wsimpso1

Remember this: Max load is a relative thing. It means that if it got passed around to everyone in SAAMI, it is really close to their maximum. Is it safe in all guns? Most likely yes, but maybe not. Is it close to maximum for your gun? Again, most likely yes, but maybe no. It does sound like the load is soft in your gun, and can probably be worked up to a faster level, if you want or need that. If it is really soft, it might get more uniform with some additional powder. I would not hand out ammo loaded above any manual's max load to anybody else or try it in another rifle without working up to it. Just because it appears soft in your rifle does not mean it is safe in another chamber and throat.... Billski

It would make for an interesting stage prop for a match. "Shooter starts with hands on armrests, shoes on floor, and Hula chair running. Draw and engage first first array from chair..." LOL!

I would actually do a little accuracy testing to compare the ghost ring and a smaller aperture. I would almost bet that you could not tell the difference with groups on paper. The really important point with irons is being able to see the sight well. The ghost ring will almost always let in enough light, even on a dim day. After that, sight alignment matters, and the ghost ring does not really hurt you much there. You will center up your eye on a rear aperture naturally, no matter the size. You will also tend to center up the front sight within the rear sight naturally. After that, you need to put the sights on the target. The brighter the target, the quicker and more precisely you can do that too. Yeah, I would test first. Do an A-B-A comparison, shooting a little slower than match pace, and then see if you can really tell the difference (by looking at holes in paper) between the small aperature and the ghost ring. Billski

Critical in 223 Rem? As Dan put it, "feed the thing good bullets". Most 55 FMJ fly for crap, but Hornady's 55 FMJ's are reputed to fly fine. Match bullets from the standard makers all fly pretty darn good out of capable barrels. After that, it is consistent case preparation: Size the cases for consistent and small headspace clearance in your chamber (0.002" of shoulder setback relative to the case just fired in that gun is plenty, and the cases will last more reloads); Trim to consistent length and chamfer case mouths. One other thing. Once you find a receipe (bullet/powder/primer/case) that your barrel likes, load a lot of it. Billski

I agree that it just feels wrong to prime off line. But when I thought about it, I found a few things that make me do this. First off, I decap cases before tumble cleaning in order to get the crud from the primer pockets, so the cases are ready to accept primers when they come out of the tumbler, Second, with a hand tool, I have to dump primers, shake them upright, and prime. With the press, I have to remove the tube from the press, dump primers, shake them upright, fill the tube, install the tube on the press, and apply pressure to the press handle both ways on every stroke. Hmm, extra operations of removing the tube, filling the tube, installing the tube, and pressing the handle both ways. Add in any malfunctions, and I get 'em once in a while, and priming offline looks like it actually saves time. Now if the Hornady Hotline produces results, I wanna know about it. Because other than priming, I think that the LNL Progressive is great. And I have yet to work with a press that was flawless. Billski

Case head separations are caused by the case body just forward of the case head being stretched beyond the material's capability. This can happen on new or once fired cases with excess headspace or on cases that have been loaded quite a few times. This is why when we handload, those of us that want to get a lot of loadings from their cases do several things. Keep each batch of brass together; Adjust your sizer to give no more than 0.002" headspace; Check brass for evidence of incipient head seperations; Deep six the whole batch when you can detect thinning. In your case, I would bet that headspace in the gun is excessive. Here's what happens when either the chamber headspace is large or the ammo is has a short headspace length. The cartridge fits between the bolt face and the chamber shoulder. Whenthe firing pin strikes the primer, it shoves the case forward until the shoulder of the case sets against the shoulder of the chamber, leaving all of the excess space between the case head and the bolt face. The primer and then propellant fires, the case, starting at the neck, expands to the chamber wall, and then the chamber plus case carry the pressure from the powder. As you go back towards the case head, the wall gets thick enough that it does not expand out to the chamber. As the pressure continues to grow, the case head is shoved back against the bolt and the case wall at the back of the case stretches. This is how after firing, the shoulder is farther forward than it was before. Sizing does not fix this, it just shoves the shoulder back. So, the smart handloader will make a probe and feel for the inside of the case near the head thinning down. And deep six the whole batch when it does. Billski

You can look at the bulb on the end of the tube, where it goes into the carrier key. I have a little dental mirror to see on the top side. Either a quick check of the tube, or wait until it starts failing to lock open and or other short stroking symptoms. In truth, if the carrier (no bolt) slides in and out without tweaking the tube, you won't put enough wear on it in the life of a barrel to matter. If it is tweaking the tube, tube life will be short. Fix it by bending the tube (gently) to a position where the carrier runs without causing the tube to move... Billski

