.308 reloading help...

[Brian Pfleuger]

There's nothing smartass about my comment. Every indication is that you have a serious pressure issue. Be it due to an uncalibrated scale, powder mix up, who knows what, you simply refuse to acknowledge it. The reason we start low and work up is because some combinations result in unexpected high pressures in some guns when they don't in others. You might "like" one piece of advise better than others, because it tells you what you want to believe, but you've tested it and it doesn't match reality. It's time to let the facts get in the way of your opinion.

[Flea21]

If you read the previous posts the equipment is calibrated properly. Not looking for an answer that suits me just tired of someones opinions of my practices and equipment without reading earlier posts or asking directly beforehand.

[Brian Pfleuger]

I've been involved in this thread from the beginning and am quite familiar with the opinions offered.

It's a process of elimination.

How many causes are there for sticky extraction/bolt lift? More than one? Yes.

How many of those causes ALSO occur with things like primers being blown out of the pocket and the other symptoms you've listed?

I know of one. High pressure.

I don't know why. I'm not saying it IS your scale, I'm just putting out a "I don't know the cause" list.

Maybe your brass is low capacity AND your bore is slightly tight AND your powder lot is on the hot side AND the bullets are slightly over sized AND your scale weighs slightly heavy. All of it together adds to unexpected pressure.

I do know that some of your symptoms, individually, MIGHT have other causes but ALL of your symptoms, individually and together, occur with high-pressure.

[jsab9191]

Sounds like the OP only is interested in one persons opinion.
Hope that works out in solving his problem.

[Powderman]

Flea:

I'll repeat my post, with a little bit of clarification.

First, I'm sure that you are familiar with the ongoing debate concerning the similiarity/difference between .223 Remington and 5.56x45 NATO. Externally, yes--they ARE the same cartridge. Internally they are worlds apart.

Military cases are made thicker; more robust. They generate higher pressure upon firing with similar loads--sometimes MUCH higher pressures.

PPU (Prvi Partizan) is made along the lines of 7.62x51 NATO--thicker cases, MUCH more robust brass.

41.8 grains is almost what I call a "poof" load--you should be able to shoot that load all day long from the bench and have great fun with it.

Eliminate the final variables. You say that you shoot factory ammo fine in it. What kind of factory ammunition is it?

Procure some Federal, Remington, Hornady or Winchester brass. Load accordingly; you are already loading within specifications for the cartridge.

Check to make sure you are not seating into the lands--this can cause spikes in pressure.

Fire and check the brass.

If this does not cure the problem then it's time to enlist the help of a gunsmith to try to get to the bottom of it.

Best of luck to you! Please post your results.

[William T. Watts]

Flea21 the pictures you posted clearly showed the factory loaded fired cases had primers that had rounded edges (that's the way they are supposed to look), your loaded rounds that you fired had flattened primers (that's not the way they are supposed to look). Your loaded rounds could have flattened primers due to (A) you set the shoulder back when you sized the cases (2) they were flattened due to high pressure. Since you have a problem extracting fired cases logically speaking that is another sign of high pressure, now you have two clear signs of high pressure. Most people that have any common sense at this point quit arguring with the obvious and reduce their loads by one full grain (I would reduce by 2 full grains) if this were my rifle this discussion was about). Your face and your rifle!! William

[Flea21]

Originally Posted by William T. Watts

Flea21 the pictures you posted clearly showed the factory loaded fired cases had primers that had rounded edges (that's the way they are supposed to look), your loaded rounds that you fired had flattened primers (that's not the way they are supposed to look). Your loaded rounds could have flattened primers due to (A) you set the shoulder back when you sized the cases (2) they were flattened due to high pressure. Since you have a problem extracting fired cases logically speaking that is another sign of high pressure, now you have two clear signs of high pressure. Most people that have any common sense at this point quit arguring with the obvious and reduce their loads by one full grain (I would reduce by 2 full grains) if this were my rifle this discussion was about). Your face and your rifle!! William

Jimro says otherwise about the primers flatenning out considering he uses the exact same I ones and has the same flattening out result... READ the previous posts before rehashing the past questions that have already been answered.

[Kimber84]

Originally Posted by Flea21

Jimro says otherwise about the primers flatenning out considering he uses the exact same I ones and has the same flattening out result... READ the previous posts before rehashing the past questions that have already been answered.

Didn't you just say you had blown primers?

There's no question there, blown primers and hard extraction come from pressure... There's no way around that, that I know of.

