lightest loads I had, then out of almost 20 other rounds only did it once. Maybe it was just some freaky luck that I put all the soft brass into light loads except one.

Perhaps a bit of different case capacity increasing pressures by multivariable serendipidity? I get superior groups that same way occasionally.

ejector, not extractor?

anyways, you need to R&R the ejector to make sure it's not sticking high. did you have any sticky bolt lift?

Sorry, my terminology gets mixed up. What do you mean by R&R the ejector? I'm shooting a Savage, bolt lift is really heavy all the time, but wasn't noticeably more so.

Thats old Winchester brass....

my 6mm Rem brass says, Winchester, NOT WW...

Try some newer brass.. the older one could be either harden brass or thicker case walls on the older ones...

are you also touching the lands with your bullet? if you are.. that can drive up pressures, as opposed to just being short of the lands...

According to my calipers I'm .005" off the lands. I was going to adjust this after I found a powder charge I liked. Today I'm trying IMR 7828.

quote:

Originally posted by ireload2:
Your ejector hole may be burred and you may have some out of square case heads. ..

You scratch your heads, we'll scratch ours

New brass, Old brass verses hard or soft brass.Certainly this is possible. Yet I am still using, Peters, WW, Super X,WCC,SL43, FA36, RP, Sako,Norma, Bell and more.

The resent newly made 25 Savage Brass I received was marked WW.

The brass is, HOWEVER, all segregated. There is even RP large letter and small letter brass in the same caliber that is also segragated.Most all of it is usable if handled properly and you know it's limitations. A fair amount of it has been and is still used in my wildcats and probably at times sees more pressure than it should.

From my point of view what you have and have shown is not BAD BRASS. If you think it is send it to me and I'll pay the frieght. Bigga heart roger

48 grains 7828 shot good today. Didn't try any loads, just 7828 with 105 grain Amaxes in the lands. I think the powder may be causing the bullet to stick a tad further out than usual, it was hard to chamber some rounds, but primers looked good. Had some pressure signs on random cases again. Just jammed into the lands with 48 grains 7828 shot around an inch at 100, held it pretty well further out. I could hit every gong and human silhouette out to 600 yards. My only two shots at 600 yards on a 12x6 inch piece of steel were nearly touching, I'm talking the divots made, not the paint splatters. I was impressed. I will fine tune the load and try with the bullets seated deeper and maybe some more powder. My uncle wanted to shoot this new gun, at 500 he hit a tree right where he aimed offhand, I busted some cow piles around 400 offhand. I like this gun.

Hodgdon says 48 grains 7828 in the 6mm Rem is 48000 CUP, should be less in a AI it should be less. How far can I go? 50 grains might come close to filling the case...maybe 52 would. Probably have some serious compression after 48 grains, will that hurt anything?

R&R is remove and replace. repair is inferred.

quote:

Originally posted by delloro:
R&R is remove and replace. repair is inferred.

roger

I don't get it either.

Tyler,

If this occurs the first time you shoot the case, it may be because it is not properly head spacing. If you get hard to chamber cartridges it can be the result of "stretched" case and setting the shoulder back a bump when resizing or seating the bullet out into the groves which will boost pressures. Kudude

PS: Remember one change at a time. k-d

Yes I do believe the headspace is a bit long. When fireforming with COW some loads would have to be fired twice, the firing pin pushed the case forward. I was messing with the gun and as long as I push the bolt forward with a bit of force it chambers fine, if not it will not go in. I shot a couple .005" off the lands and one had that same mark on the case.

I think it is soft brass. I haven't had any misfires because of headspacing one the rounds have been fireformed, and accuracy seems to be there. Will it hurt anything to have the rounds a bit hard to chamber? I am only neck-sizing them also.

quote:

Originally posted by Tyler Kemp:
Will it hurt anything to have the rounds a bit hard to chamber? I am only neck-sizing them also.

If it is closing hard just because of neck sizing and you are only shooting paper there probably is little or no problem. If it is caused by a case being to long and encrouching into the throat area or the bullet being seated out too far and entering the rifling you could very well have a problem.

