pep talk, cuddle time, over half of my brass lost forever

[rockwind1]

so went back to my 6.5 gap 4s extreme hunter after good results with my 6.5 saum bighorn/proof combo. i had 78 peices of 2x fired brass,, the first firing was a very light load, made by copper creek ammo, the second loads i did during load developement, mostly in the 58 gr area,,which is very light considering. (i had alrady done some load development with brand new hornady but switched to the once fired to hopefully get more consistency)

any, AFTER spending freakin hours making 78 PERFECT cases,,, i was super excited because i think i figured out my runout issues with the redding dies,,,,believe it or not i think it was because i was using a rcbs shell holder. i started using my comp reddding shell holders and the runout pracitically vanished!!! PLUS MY SHOULDER BUMPS WERE GOING PERFECT AS WELL. I WAS SO JAZZED!

so this morning i go to put primers in my 78 cases that i had put my heart and soul into,,,and over half of them, the primer practically fell out,,, i am left with 35 cases. thinking of doing one of those gofund me things after this tragedy....

but 2 firings? really?? i am outraged mostly due to the lost time.

rant over.

bye forever

 

[DngBat7]

Did you use a pocket uniformer? I am always nervous they change the diameter of the hole

 

[rockwind1]

i did but i had about 20 others that i did not use a pocket uniformer on and also lost quite a few out of that group,,,plus i experimented with the pocket uniformer, it fits in there kinda loose, i am 99% sure the pocket uniformer is not respeonsible,,,partly because i have another 6.5 saum rifle that i was using a different lot of hornady brass with and i uniformed those pockets with no issues,,,,yet!

 

[WillyTP]

That’s a bummer. Best of luck on your next batch.

 

[retired]

good ones only have a cutting edge on the bottom.
poor brass or hot loads
chamber large on the back end

Did you use a pocket uniformer? I am always nervous they change the diameter of the hole

 

[LHSmith]

I have progressed my match ammo loading regimen to decapping in a separate operation using the old Wilson punch and base which allows me to weed out any enlarged primer pockets. Presses have too much mechanical advantage to offer any ability to feel if primers are loose.

 

[suasponte]

Henry Rempel primer pocket tool Yes, it works. Will tighten those pockets up like new.
Terry

 

[mikecr]

Sounds like a loose chamber

 

[Twitchy]

I feel your pain. I had a bunch (thousands) of once fired WCC brass that I used for my first season of F-Class. Not terrible brass considering all the prep I put into it. I grabbed a couple hundred more to use in my first PRS match (3 hour drive), prepped like my F-Class match brass, and test fired 30 the day before the match to confirm velocity and mag function, etc. No issues.

I get to the match (about 100 round count for the match) and got off a total of 10 rounds. Failure to extract nearly all of them. I had a great hit percentage with my first round of each stage though. Turns out the case head diameters were all undersized/oblong. Mind you this is the same batch of brass I used in F-Class with zero issues. Turns out the shell plate for the S1050 I used to process all the brass years ago was buggering up the case heads.

Lesson learned. Now my PRS brass, like my F-Class brass, will be Lapua. I was afraid I'd lose it on the stages which is why I was using the WCC in the first place. That cost me 6 hours of driving, Air BnB, and match fee.

 

[rockwind1]

Sounds like a loose chamber

hi mike, it's a gap built rifle, using their reamer and i think it is known for being a pretty tight chamber. but i hate making assumptions,,,what is the best way to check if you have a loose chamber?

 

[mikecr]

I know GAP builds good guns.
But pockets loosen when brass moves away from them. At extreme enough pressure this happens no matter what. But otherwise, it's lack of support at the webs.

Big clearance near the webline allows brass to expand beyond elastic limit. Then you size this back down to mitigate interference/popping extraction, moving brass up the case away from original web support.
IMO, a fired webline measuring at or greater than 2thou from NEW dimension here, is loose.
Lack of breech support allows deep web brass(that thickest area around pockets) to expand the breech hard into action threading. This area of brass is not supposed to be moving, and deforming, but everyone seems to accept it as normal. Folks think loosening pockets is normal and ok.
Often shows up early with tight grove fitting to your shellholder.

Of course you can always back off on pressure enough to slow or stop loosening pockets. You can also build a gun to mitigate all this at desires pressures, and use hard brass, maybe small primer pockets.
I would communicate with GAP. Is this gun for accuracy, or good brass life, or both?
And keep in mind that accuracy is not really a fleeting attribute, but what you can maintain in the long run.

 

[rockwind1]

I know GAP builds good guns.
But pockets loosen when brass moves away from them. At extreme enough pressure this happens no matter what. But otherwise, it's lack of support at the webs.

Big clearance near the webline allows brass to expand beyond elastic limit. Then you size this back down to mitigate interference/popping extraction, moving brass up the case away from original web support.
IMO, a fired webline measuring at or greater than 2thou from NEW dimension here, is loose.
Lack of breech support allows deep web brass(that thickest area around pockets) to expand the breech hard into action threading. This area of brass is not supposed to be moving, and deforming, but everyone seems to accept it as normal. