Sunday at the range I shot my 404 Jeffery with 300 grain Hawks. The load was 85 grains of IMR-4831. I was using Federal 210 primers.
First round exited the barrel took out a sky screen on my Chrony. I thought, I had jerked the rifle and shot the support rod.

The case was very dirty obvious signs that it had not sealed very well. There wasn't any evidence of gas being vented or blown out of the chamber.

There was a small trail of unburnt powder down the bore. Remembering back, I heard the firing pin strike then boom.

I figured bad primer?

I cleared the barrel loaded another round. This time I didn't think the rifle fired. I ejected the round to find the bullet gone. It was found just at past the forcing cone. It looked as if the powder never ignited. Some of it was clumped together in the case.

Any thoughts? I think I should have used a 215 M primer which is what I usually use.

The powder in the Jeffery was from the same bottle that I had just used in the 9.3X74R and it fired just fine.

Rusty,

As a general rule, we use magnum primers in cases that take more than 70 grains of powder.

This has worked very well, until we started loading the 700 NE.

We kept getting hang fire.
We solved the problem by putting two grains of Bullseys at the bottom of the case, then add whatever charge we wanted.

This has solved the hang fire problem.

Rusty, i would say the 210 primer is the problem. Go back to the 215M primers and i bet you don't have this problem again.

Rusty:

I think you have two problems. First, like the other responses, I think you need to switch to the Federal 215 magnum primer. Second, I think that IMR 4831 is TOO SLOW for your 300 grain bullets. I have experimented with IMR 4831 in my .404 but only with 400 grain bullets. In my CZ, 85 grains of IMR 4831 gave me 2230 fps with a 400 grain Woodleigh. Eight-three grains gave me right at 2153 fps.

If you are going to use a 300 grain bullet in your .404, I would recommend a faster powder, maybe Reloder 15. With a 400 grain Woodleigh, 75 grains of RL 15 runs about 2262 fps in my rifle.

Dave

Good advice above, Rusty. Chalk that one up to experience.
Magnum primer in all cases taking greater than 70 grains of powder.
Varget works great with bullet weights from 300 to 400 grains, and will give respectively +2800 fps to +2400 fps, but you certainly don't need to shoot them that fast.
RL-15 would be great too.
Saeed got me started with Varget in the .404 Jeffery and it is the only powder I care to use ... unless I want a 2125 fps load with a 400 grainer, then I use H4831, which is slower than IMR4831.

Guys,

Why doesn't someone run a Quickload run for Rusty with a bunch of powders for the 300 gr slug.

Even in a .416 Aagaard (.376 Steyr necked up and improved), I'm using 62.5 gr 748 behind a 350 gr Speer as a starter load. 748 is WAY WAY faster than IMR 4831. I think IMR 4831 is too slow.

However, getting it to ignite is the problem. Rusty, if you're hell-bent-and-determined to use IMR 4831 ... switch to Fed 215s.

Damned good to find the bullet in the forcing cone without firing another round behind it. Very observant!

Best of luck with the load.

Rusty, I tried the 300gr Hawk as well for a plinking bullet. The same thing happened @ lower vel. I believe the jacket seperated from the core & the core hit the skycreen shade (piece blown out). The design of the Hawk jacket allows this to happen as the base is semi open & the pure copper jacket offers alot of friction in the bore & the core squirts out.
You need to not only change primers but drop to a faster powder like Varget or RL15 for better results. I dropped the 300grHawk all together in favor of 300gr 44mag bullets sized down. They are plenty accurate enough for 100yd shooting @ 2300-2400fps. I just don't trust the Hawk's in my 404j anymore.

contaminated primers
been there done that..

85gr is more than enough to be over 80% load desnity, and 210s aren't cold primers ... and 4831 aint that slow...

UNBURNT powder is the hint here.. either crimp the @#$@#$ out of them or replace the primers..

i use mag primers for everything bigger than the 308 case...

btw, WMR will give you click...BOOM in 500jeffe cases, but fed 215s fix that ...

Rusty:

After my last post, I went off to do some research for you.

According to John Taylor's AFRICAN RIFLES AND CARTRIDGES, the original .404 load for a 300 grain bullet was 70 grains of "smokeless" for a muzzle velocity of 2,600 fps. You can recreate that load with either IMR 4831 or Reloder 15.

I have a book, BIG BORE RIFLES AND CARTRIDGES, that was first published by Wolfe Publishing in 1991. It provides a simple formula to convert cordite loads to IMR 4831. It says:

"For a starting load, simply multiply the original cordite charge by 1.333. The result is the substitute charge of IMR 4831."