The whole problem with ammonia exposure was discovered by the English army during the Boer War. They had burst case heads on everything from pistols to artillery, sometimes wiping out field pieces and the gun crew. The means of exposure was ammo in wooden crates in the same ship holds as their horses over a sea voyage from England to the South Africa. I have had primers that perforated at splits from stress corrosion cracking. The maker found ammonia in the cracks. It was either from Hoppes #9 and Sweet's 7.62 solvent used to clean rifle barrels close by over a few weeks or whatever exposure it got in the gun shop. You wouldn't think that they cleaned the floor with ammonia based cleaners once in a while, would ya? I doubt that detergent would have much ammonia in it. We have no idea what the rest of the perfumes used in laundry detergent are. I am with the others on Federal 223. When I come home with FC 223 Rem, it goes right into the scrap brass bucket. Billski

Hey DWS, Mine does it too. Sometimes I would get an inverter primer that way too. The brass rod was only a partial solution for me. Less issues, but still get one once in a while. Ultimately I just changed over to priming with a hand tool while watching a movie with the wife. I get brownie points for being with her and my loading goes more smoothly because I am not having to continually refill the primer tube. I will miss you guys at the January TCSL match - the hand is STILL sore. Hoping for February. Say hi to the usual suspects for me. Billski

Hydrogen Embrittlement - This happens when steel is plated. Atomic hydrogen is evolved at the surface, and it wanders into the metal. The steel become weaker and more brittle, and will fail quickly if highly stressed. The silly thing about all of this is that the prevention has been known for about 100 years. The shop that does the chrome is supposed to bake the parts at 350 F for a couple hours to drive off the hydrogen. MyBoyElroy did mention that hydrogen embrittlement was the source... We can also see short lived bolts if the heat treat shop quenched the parts, but tempered them wrong. Quenching makes the austenite (steel above its upper critical temperature, usually above 1350-1500 F) into primary martensite. This stuff is hard as glass, has huge stresses locked up internally, and is fragile like glass too. Tempering relieves the internal stresses, which increases the toughness in a big way. The higher the tempering temperature, the more hardness you give up inexchange for more toughness. Screw up and skip this step, or run it too cold or only for a short time, and the parts will quickly fail. Billski

I have no patience for guns that are not reliable and accurate. If I think that my equipment has a reliability issue, it does not go to matches until it is fixed. That being said, I carry a little kit with gas rings, extractors, and a full set of springs and pins. One of the big reasons to clean your guns everytime out is to catch stuff that is cracked or is becoming worn, and replace it then. That tends to take care of the stuff that does wear. I have heard of people commenting that the gas tube takes so long to replace that you might as well have two uppers. Thing is though, that a well aligned gas tube lasts as long as the barrel, and you should catch it going bad at home too. Billski

Is it just me? This whole thing with folks dressing in combat garb and carrying airsoft pseudo-guns arrived on my radar only in the last couple months, and I still do not get it... I had heard of folks doing matches indoors with pistols during the winter and also of folks practicing house clearings, dynamic entry, Force-on-Force training, etc, but this looks like kids playing soldier... What are they doing? Playing "capture the flag" in fatigues, like with paintball? And in full uniforms and equipment. It can not have any more effective range than a paintball gun, can it? Somebody please explain to me what they are doing... Billski

The case in MyBoyElroy's post looks like they look when the bolt lugs break. The chamber is still under a bunch of pressure while this is going on: The bolt sets back (sometimes with vigor!); The neck, which is stuck to the chamber wall stays put; The case fails at the neck/ shoulder junction or at the body shoulder junction; The head/body area is stretched and looks like an incipient head separation; The headspace length of the case is way long; You can not even get that case into a chamber check gauge because the body is expanded. Now, don't get me wrong, the round could have been high pressure, all that i am saying is that even a normal round in the gun would look like that when all of the bolt lugs break off like that. I have seen films and the aftermath of a number of destructive firings of rifles. All kinds of things get revealed when firing with bullets stuck in the bore. One competitor's bolt rifle broke the front ring, retained the bolt but the barrel went downrange, with the case held by the extractor, and then as the barrel cleared the case, it ejected the case. Piezo pressure gauge routinely showed way over 100,000 psi on this type of firing. The case was significantly bigger in diameter and longer at the shoulder than when it went in, but it did not split. The other reason that I do not believe that high pressure ammo did this to that bolt exists. High Power competitors have a subset of shooters who are infamous for running (in 20" Barreled Service Rifles and in longer barreled Space Guns) rounds that are well over standard pressure in what the rest of us feel are misguided attempts to get more velocity. In guns with long gas systems, they run that level just fine, rebarrel at 4000-7000 rounds, and just keep on reusing a known bolt and carrier. Yeah, they replace extractors and cam pins with the barrel (and dig primers out of their triggers on hot days), but broken bolts are not commonplace. It is in Shorties that folks see cracked bolts, cracked cam pins, etc. And if the bolt was plated (that one was) and the shop skipped the bake cycle, it would be very brittle and fail quickly. Billski