When loading for hunting it is adviseable to reload so your ammo is such as to allow the bolt to just close with very little or no force, but don't create excessive headspace. roger

I just checked my loads and seated all the ones I had left from shooting yesterday .005" off the lands. It is still hard to close, so I don't think it is bullets seating into the lands, and my necks aren't too long by the second firing I would hope. I think pressure signs would be evident on all cases if that was true. This is a single shot only gun, it doesn't feed from the magazine well, or eject. This doesn't bother me, it will only be used on 300+ yard shots, so quick handling and reloading isn't paramount.

quote:

Originally posted by bartsche:

quote:

Originally posted by delloro:
R&R is remove and replace. repair is inferred.

roger

you remove the extractor. before you replace it, you inspect it, and certainly repair any faults before replacing it, e.g., a bent or peened extractor, a burred bolt, crud in the extractor hole, etc. what is not to understand?

ETA a day later to add: "Dammit I meant EJECTOR."

quote:

Originally posted by Tyler Kemp:
...It is still hard to close, so I don't think it is bullets seating into the lands, and my necks aren't too long by the second firing I would hope....

your necks could be too long, easily. it can happen on the second loading. not commonly, but it can happen.

I thought with an Ackley case stretch is minimized?

I've run into the hard vs soft brass issue before with older lots of W-W brass. I once had a lot that was "springy" and could hardly be resized. You will know for sure when you resize them because the force required to operate the press, and the drag on the expander ball, will be inconsistent.

Secondly, I agree with ireload2 inasmuch as the case could be out of square. Are your shell holders in good shape? Could that one case have had insufficient lube when previously resized and have been damaged, or was it just a manufacturing defect that slipped thru QC?

It isn't just "one case" though, but I believe it is the soft brass on the older cases. Looks like problem found, but not solved. Eventually I will get around to making cases from 7x57 Lapua brass. Or is it Norma?

quote:

This is a single shot only gun, it doesn't feed from the magazine well, or eject.

I though this was a Savage, it should eject unless the ejector or spring is removed? I don't know what system you are using to measure ogive to land engagement, but if you don't know if you are into the lands or not it isn't working. Remember the 7mm mag and the Speer Mag-tip bullet trouble you were having. Try this, take a fired, fully formed case, size only about 1/32 of the neck, start one of the A-Max bullets in the neck, carefully insert this into the very clean chamber by hand, close the bolt and rotate into battery, open the bolt and withdraw this dummy, be careful not to drop or bump, take the COAL and minus .020", use the COAL to work up your first loads. Are you using neck sizer dies, or are you actually partial full length sizing with a set of FL dies backed off? That 40 deg shoulder will try and colapse at the shoulder/body junction of the case, that will make it had or impossible to chamvber. I have formed hundreds, maybe thousands, of 7x57 AI, 30/06 AI and 450 Watts AI, and on all cartridges I seat a bullet into the lands with a middle vel load for the parent cartridge, using the powder that provided the highest published velocity, if I have it on hand. Now get this, I have never lost a casing while fireforming, my brass is very concentric and well formed. You are correct that the AI cartridges don't flow brass into the necks as bad as most cartridges, but I still check. If you want to know how much case capacity you gained, fill a primed new case with water- strike the neck off with a knife blade fluish, weigh the water making sure you got all of it, or weigh the case filled, then after you have fireformed and fired that same casing with a full load, deprime without sizing, reprime, and fill with water and weigh again, you now have the diffence in grains of water and cab easily figure the percent increase. I will take a wild guess here, 5-6%, you can let us know.

6mm AI gains 9% of the normal 6mm.

The method for COAL you just described is what I use, except I use a case with a split in the neck.

I neck size with a Redding neck sizer die.

The magazine is made for longer cartridges, it will feed if they are in there exactly right, but I don't plan on using the magazine so I haven't messed with it at all.

I have no clue on the ejection, it will pull a case out with tension on it, but the case is being pushed against the side of the action. Ever since I changed to 6mm AI it has done that. I have no clue what could be causing this.

quote:

6mm AI gains 9% of the normal 6mm.

Tyler; is this measured by you? or just some number given by a gun rag writer, all chambers/reamers are different, if only by a small amount. The largest capacity increase I've recorded is on the 7x57 to the AI version at 8.2 %, the 6mm remington maintains about the same taper as the orginal 7x57 but has a sharper shoulder, increase should be slightly less- dependant on the chamber you got.
I guess the short answer to your hard chambering problem is how does a fired case feel when it is chambered back in the rifle, this is before you size or reload it? If it chambers fine, then try one sized, if it is fine try one with a bullet seated the same as you tried before, shouldn't take too long to find the answer. As for the ejector, if it worked before the rebarrel it should work now, I take it it was a 270 or 06 before- some cartridge with the .473 head, is the plunger sticking out of the bolt face, can you push it in- compress the sping, if not is it hung up slightly above the surface of the bolt? this could create your hard closing condition and failure to eject.

