That's why African rifles are built on Mauser actions, not Winchesters.

Could it be a tight chamber or throat? Has this ammo been tried in another Rigby chambered rifle to eliminate that variable?

This is a really easy problem to fix. First, there is absolutely nothing wrong with your rifle. The problem is in the ammunition. A-Square for years sold ammo with soft brass that gave sticky extraction. A-Square also sold ammo that was loaded too hot.

Go get some Federal or Norma .416 rigby ammo, or purchase some from Superior Ammo or Safari Arms. I bet you a box of ammo that the problem then disappears.

By the way, do not shoot the rest of that A-Square stuff or you might end up with a stuck case.

500gr is right. Try a different ammo brand.Ed.

Did A-Square use Bertram brass? I've seen on other threads here on AR that Bertram brass is considered soft.

George

That's good information that I'm going to file away, since I don't know shit about the Bertram brass. I now know not to use that brass if and when I have to shop around.

Bwanamrm, I'm not so sure it's the ammo's fault. I have shot a fair number of A-Square factory solids in both 300 H&H and 458 WM with no problems. For a low pressure round like the 416 Rigby to have your kind of problems, the smart money would go on the fact that the rifle has a problem and not the ammo. Even if Federal ammo shoots well and without problems, I would suggest having the rifle checked. I had a similar problem as yours with a Win. Mod 70 in 375, where the bolt was difficult to open only sometimes and with certain factory ammo. Turned out to have a problem in the chamber. Totally unacceptable in a DGR.

bwanamrm,



It isn't your ammo's fault. The problem you are describing is due to your extraction cam. Your rifle needs to be fixed. It is a common problem with the mauser extraction system.



Scott

Gentlemen,
Checked the brass and it is Norma manufacture not Bertram. I think I'll call Mr. Davenport tomorrow and see what he thinks about the situation. He is a class act all the way and I'm sure he'll ask me to send it back so he can give it the "once over" and correct anything he finds.

Sterling Davenport is a great guy and please give him my regards. Check the chamber and look for any evidence of pitting or rings. Look at the brass and see if there are any marks on it that might give you a clue. Does the same thing happen when you rechamber the fired brass? One thing on custom guns with replaced bolt handles is that the camming surface gets buggered up or is not properly reshaped after welding. If Sterling built the gun, I doubt he'd miss any of the above, however,besides overly long sight base screws, corrosion or grit in the chamber would be the very first places I'd look. There are a couple of other causes, but they would be more unusual. -Rob

Gee, Rob -- I think that's exactly what my husband said. Of course, he didn't use as many words. But, carry on Committee Chairman.

How much did your brass expand after firing compared
to new.Ed

JTG, you and Interboat are a match made in heaven.

Interboat bio

Gentlemen,
Thank you for replies (or at least most of them). I spoke with Sterling yesterday and the gun is off to be examined and the bolt jewelled. Look forward to getting her back soon and will let everyone know what the culprit was. Cheers!

I have noticed that people are really ragging on A-square. It is kinda funny that someone in here said "try norma ect" and it ends up being norma brass in the first place. Sounds like a case of hater syndrome.

moonova,

The word you are really looking for is ignorance. Personally, I would not cross the street for Norma brass. I use Norma, because in some of my calibers, it is the only readily available brass. I find Norma to be soft and sticky, in a word it "sucks".

A Square brass has been said to be soft was well. I have VERY limited experience with it, only 20 cases of 500 A Square, it wasn't as bad as the Norma brass I have used.

Bertram, at least the 160 cases of it I have used, has proven to be hard, much harder than Norma, but of poor dimensional quality. It requires detailed, and I do mean detailed, sorting.

Scott

In all the cases I have experienced I found that
A-Sq, and Norma as well, build most of their cases with too
thin of heads and not a big enough radius in the corner,
so even though they have been headed enough in manufacture for hardness, the design allowed for excess expansion just
above base and cases stuck.With heavy loads.Bertrams that I have used and have here now, were hard in the head and
had a good compound curve design of radius, that could take
full pressures.They just had uniformity problems which i fixed on my case spinner lathe.And they had too fast of transition from the radius to the sides with the sides being soft, they stretched to quick and we couldn' get dozens of reloads from them. Ed.

Ed,

Your comments agree 110% with my experiences.

Scott

I think another thing that hurts A-square is the fact that Art Alphin is an A$$. I talked to Jim...he says he getting things lined out. I think they have a future.

For what it's worth from my side of the vise. In short the Pre-64 is not an action to use for making a 416 Rigby. The action is to short, the bolt face does not have enough rim material at the 3 O clock position when opened up to control a round coming out of the magazine box nor is the std large ring 98 for that matter (its just enough for the std belted mag) The thread OD is fine for std belted mags but not for Rigby sized case no matter how you do it. I know it's been done before, even Winchester has tried some, that doesn't change the fact that it's a bad idea. If I had to guess the problem or to guess the problem that will soon crop up is the chamber is expanding around the necking cut in the barrel and will not allow the case to be extracted do to a possible bulge in the chamber. Even if a necking cut was omitted the Rigby case is still to big for a 1" thread OD. That is where I would personally look for the problem.