Hmmm, If'n I was a betting man, I would bet that the subject gun had a 16" barrel and a shorty gas system. In rifle length and mid length gas systems, the action gets a nice reliable push with the chamber pressure bled off and the cartridge case loose from the chamber. But in the shorties with a 16" barrel, the system gets its gas earlier, the gas gets to the carrier sooner, and chamber pressure is not bled down as much. The result is the shorty action is run harder. Then, when one gives difficulty extracting, some folks drill out the gas port, really beating the bejuses out of the bolt and cam pin. Add in having to open the gun from stuck cartridges, and there is more abuse. Better parts might help, but I suspect the gun is driving the bolt pretty hard. Hydrogen embrittlement (MyBoyElroy's picture and post) can generally only happen if the part has been plated, which the photo part appears to be. The silly thing about hydrogen embrittlement is that a one hour bake at 350 F right after plating drives off the atomic hydrogen and positively prevents the cracking. The shop that provided that bolt (or their plating shop) has lousy QC and should be avoided like the plague. Sounds like you already did... Good deal on warning the rest of us about them. Billski

Are we gonna hear what you guys found out? Come on with the scoop! ; ) Seriously, did you folks get it figured out? We have folks that want to learn from this... Billski

We do ACTS in Michigan on the second Saturday of every month at Centerline Range in Belleview, and in Arizona on the third Saturday at Pima Pistol Club. It is mostly tactical rifle with some sidearm. We usually get four or five stages per match. Check us out on www.actshooters.com. Billski

Chambers do not get shorter with use. However, I have seen chambers that were a little short or tight, and they would sometimes not run well with different ammo, unsized new brass, and different bullets. Bottleneck cased guns are like this. Ammo that runs in one may be too big for another chamber, particularly if the chamber is a little tight. Is it a "Match" chamber? Some of those are tight. The Wylde reamer may open the chamber a bit and allow more ammo latitude. I could not tell by looking at your photos if the cartridges that stop things had any evidence of hard contact and or crud on anything. You have to look closely at the cases, and a magnifier helps: If the chamber shoulder has crud, it will show up as little marks (dents) or debris on the case shoulder while the case head will be burnished. Crud can develop over firing and time. Also, a quick wipe with Hoppes can cause copper deposited on the throat in firing to "bloom" (the copper is corroded by the ammonia in the solvent), so I would seriously suspect that the shoulder or throat area of the chamber is dirty. Really seriously. This is taken care of with solvent and a chamber brush, and then JB bore cleaner; If the headspace is too short for these rounds, it will show up as burnish marks over much of both the shoulder and case head. If the headspace on this rifle is a little tight, it can be fixed with a new barrel or by finding a 'smith who knows how to use a chamber reamer, but since it has run in the past, I would not suspect this; If the ejecter is bound, it will show up as burnish marks on most of the case shoulder but only on a segment of the case head. You further check this by trying to cycle the ejector with a fired case. You fix this with some solvent on the ejector and exercise it with a fired case, or by drifting out the retention pin, cleaning thoroughly and reinstalling the ejector and spring; If the bullet is interfereing with the throat, there will be marks on the bullet ogive, 1/8" or so forward of the case mouth. This can be due to several things - too short of a throat, copper crud and primer ash built up on the throat, or ammo loaded too long. Solutions are ream using a reamer with a longer throat, clean the barrel, seat bullets to a shorter length. I doubt the first one and the last one from what you said about other ammo and that it ran before. I do suspect that the throat is dirty. Clean the chamber and then the bore, first with a copper solvent and then with JB Bore Compound. Last comment - the M-16 style rifle has substantial mass in the carrier. When a round is stuck in one, the preferred method for opening the bolt is to "mortar clear". This sounds worse than it is. Hold the rifle with one hand on the forend, the other on the operating handle holding the latch open like you would to clear the piece. With the muzzle vertical, raise the gun and bring it down butt first on the ground or a table. Gently at first, and add more thump as necessary. Between pulling on the handle and the inertia of the carrier, it tends to come open pretty easily most of the time, and is far less abusive than thumping on the charging handle. Billski