I also wouldn't be so quick to jump Brian, I'm betting he's already forgotten more than both of us will ever know about reloading.

Have you ran any of these loads across a chrono? If not you should. That will give you some actual data you can compare to tested factory data against

[Brian Pfleuger]

Ha! That's a stretch, but I appreciate the vote of confidence.

UncleNick, on the other hand, probably has forgotten more than most 5 of us will ever know and probably still knows more than 10 of us ever will. Does that mean he's forgotten 1/3 of what he knew? I'm not sure but here's his list of pressure signs. Everything the OP describes is in this list. As I said, 1 or 2 of those items can be explained away by some other cause. All of them together, particularly blowing primers out of the case, can only be high pressure, IMO.

[trobin]

Sounds like the OP only is interested in one persons opinion.
Hope that works out in solving his problem.

X2

[Beentown71]

I keep putting my hand on this stove and getting burned. My oldest brother says it isn't hot and I want to believe that. But dang my hand is red and Mom was cooking on it...

It could very well be something else besides high pressure but the facts are pointing towards that.

- Blown primers
- Possible flattened primers
- Sticky bolt
- Factory ammo works just fine
- No excess lube
- Not loading into the lands

If you simply don't wanna hear that it is probably high pressure and something needs fixed, just flat say it. I am going to go touch that stove again.

[Scottish Highlander]

Sounds like the OP only is interested in one persons opinion.
Hope that works out in solving his problem.
x3 but I relised that wayyyyyyy earlier on

[Jimro]

Flea21, don't discount Brian, he is passionate about safety and has not given you any bad advice, just safe advice.

And the 6 reloads gave you a better data point than you had before, and now you have eliminated work hardened brass as the culprit.

I'm sorry I can't call, I'm in Afghanistan right now (and will be for a bit).

Ok Jimro... I finally got around to shooting these rounds and the results were not pretty. The first ones (Brown Colored Primer, 41.8gr IMR 4064, Federal GM 210M Primer, SMK 175gr HPBT, PPU Annealed, Trimmed, Deburred, Chamfered, and FL Resized on Dillon 550B Press with Dillon Dies) went terribly wrong. The first one still stuck like the others last time around and the load is .4gr lighter of a load than the original "problem load". The second one of these went completely wrong and blew the primer out of the pocket and got stuck on the firing pin, that was not fun removing the bolt that time! After that second round, I stopped shooting the "fixed ammo" and shot some factory ammo I had, about 40 rounds or so and everything went fine. Then I shot some of those 44 remaining rounds from last time around and they shot well also just had the sticky bolt problem with them but worked through it by using the magazine to knock the bolt back. This was not fun but I wanted to shoot my rifle.

Ive been reloading for a little while now and I know in my heart of hearts that this recipe is totally within the safe spectrum. I cannot figure out why this is happening, both the first problem and now this new one that has arisen. Please contact me back via phone or something if you still have my number and hopefully we can get to the bottom of this because it is VERY frustrating especially when I have a buddy of mine next to me giving me crap at the range!

And I think that Brian is right, it is a pressure problem, not an annealing problem (which you eliminated with the latest experiment). You checked your scale and it reported good so I'm going to assume the charge weight isn't the problem. That means the pressure is coming from the powder.

My original assumption was that you were loading IMR4064 that was still within the range of useable shelf life. I think that I can no longer make that assumption based on the pressure signs (although I still want to see pictures). http://www.massreloading.com/reading...ure_signs.html

What lot of IMR4064 are you using? When did you get it, where did you get it? You can't tell the difference between powders by looking at them, so if someone refilled a jug labeled 4064 with something faster burning like 3031 or 4198 that would be explain the pressure.

Next step is to buy a fresh sealed container of powder and do a normal load workup. You can try 4064, Varget, Re15, H4895 if you want to stick with the normal "match" powders.

It doesn't take long for powder stored in non-optimal conditions to start off gassing and go bad. So try a fresh jug and do a normal load workup.

Jimro

[thump_rrr]

To the OP.


I didn't read the whole thread but it appears that there are many people telling you that you have serious pressure signs.

If you want to confirm it for yourself there are several simple solutions.

The one solution will cost almost nothing.

Reduce the current load by a minimum 10% and see if the bolt lift improves.

Get a headspace gauge and measure the original once fired brass and compare that to your reloads. This way you can ensure that you are pushing the shoulder back several thousandths of an inch.

Buy a chronograph and compare the velocity of the factory rounds to your reloads.
Chronographs are relatively inexpensive and give valuable data for the handloader.