What does the necking cut have to do with barrel thread shank OD? You are also forgetting the front receiver ring supports the barrel's thread shank. This is true regardless of make, Mauser are supported, M1917 are supported, Ruger are supported, ect. My Ruger RSM is a 416 Rigby which has been fired extensively, and with very high pressure loads (over 416 Weatherby Mag maximums) yet I have had no problems with extraction. It has a barrel shank thread of 1" X 16 TPI, just like the M70.

All barrels expand during firing, they do so in their elastic range. This is because there is a hoop stress in the barrel, since steel is an elastic material it cannot be stressed without also straining. This is a fundamental material relationship.

I have seen what you describe, but only when there was a significant cross sectional discontinuity in the barrel shank. To be specific, a channel was milled into a barrel directly above the chamber to fit a barrel rib. This channel was 0.5" wide and anywhere from 0.125" to .3" deep. This channel deflected more than the rest of the barrel shank and produced a slight "bulge" in the brass which made extraction a pain. However, bolt lift was hard from the get go and only got worse as the extractor began to exert it's rearward pull on the rim. As you are well aware, it takes several degrees of bolt lift before the extractor begins to extract the fired case in the Mauser style action.

Scott

I used Bertram brass in the Rigby for a while and no matter what load I used from mild to wild I got a hard bolt lift, it is as soft as dog turds. Get some Norma brass and it may solve your issues.

PC, I hear that Norma brass is a bit soft too. Do you have any working knowledge of BELL brass? It's been a bitch to get brass and practice using factory loads. Right now I've got 260 Federal once fired brass and about 60 factory rounds left.

You know Scott, I mistakenly took you off of ignore, why I can't remember, but like I said, a mistake.

Listen you frickin' bastard. I try to not get angry over people like you, sometimes you just push too far. Look, not only are you dangeous, and try to get people hurt intentionally by posting things you have no knowledge about, you then try to ruin the forum for everybody else.

I avoid troll related threads, have stopped looking at the big bore/troll forum as much, and try to enjoy it all despite people like you and some others that think this is their personal litter box.

So why am I taking my time to write this to you? Because I want you to know what you are doing when you pull stuff straight out of your bung hole and lay it onto the keyboard to be posted here, YOU ARE MAKING INTELLIGENT, HIGHLY SKILLED PEOPLE THINK TWICE BEFORE WASTING THEIR VALUABLE TIME.

From what I have heard D'Arcy knows more about firearms than most of us combined. But what happens is somebody like him shares good information that we can all learn from, then you come and piss on it and act like you know something. Not only do you throw off the person who is trying to solve a problem, but people like D'Arcy decide not to bother with it.

I know another gunsmith who is of the highest level that mentioned this issue to me in an e-mail, and he too said that it never should have been tried that the action was not suitable for that cartridge. But he didn't post here, now why do you think that is? Because of jackasses like yourself.

I will turn on ignore again, and keep avoiding anything you put down. I just wanted you to know that even people like me that aren't out to "hunt trolls" (a mostly worthless activity that is f*&#ing up a good forum) get mad and truly hate people like you so much that if I found you burning to death on the side of the road I wouldn't piss on you. I don't know what possible joy you could derive in ruining things for other people, but you are having a small degree of success at it.

I thought that I even posted on a topic a while back that had you trying to get in good graces and come clean with everyone, I asked you to stick to your own topics so I wouldn't have to read your crap (did you see how I titled this clearly?), but now I see you are back to what it is that make people hate you. Have you no conscious? You won't feel bad when some newbie to the forum reads something of yours, takes it out and trys it, and loses an eye or something worse?

You are a coward that hides behind a computer screen, the type of small minded, mentally inferior creature that cannot contribute to our world, so only seeks to soil and tear down all that others do in the hopes that everything around you will be reduced to one big blight where you won't stand out so strongly. Let me tell you, even in a sewer there are some things so ugly and so rancid that they stand out. I begrudge you every breathe you take, every partical of air that you steal from the lungs of people that are worth having alive. One of the greatest mixed blessings of mankinds "civilization" is that survival of the fittest (mentally and physically) no longer exists.

To everyone else here that knows me I apologize for the rare lapse in self-control. Sometimes a person just needs to vent. To D'Arcy, please continue to give us the valuable knowledge that you possess and told let things like this sour you.

Red

Dam good post Dago Red!



Scott, why dont you take your child like self over to Hunt America, Swamp will welcome you with hugs, kisses and all the attention a 4 year old needs and wants.

It is past time the moderator simply ban the posters ISP. Should have been done when ToddE first surfaced. It is very easy to spot the language, syntax and idiosyncracies of its writing. Once seen, just ban the ISP immediately.

Gentlemen,
Thanks to all that posted. Sorry we got hijacked for awhile. Talked to Sterling today and the culprit is the A-Square ammo! The cases mike out three-thousands of an inch more than Federal factory loads. Just enough to cause sticky extraction. Sterling was a real gentleman about the whole thing. Said he would be happy to open the chamber up abit but advised that changing ammo would be his suggestion. Seeing how he has a hell of a lot more experience than I do I agree. If anyone is interested in a ten pack of .416 Rigby Monolithic Solids send me a pm. Just beware the size of the brass!

Glad to hear the good news!!!

Please try out some Federal or Norma .416 ammo and let us know how it works.