dauntedfuture

buffer tubes don't normally wear out. Its the stress of the steel bolt in the BCG that wears out an Al carrier.... or so is my understanding

When chrome lined barrels start to wear out, the chrome comes out in "Chunks" you can see this with a bore scope. The underlying metal gives way and takes the plating with it. I would see what it looks like with a bore scope, it could be wear, tar, lead or carbon. You did not shoot .22 lr in a conversion kit through it did you? I would try JB bore or another bore paste and see what happens if you don't have access to a bore scope.

I had a 9mm AR at one point. When I initially built it, there was an issue with hammer follow. I don't recall whose 9mm BCG I had, but it did have a shrouded firing pin and a firing pin spring. I swapped out the disconnector and it worked without an issue. I suspect your trigger was not resetting fully. I see you got it working; good info. I gave up on the 9mm AR as it was not accurate, probably not a great barrel, and I was breaking trigger pins.

Its also possible that you picked up some brass that was already reloaded and trimmed short. .012 is a lot of variation.

If you have proper neck tension you can't set a bullet easily back into the case. Try crimping a case without neck tension and the bullet will wiggle around. I suspect that you blew up a .303 enfield because you loaded .308 bullets in a rifle intended for .310-.311. and loaded a case of pistol powder.

when your primer alarm goes off you still have 6-7 primers loaded in the primer mechanism. Just refill the primer tubes and keep going, no need to pull anything off at all.

Your not FL sizing the brass enough. This is different from bumping the shoulder. If loaded rounds are sticking in the chamber then you need more size die. You also need to check several FL sized cases when you use range pick up brass and make sure they all work. Many times you will get a few in the pile that are way out of whack with the shoulder blown well forward and you would not catch these cases. Believe it or not, you can often neck size 5.56 and get your rifle to run well some of the time; it just so happens that your sizing the case as your bolt slams it home. Im not suggesting this, but it can be done. When your FL die is not set up right, your just sizing the neck and the sides of the case and possibly not touching the shoulder

since you said gunpowder I have to assume your talking blackpowder. You can look up the volume by weight for FFF or FFg etc and then find a substitute for the weight and volume.

I have a Giraud and there is no comparison. The machine is top of the line and its one and done to trip, chamfer and debur the case. I have looked at a 1500 and I am still considering it for my 650. I think that I would get a RT1500 if all I was doing provided a M die worked after the trim die to negate me having to chamfer the cases by hand. All my experiments shot that non-chamfering the inside of the cases damages bullets too much to ignore; less with thick FMJ then a match bullet, but damage there is still bullet base damage.

I do not have a Dillon trimmer but I did look into buying one and I have read the directions. The directions state that you need to use unfired brass, the sizing of the brass helps keep the brass case from spinning in the trimmer. If you want to use another die, I would use the second die after the trim die. In reality you should look into an M die to slightly flare the case and in doing so you might be able to get away with not chamfering the inside of the case. If your are using redding competition FL dies with the bushings then you need to use another die. I have several of these dies. Redding even recommends that you don't use them to FL virgin brass, they tell you to use a standard die as the redding FL dies with the bushings, 1 don't size the neck all the way down and 2 don't size the base all the way down. These dies are really intended for bolt guns and to be used after you have sized the virgin case in another standard die or to use to size fired cases from THAT rifle. The other issue you are running into is that you are using MG and or range brass and some of that stuff gets so out of whack its hard to size back down to spec. Who knows what kind of rifles it was shot in. It will help to use a fresh fired case each time you make a die adjustment, don't just keep running the same case into the die. You will get better adjustment. If it was me, or when I buy a Dillon trimmer I would: 1st station RCBS lube/ decap die. Dillon trim die. Lyman M die. Still lube the heck out of your cases but the rcbs lube die will help spread the excess lube around and it helps. Its also helpful to decap on another station and you have to do that anyhow before you use the Dillon trim die. I have found that Hornady dies worked well for me to size 2K of fired 7.62 mix range brass. I use a Girud trimmer. good luck. You need to lube your cases more and you need to get lube inside the neck of the case.

7 1/2 are about as hard of a primer as you can find.

You should be looking at ES and SD when you evaluate a load, especially for rifle. You can have a low ES and a high SD; that an indication that you did, or there was something inconsistent in that high or low round and you can work to identify and eliminate that variable. It could we sorting out xxx brand of pistol case or weighing rifle cases to find that one light or heavy case.

I have a few HGs that mount the same and or are similar to the troy alpha. with several of them the barrel is not exactly centered inside of the handguard. The JP rails are very rugged and I think you will like them even if they are a little heavy. I hope you have solved your problem. You might want to buy a wrench when you can, like someone said, a wrench, vice and upper blocks are not expensive and swapping a barrel is easy.

If you have a rifle with a direct attach can most people will put them on a rifle and leave them there as there is always going to be some shift. If you shoot a higher round count with a rifle suppressor you are going to get lots of mirage off the suppressor and your zero will walk as your can heats up. Most of the guys that shoot PRS seriously shoot with a muzzle break on their rifles. If you want to use the can in the match you might look into a cover.