So, in your case, with a 300 grain bullet, the starting IMR 4831 load would be 93.31 (70 X 1.333 = 93.31). I have used this formula in .404 to get a starting load for the 400 grain Woodleigh bullets. My starting load was 79.9 grains (60 X 1.333 = 79.9) and I had to work up to eighty-three grains to get up to 2150 fps in my rifle.

You can also use RL 15. In the December 1999 issue of HANDLOADER, there is an article by Ross Seyfried that provides as follows with respect to RL-15:

"It is a mild-mannered, delightful powder that re-creates the original ballistics, right across the spectrum of cartridges from .450-400 to .600, using the same conversion formula. That is, multiply the original cordite charge by 1.19 to substitute RL-15. In almost every instance, caliber and rifle, the velocity with the correct Woodleigh bullet, will be right in the Kynoch window. (It is a good idea to begin two grains below the calculated charge, just to be on the safe side.)"

Thus, your starting load with a 300 grain bullet would be 81.3 grains of RL-15 (70 x 1.19 = 83.3 - 2 = 81.3). There is one CAUTION WITH RL-15. IN SOME OF THE BIGGER CASES, A FILLER MAY BE NEEDED TO OBTAIN CRISP IGNITION. As I indicated in my previous post, I use 75 grains of RL-15 to get about 2262 fps in my .404 with a 400 grain Woodleigh. I have not had to use a filler with my .404. If you want, let me know and I will send you a complete copy of the Seyfried's article.

The primer of choice for all these loads is a Federal 215 magnum primer.

Dave

Thank you all for your kind informative responses! I'll try some Varget and go back to the 215s.

Rusty,
Merry Christmas.
Chat to PWN375, I sent him a copy of the Big Bore reloading journal when it was published.
It has a lot of useful loading info for all the big calibers, and since I have just "happened" upon a nice old 404, I am putting my copy to good use,
Kind Regards,
John

Never had a problem with fed 215 primers with my .404
For VERY LARGE CASES, it helps to drop an extra primer or two in the case before depositing the powder charge;.

I'm with Jeffe sounds like a contamination.
A friend of mine used to like to smather his guns and equipment in WD-40. One day we went out to the range and were firing his .357 S&W revolver when one round failed to fire. We took it home and pulled the bullet..the powder was now one solid column the primer would or could not ignite it.
If it worked in the one rifle whats different now?
Well anyways good luck Rusty hope its not serious.

Check the primer hole in the case. Maybe you didn't get all the case cleaner out or when they drilled the primer hole they left a flap of metal in place. I always ream my primer holes as cheap insurance on new cases. You can't believe how many ones with metal reamaining I've found. Of course use a magnum primer. The .404 is nothing special.-Rob

I shot said rifle yesterday... VERY nice, thanks Rusty!! Amazingly accurate, and feed very well

Thanks Jeffe! Always a pleasure to spend time with you. The course of fire looks good! We are going to have a great shoot in March.

Thanks again to all for your information. The Varget and RL-15 did the job!

Rusty this is a reduced load for this case. Think of it as a big version of a 30-06 small game load with a 110 gr bullet. I did some research on doing just that after reading some of Townsend Whelen's writings. The thing you don't want to do is have a big case with empty space in it along with the powder, a regular rifle primer, and a slow powder. This combination can lead to bullets lodged in the barrel or barrels that rupture. They say that what happens is that there is a spark is thrown into the partially empty case and burns only a part of it. Slow powders accentuate this since they have a retardant coating on the grains to slow the burn rate. This throws the bullet into the riflings at very little velocity but now the rest of the powder is spread out over several inches of barrel and will no longer burn or burn with any of it's normal characteristics. THere are several ways of dealing with the problem. One, use a magnum primer to light all the powder at once. The second thing is to go with a faster or very fast powder depending on the specific combination. Third if you have lots of space in the case use a filler of some kind on top of the powder so all the propellant is right next to the primer. I think you had a contaminated powder in combination with some of the above issues. Sounds like the faster powder is working for you but I always use magnum primers in any reduced load situation. Good luck Rusty. D

Rusty

Info on the way from my Load data stuff.

Definitely sounds like a primer problem - both size and batch. Even a 210 should at least push the darn bullet out of the barrel.

Go with the 215's, and don't look back. If that doesn't work, I have some BMG primers you can use (just have to pound them into the small pockets)

Just curious-were those 210's new or old primers?