44 years of reloading means a hell of a lot more than 4400 posts on some web site. There's an answer to every problem, sometimes all one needs is a little help in where to look.

The 9% figure was from a website...I will go measure one of mine, just a minute-
Normal 6mm 56.5 grains water
6mm AI 62.4 grains water
.095 or 9.5% increase.

Now I'll do the before sizing, after sizing-
First I tried the 48 grain IMR 7828 once fired brass:
The ones without marks on the case heads chambered easier than the ones with the marks, but both were hard to pull back the bolt on. Especially the case that had the extractor mark on the case head. A dummy round with a split neck and a 105 Amax in it was easy to work the bolt on. A loaded round was also easy to work the bolt on, a little stiff pulling the bolt back. I noticed the other day after shooting about 20 rounds, that pushing the bolt in all the way on a loaded round was hard, but now after cleaning it is very easy. Is it possible the front of the chamber got fouled causing the cases to be a tight fit in that area?

The gun was originally a 7mm Remington Magnum, I changed the bolt head on it. I'll go get the bolt and scan it since the camera isn't working. Plunger is below the bolt head, I can push it in easy with a fingernail. It is trying to eject I think, but the case is pushing against the side of the action, it can't go anywhere.

EDIT-Scanner doesn't want to work for some reason, no pics of the bolt I guess.

Normal?

Tyler; take one more picture or answer this question, is the EXTRACTOR on the same side as the bolt handle? In otherwords when you open the bolt the extractor(the piece that hooks the rim)is on the ejection port side of the reciever. When you say the case just rides against the action, there shouldn't be any action for it to ride against, there should be a big hole- the ejection port. Take a picture head on of the bolt showing the face of the bolt and the handle sticking out.

Sorry no camera, just scanner. But yes, extractor is on the right side, literally and figuratively. It is pulling it towards the ejection port, the case is riding the bottom of the ejection port. Whenever I get a camera I'll show what I mean.

The 9% figure was from a website...I will go measure one of mine, just a minute-
Normal 6mm 56.5 grains water
6mm AI 62.4 grains water
.095 or 9.5% increase.
Too funny! At the very least you would use two cases that weigh the exact same, minus the primers. When you show pictures of cases with different sized HS, I doubt internal capacity is the same with brass from gawd only knows how many different lots. Also remember that you AI brass has been fireformed to a chamber-expanded to be all it can be, the 6mm brass is unfired, it too will gain capacity when fireformed to a chamber.
Slide the extractor, detent ball and ext spring out, clean the ext bore, lightly oil and reassemble. Take a small screwdriver or dental pick, compress the ejector down into it's bore, see if it is hanging up. If all seems fine I guess it is possible that the mag box and follower from the 7mm mag could be causing ejection problems?? My 06 AI is on a Sav 110 action, I rebarreled it and haven't encountered any of the above mentioned problems. Be Careful.

This is a fired 6mm Rem brass of the same headstamp from a friends gun. With the same primers, I inserted fired BR primer I've been using.

One case weights 178 grains, one weight 178.4

I can't think of what else is causing the ejection issue, but I don't mind not having my brass thrown onto the ground.

quote:

This is a fired 6mm Rem brass of the same headstamp from a friends gun.

your nose is growing

I don't get it? I do exactly as you ask and you accuse me of not telling the truth? Why lie about something so trivial? Are you upset I get almost a 10% increase in powder capacity? The caseheads are just slightly different, but only weigh .4 grains different, both are fireformed to a chamber. Please don't call me a liar.

quote:

Yes I do believe the headspace is a bit long. When fireforming with COW some loads would have to be fired twice, the firing pin pushed the case forward.

There's where you are getting the extra case capacity, better check it out before you get a seperation, like they say live and learn- with LIVE being the most important part, because you can't learn if you don't live. As far as your nose growing, I would imagine your whole young body is still growing! Be careful.

I've gotten lost in all of this, but have you tried just feeding empty cases to see if the bolt is hard to close?