Since we don't know how far you are shooting... its likely that the action shifted in the bedding depending on how it was sitting in the safe provided its not environmental or ammunition. Consider that you can some off the 1K line in the morning and a few hours later, in what appears to be the same conditions your zero can be 1-2 MOA off for elevation at 1K due to temperature, humidity or other conditions not including wind.

you are asking a very broad question. I might ask you to consider a few other variables to help you make your decision and perhaps where to do some more research: Consider the BCs and the attainable accuracy and velocity of the bullets in question with the components you have available. Given two bullets of the same construction, heavier bullets will produce more down range energy most of the time. Higher BC bullets, which are not the same thing always as heavier bullets, retain velocity better. Research the twist of your barrel. Given you are shooting a .270 its not likely a target rifle so you will have a little more trouble finding information; I sincerely doubt you will have issues with retaining sufficient velocity or rotation to remain supersonic and stable at 800. If you are talking about 500-800 with match BTHP bullets, I would look at getting the higher BC bullet to shoot well and go with that for longer ranges but run the numbers on JMB as well.

for reduced loads you are going to be fine. If you can find a load in a factory book it SHOULD be safe. I don't think that load will cycle a gas gun. Just don't try to get rifle velocity with 2400.

M1As and M14 are also hard on brass. Im not sure about FALs. I might suggest that you load 2x, or third firing of the case, and then recycle the brass. That was a good rule of thumb for most M14s with Mil brass. You could also just section a case or cut one open and see what it looks like. The would all be close, or if you feel a few with a pick then toss them. You can usually also see a shiney ring on the outside of brass that's about to give way.

Again, just because your ammunition works in another gun does not mean that there is not an issue with your ammunition. when you try to chamber the ammunition and it will not chamber, is the loaded round "stuck" in the chamber. If it is then its a classic case of brass not sized enough. Have you gauge checked your ammunition? Sometimes dies loosen up and your last few rounds could not have been sized all the way and they are sprinkled in with the good ammunition. If were talking just a hare out of battery then its most likely foreign material or undersized cases. Also consider, and I have seen this too, if your using mixed range pick up brass its possible your getting a mix of brass fired from a large chamber rifle. As your sizing die is not set to size enough, most of the brass is sized enough to work and these few odd cases that are way-big are causing a problem. Again, ammunition issue here. In many, many, many a case like this the first place to look is ammunition followed by magazines and lube. 90+% of rifle problems are caused by one of these three issues.

you can fit a 6.5x.284 in a short action rifle. You have to seat the bullets deep.

All ball powders are going to meter better then any stick powders. 335 is ball, 8208 is stick.

Its something going on with your seating die and bullet. .002 (2 thousandths) id believe and call "normal", .02 (20 thousandths), no way. I don't think its the press and or shell plate. I have a whidden tool head on my 550 that has the uniquetech screws and it improves OAL consistency ever so slightly, like .001-.002, not .015-.02.

Will the rifle go into battery without ammunition in it? If it does then there is always the possibility that ammunition is the problem. The fact that your ammo works in another rifle does not support this however, if the chamber on the other rifle is bigger then large ammunition would not work in your rifle. There is always the possibility of foreign matter in the rifle. I would also check the gas key and gas tube for evidence of damage. I don't think that a crack in the bolt would cause issues, but clean the bolt as well as you can then rub down with oil and wipe oil off. If there is a crack you will see oil seeping out. Many an AR has run without a lug on the bolt for some time until the owner noticed that a lug was missing.

I doubt that your powder measure moved. Its more likely that when you set it up and weighed the first few charges, you were getting a different measure of powder then when you settled down and had brass in all stations. As for velocity going up; I have to assume you are using the same lot of primers, bullets, brass, and powder. If you changed brands of anything that will effect velocity. Velocity from a given volume of powder will very based on the lot. Environmental factors and elevation will also change velocity as will the cleanliness of your barrel. I highly suspect that your AVG velocity changed by 25 fps or so, and your ES is 50 fps, as such your "new" velocity could be well within the statistical window of your "old velocity" depending on how many rounds you fired. In short, I don't think there was anything to cause as I don't think the powder measure screw moved... Did I forget to mention that volume of powder in the measure will also effect the weight of powder.. We also need the rest of the story, ie if your velocity went from 1000 to 1025 fps for the average of 10 shots, everything is the same...Oh yea, we also have to assume you are using the same chronograph.

I just ordered a mini mr bullet feeder in .223. I will put it on a 650. Any tips at all? I think that I can run it on the press after the powder check and before a bullet seat die. I would not be able to crimp if I wanted to. Alternatively, I could loose the powder check die, but the bullet feeder there, and then seat and then crimp. Am I missing something? Will these things work in .223 with all kinds (55,69,77 etc) of bullets or am I going to be limited to working with 55's and other short bullets? Thanks