Try a different powder. You never know if somehow it was mislabeled or hotter than the norm. Varget, H4895, BL-C(2), RL15 are all powders more commonly used with 308.

You only had 12 rounds down the pipe when you started this thread so there isn't much you can "know" about the chamber of this rifle unless you have made a cast of it or measured the once fired brass from it.

I doubt that you are experienced or equipped enough to be annealing at this stage but that is just my opinion.

[Eppie]

Hi Flea21,
I feel your frustration. Sometimes it is hard to tell which advice to take and which to ignore. If you're feeling frustrated don't persist you could make a mistake. Take a break and do something else until that feeling passes. It takes a week for me to refocus sometimes.

Here’s an easy way to tell if your pressure problem is due in part/solely to the brass neck or in conjunction with something else. Take your calipers and measure in four spot around the neck. If they are consistently above .16 than your necks are too thick and could at minimum contribute to overpressure and may actually be the main culprit.

As I had mentioned earlier, my experience is that once fired brass worked pretty good, twice fired brass started sticking and getting less accurate because the necks were getting thicker giving me problems with accuracy and pressure. Once I turned the necks the problem went away.

As I stated earlier, I’m using Federal brass, some have said that your brass starts out thicker than Federal brass.

[Jimro]

A factory Rem chamber should have a pretty generous chamber, although if the neck of a loaded cartridge was larger than 0.343 I'd get concerned. IIRC a factory chamber should have a neck area around 0.345~0.348. According to the cartridge drawing the max neck diameter should be 0.3433 uniformly from the mouth to the shoulder.

I've seen 243 Win's that blew up because 308 brass was necked down and not neck turned. I've not seen thick necks from commercial brass be a problem in a factory chamber before. However there could be a first time for everything.

Jimro

EDIT for numbers update.

[wet]

Flea21;
25 years ago I bought a new sealed LB. of 4350 from a dealer that was way too fast. It can happen. Can you rule this out?

[Eppie]

Posted by Jimro

I've not seen thick necks from commercial brass be a problem in a factory chamber before

Jimro from your previous posting I gather you're in Afghanistan.

I want to thank you for doing your duty there and serving your country. As a veteran I think the whole USA has been worse off because now we elect presidents that are professional politicians and have never truly "served" our country, only themselves.

Let me state up front that I've only been reloading for about 3 years, so I'm not an "old hand" but I've steadily progressed from simple reloading 308 to precision reloading.

One thing that I know for sure it is that necks will thicken up over a number of firings. How fast that happens depends on several variables: composition of the brass, initial thickness of the brass, pressure levels at firing, etc... I have books and videos, that talk about it an how to deal with it.

It seems that your cases must be defying basic physics, or more likely you don't reload the same cases more than a couple of times. If you are in the military, I'm actually surprised that you reload. When I was in the Army we were expected to shoot, we left the procurement of bullets to the supply corps.

[Jimro]

Eppie,

You are most welcome, and remember that you (and the rest of the citizenry) pay my check so I should be the one thanking you. I believe that necks can thicken if the shoulder "flows" too far forward, but with that much case stretch I would expect to be cracking the web or see other evidence of bad headspace. I would expect some growth especially at the base of the neck near the shoulder over a string of reloads, but without excessive case stretch the first few reloads shouldn't be out of spec.

Most of my reloading is for high power or other competition. The "4 reloads and chuck it" school of thought is good wisdom for a reason, autoloaders are tough on brass. In 4 reloads I have not experienced any dangerous neck thickening. Then again, I don't reload PPU in anything but 9.3x62.

For 308 I reload for both semi auto and bolt actions. I've used Win, Rem, LC, and Fed brass. Once again, have not had a problem with necks thickening. But I normally only reload a case 4 times before it gets put into the recycling bucket.

Flea21 can easily determine if it is thick necks with his caliper or a micrometer. But factory chambers are pretty generous, and even if PPU brass is 10% thicker than Win brass, (say 0.014" for baseline, thick brass would then be 0.0154" or about the same as Lapua) times two plus 308" gives you a "thick" neck of around 0.339". You don't start getting to a 0.343" neck thickness (SAAMI minimum) until the brass is 0.0175" thick.

Either way, measuring the neck thickness will either eliminate that variable (which I suspect will happen) and using a different powder will determine if Flea21 has a bad lot of IMR4064 (most likely culprit at this point based on the second set of reloads). Nothing else about his load is suspect from the data given. I would say that hundreds of thousands of precision shooters have used the same recipe (or a hotter one) with no problems in Remington 5R rifles.