I did not want anyone to get wrapped around the axle... If you have never had a primer vent on you, your current situation is probably fine. But if you are seeing split primers, you get after the sources of ammonia. Cool? Billski

It is exposure to ammonia vapor and humidity over time that causes stress-corrosion cracking in brass. Anything that will give a steady dose of ammonia vapor - diapers, cat urine, copper solvents, glass wax. If the cat box and the loading bench have to be close, think about storing your primers and loaded ammo in metal ammo cans in a place further away and change the kitty litter frequently. I would also think about ventilating the cat box. A little box fan from the computer store, a covered cat box, and laundry drier vent hardware will work very well at getting the ammonia overboard and the house will be more pleasant too. Billski

OK, Derek45's bolt was destroyed by flame cutting from cracked primers, not by leakage between the primer cup and case. That is not news. What is news on this thread is that it has nothing to do with a particular brand of primer, but is due to primer storage, either by the retailer of by the customer. Looking at the cases that have smokey primers with a magnifying glass, you will see a split - a radial crack - in the corner where the metal is bent from the flat to the cylindrical part of the cup. IF you can see this, the whole story is confirmed. If you can not see it, look at some more fired rounds. But looking at the pit shapes, it was splits in the cup... When the brass is soft (or the pressures are too high), it usually craters around the primer and pierces in the firing pin indent, pitting the firing pin. Buy a new bolt (lucky it is AR15, they are cheap, it could be from a pre-1964 M70). Dispose of the existing batch of primers that did this. Understand how this happens. Take action to prevent it. Strain-strengthened copper based alloys develop stress corrosion cracks when exposed to ammonia. Primers and cases for rifles are strain-stengthened (cold worked) and copper based (cartridge brass is 70% Cu, 30% Zn). The British army discovered this fact about brass and ammonia in the Boer War. This was still in the early days of brass cases and primers for everything from pistols to artillery shells. The ammo rode in the holds of ships along with horses, which are a terrific source of ammonia. The ammo failures were spectacular, wrecking field pieces and wiping out gun crews. The British government was deep into punishment of the innocent before the actual source of the problem was discovered. That is one of the reasons why the world has been using sealed ammo cans ever since. How to prevent this? Well, first of all, the manufacturers are all acutely aware of the potential and do not use ammonia in ammo plants... I have first hand experience with this issue, having been a product engineer for big green when I was younger. The most likely sources of ammonia are at a retailer whose pets roam the recieving areas or who has storage in a building adjacent to barns, chicken houses, etc. The next most likely culprit is your loading area and the guy in the mirror. We usually reload in or near to our houses. We have things like pets, babies, household cleaning supplies, and various copper solvents in these houses. All of these are sources of ammonia. So, store your primers and cases away from these things or in steel ammo cans. Really, if you have dirty diapers in the same basement, your primers can do this. And good ol' Hoppes will do it too, so you don't want your primers stored anywhere near where you use copper solvents, because they all have ammonia in them (that is how they dissolve copper). Short form, Guns and diapers and household cleaners are in a different place from where my primers, cases, and loaded ammo resides. Anytime you have primers that have vented out of a corner, you gotta get rid of the whole carton. You can pitch the primers or take it up with the retailer or the manufacturer. Since they view it as likely your fault that they got ruined by ammonia, they may be less than helpful to you. If you elect to pitch the primers, I recommend a bleach dunking to deactivate the primers before recycling the brass. Yeah, those used primers are brass. I also recommend firing a few primers from each new batch and examine the primers really closely for pierces before committing to a big ammo load. If you do this the day the new primers arrive, you can justify returning them to the seller, because SCC does take time to occur. Wait two weeks and you may be told that you are on your own... Billski

