My Buddy had his 380PDK at the bigbore shoot this weekend. Due to the lack of taper in the PDK case a normal 98 box will only hold 4 rds. In the past he had normally only loaded 3 down. But due to needing 4 rds he stuck in 4. Each time he did this the top rd in the 4 wouldn't rise high enough in the box for the bolt to catch it. There was no issue on the 2 rds on the right side of the box or the #2 rd. I did a quick look Sat but didn't see anything blocking the case part way up. The spring seems plenty stong. Any suggestions before I look at it again?

If the magazine is not properly proportioned to the cartridge, you can screw around till the cows come home...and it will NEVER function properly.

The cartridges must stack up at 120 degree increments. Take three rounds..form a triangle..now: measure from the "base" to the top of the triangle and you have the minimum width of the magazine box at wherever you took the measurement.

Best bet: Measure the "triangle" at the base and again at the shoulder. Now you have not only determined the width at the base but also the taper.

Anything other than those measurements simply will not work 100%.

Of course...cartridges such as the 500 Jeff will not ever stack up as mentioned above in the width available in a standard 98 Mauser....here's where we compromise.

quote:

The cartridges must stack up at 120 degree increments. Take three rounds..form a triangle..now: measure from the "base" to the top of the triangle and you have the minimum width of the magazine box at wherever you took the measurement.

Duane thanks for the input. I have made a number of rifles using my PDK case. They have all(I think) been made using a std MKX magazine box. Do to the lack of taper and shoulder forward postion I relieve the shoulder area as well as mid case. Don't do anything with the rear. Measuring one of the boxes I have on hand the Rear is .905" the shoulder is .83". As I measure 3 stacked cases I get .87" base and .84" at the shoulder. Not perfect to your 120deg. Except for the 400 version which John Farner had to open the feed rails for me everything from 243 to 400 has feed out of the slightly altered MKX box 4 down with no issue. In talking to Bill last night he said he had filed the rear and front metal to increase his magazine OAL to just shy of 3.5". He said he thought he had made sure to remove some metal from the action as well to match.

Just sounds to me like there is something catching that 4th case in the rear. I will recheck the box this weekend when he drops the rifle off.