Of course this all comes down to a lot of assumptions. If the dies are in spec (since the rounds chamber fine I suspect this is the case), if the chamber is in spec (likely because factory ammo performs fine), if the brass is from a lot that has the ductile strength to be reloaded (still unsure about PPU brass), if the projectiles aren't too oversized for the bore, etc. Lots of variables, I think isolating one variable at a time is the way to go. And the next most logical variable is powder (if thick necks are eliminated through measurement).

Jimro

[Flea21]

Ok well I guess the moderators didnt remove this as I requested so I figured ill leave an update merely to help those that have similar issues... the problem is solved. It was nothing more than using those crappy federal gold match 210M primers! Those things seem to create waay to much pressure ast any load I made. Even as low as 40.4gr of imr4064 would still make that bolt stick and flatten the primer and leave the exyractor mark as well. When I switched to Winchester LR primers, I had no issues whatsoever! The rifle fired ebtirely different, smootly and as expected afterwards the bolt worked just perfect and the round ejected with no sigbs of overpressure. I noticed my rifle seems to like 42.6 to 43.4grs of IMR4064. Im making a bunch of 43.0grs rounds and plan tweaking a perfect load for this rifle. Im very pleased to know that I dont need to use those primers and can still make quality accurate and safe ammo, not to mention, winchester primers are easy to come by in my neck of the woods and currently I have 1000 of them anyways so im set for awhile.

I wanna thank yall who helped me out very much. I probably bought tools I didnt need but I know ill find a use for them down the road. Now its time to reload for my newly acquired .338 Lapua that im in the process of building out, just gotta get it bedded to the mcmillan a5 stock I got for it and get a high powered nightforce optic mounted to it.. that should be fun!

Once again, I appreciate the help and selling me your neck turner tool as well, you know who you are :-)

[Jimro]

Wow, primers would have been the last thing I would have changed out, Federal GMM primers have a reputation for being mild, and Win primers have a reputation for being hot. But as long as you have a load recipe that works in your 5R, I'm glad.

Jimro

[Flea21]

Originally Posted by Jimro

Wow, primers would have been the last thing I would have changed out, Federal GMM primers have a reputation for being mild, and Win primers have a reputation for being hot. But as long as you have a load recipe that works in your 5R, I'm glad.

Jimro

I completely agree on both fronts. Its inexplicable but thats the hard facts. It happened again with my starting load, the primer flattened out and the bokt was tough to extract again. It also was a pretty violent shot and there was smoke coming from the back of the bolt this time, very weird. I just happened to have two rounds with winchester primers in my pocket and switched to those for a shot in the dark and they worked perfectly so I am as baffled as you are. But the best part is the rifle works and now its time to work uo a load and enjoy it, which is what it was intended for. Also, I found a DNR rifle range about the same distance as my buddy's farm s I I can shoot for free there too if my buddy is not available, so now om gonna get more trigger time!

[Jimro]

Awesome score on the DNR range. Make sure you record your scope adjustments for range in your dope book.

I can only assume you got a bad batch of primers as the Mk316 Mod0 sniper load is a Fed GMM primer, 41.75gr IMR 4064, 175 SMK, in a Fed case (at least for one lot of ammo). It is good that the Win LR primers are working for you, as they are generally cheaper than Fed 210Ms.

Good shooting!

Jimro

[Flea21]

Originally Posted by Jimro

Awesome score on the DNR range. Make sure you record your scope adjustments for range in your dope book.

I can only assume you got a bad batch of primers as the Mk316 Mod0 sniper load is a Fed GMM primer, 41.75gr IMR 4064, 175 SMK, in a Fed case (at least for one lot of ammo). It is good that the Win LR primers are working for you, as they are generally cheaper than Fed 210Ms.

Good shooting!

Jimro

Thanx Buddy... Its 70miles away but all the rifle ranges are at least 60miles from houee so its a no brainer to drive 10 more miles and its free to shoot!

As far as those primers go, I know alot of the match grade ammo uses them and maybe I got a bad batch but I am not gonna chance it again anytime soon at least. Money isnt much of an issue as everything is high right now anyways but the availability is and the WLR are pretty much always readily available here and they are cheaper too like you said so thats a no brainer.

[Powderman]

Flea...

As a final follow up, if you have more of those primers, you might consider getting in touch with Alliant Techsystems (owner of Federal) and give them the lot number. I have been reloading for years, and I have never experienced a load characteristic change as bad as you have experienced.

Good shooting!