Thanks for the postings! I actually have posted on one of threads that the FAQ's pointed me to. I actually have been through a lot of searching prior to starting the thread. The threads that exist do not seem all that useful. Really. That is why I set up a new thread. I have played with the gun with the top end off, and (as I wrote above) the followers do not touch the slide stop then. Bullet contact with the slide stop does not seem to be the issue: Running it by hand shows nothing even close, and examining rounds chambered while shooting shows no marks from it either. The problem is exclusively with one round left in the mag, so I have good reason to be skeptical that neither bullets nor my thumb is causing this. I have never had problems of this type with my single stack guns. or other people's widebodies. I know about tuning followers or the slide stop. The amount of material that I would have to remove to make the follower not push the slide stop up is pretty big. Until I am sure about why a gun that behaves fine when hand cycled but misbehaves when fired, I am reluctant to go cutting on stuff. I was looking for insights. I really suspect that the front edge of the mag follower is tipping up... The commentary about opening the feed lips precipitating the problems reinforces my thoughts that the mags might need to be made a touch narrower in the front. I will check into that. If all that I ever did with it was shoot USPSA, I would have already disabled the slide stop. Not all of us exclusively shoot USPSA. I want my slide stop to work. I appreciate the news on the STI mag spring bend. That does appear to be the wrong way to go. Any other thoughts about how this is happening? Billski

Hi, I have a widebody 40 that slide locks with one round left in the mag with great regularity. It won't do it in hand cycling, only when it is being fired. Put one round in the mag, and the follower does not even touch the slide stop. The stop does have a detent in it, and I have never had this gun slide lock with more rounds in the gun, so I doubt that rounds are hitting the slide stop. I suspect (can not confirm without high speed video) that the front end of the follower is being driven up and is hitting the slide stop, but I have more that a few doubts about knowing what to do about it. I do remember out of the deep recesses of my memory someone bending the mag springs for some purpose, but I was unable to locate it using the search function. I thought that the pictures were on BE.com. I don't remember what bending the mag spring was supposed to do, but if it makes the follower go straight up rather than nose first, great! Other specifics. 5" widebody, nothing fancy in the gun, 12# recoil spring, 16# main spring, Para top end, Para followers and springs (they all do this). I have adjusted the mag lips to be .380-.385 apart, and it feeds 100%. Any thoughts, advice, etc? Billski

I think that the vertical foregrip and placing the gun on the chest are both carried over from current tactical practice. The body armor on the front and back works really well while it is less effective on the sides. So in order to allow the body armor to do you the most good, you square up on the threat, and place the butt high on the chest close to the neck. This is not centered on the sternum, but it does get close. Low ready is tiring, but with the VFG, it adds endurance and let's you be strong when you need to bring the gun up or transition across targets, so in real world situations, where fatigue might play into things, it is supposed to be quicker. Next, if you take a tactical carbine class, the handgaurd gets hot, and if you do not have a VFG, you will wish that you did. Once your train using one, you might be reluctant to change from what you trained with... One other real world tactics issue is that with the VFG, the elbows are tucked in, so that as you "pie" a space from behind cover, you don't have the elbows out there telegraphing your position so early to the bad guys. For competition, the VFG felt like I got the gun solidly on target sooner, which lets me shoot on close targets a ltttle more quickly, but it felt like it cost me something on targets requiring more precision. In Michigan, the longest Practical Rifle Targets are 100 yards, and most of our stuff is house clearing drills and other CQB scenarios. So, I kept the VFG on the rifle, but I am now reconsidering taking it back off... Decisions, decisions. Billski

My practical rifle shot fatastic with that brake. A few thoughts: I don't like to mess with the bore by cinching down on the barrel at the crown. I hand tighten muzzle devices with loctite to make sure that they are not going anywhere and that the barrel is not shrunk down at the crown. On this brake, I put only a few drops on the brake, and one dinky drop on the lock ring. It came off when I needed it to with just a bit of heat gun waving; I would check that the marks on the baffles are all the same, not just "no copper". If the bullet flies too close to the baffles, it will deflect it too; Reaming the brake to align with your bore is good practice for accuracy. So is cutting the threaded portion through like Fastshooter3 described. Billski

First Perspective +1 on Eric. Second Perspective - Glass sights with more power do not allow you to be more accurate, but they do allow you to see mirage, how bad your hold is, and sometimes the bullet strike. Third Perspective - Small Bore has long had Iron Sights only matches and Any Sights matches, and frequently the best scores in Any Sights matches are shot with Iron Sights... Billski