first off, i'm not going to name the company that i have rec'd this barrell from (since i'm still working with him to get this problem fixed).

but -

i recently purchased a custom 6.5 x 284 barrell for my encore (with some beautiful woodwork to go with it)

upon loading up some cartridges for it, i found that while the cartridges would chamber easily, the action would not open all the way (at least not easily) and the unfired cartridge would only come out partway (unless some force was applied to the barrell).

i contacted the gunsmith that i bought the barrell from, and he directed me to completely full length resize my brass, indicating that this should clear up the problem (my dad's my reloader, and had already done so). we then measured our brass (using a dial caliper) and found it to be entirely within specs (from the hornady, barnes, and nosler reloading manuals). there was also a problem with the locking bolts on the barrell being of uneven size, so i sent the barrell back to him and asked him to correct the locking bolt problem, as well as to correct the problem with the bullets ejecting.

he sent it back to me with the locking bolts fixed, but it still wouldn't break open easily with a cartridge in the chamber. i called him an he said that "we shot it and it works just fine" so i asked him to send me some of his loaded cartridges to use as a guide.

i received two of his cartridges over the weekend, and put them in my barrell. they loaded and the gun opened just fine. so i then went back to the reloading bench with my dad, and we full-length sized our brass to the point where it was physically impossible to full length size them any more. we then loaded up some light loads using 46.5 gr of IMR 4350 (lightest load listed in nosler manual) pushing 125 gr nosler ballistic tips (cheapest bullets i had on hand) and fed 210 primers. these cartridges chambered and ejected almost as well as the ones the gunsmith sent me (still a little rough, and only "sticking" when i opened the breach really slowly). so we took them to the range.

we fired 3 of our cartridges, and each spent case was extremely difficult to extract from the chamber. the gun was difficult to break all the way open, and the spent brass was difficult to pull from the chamber. so i thought "we're still screwing this up - lets check one of the cartridges he sent us". so we fired one of his cartridges (a 120 gr NBT pushed by?) and it behaved EXACTLY like the ones that we had made - it, too, stuck in the chamber, and (remember, with this loaded cartridge in the chamber, the gun opened and closed just fine) the with the spent brass in chamber, the gun didn't 'want' to break open.

i have two other barrells from this gunmaker - a .260 rem barrell and a 22WMR barrell (for my contender) and they work just fine.

is this a problem with my dad's reloads? we're using brand new full-length sizing dies from redding. dad's reloaded for 30 years (.250 sav, 25-06, 7x57, 30-06, 260 rem, 30-30, 44 mag) and he can't explain it.

is it likely a problem with changes in the cartridge dimensions from its wildcat days to today (now that the 6.5 x 284 has been standardized by norma)?

or is it (as i suspect) a problem with construction? i.e. poor quality control

at this point, any insight would be appreciated.

if you don't want to post online, my email is alterna@flash.net

There are several things that come to mind, but before any of that, I suggest you go to www.bellmtcs.com and check out the troubleshooting section on Contenders & Encores and "The Test Every Contender Owner Should Perform.". This will apply to your Encore as well.

There is detailed info here, and it may clear up your problem without further incident.

thanks for pointing out the site. i understand the workings of an encore/contender chamber and the need to FL resize every time a bit better now.

after doing some more work and talking to the gunsmith, it seems i've got two problems -

1) ? extractor is bent or too large or something

2) ? chamber dimensions and my reloading die are not precisely the same. i followed all of his instructions for FL sizing my brass, lubing case mouth, etc, and could not get brass from my die to fit perfectly in the chamber.

so i sent it back today with the following:

1) brass FL sized, w/o neck expander in place
2) brass FL sized, case mouth lubed
3) loaded cartridges from my die, same as 2
4) 1 loaded cartridge he sent me, and 1 fired piece of brass that he sent me
5) my reloading dies

they ought to be able to figure out what's up from all of that.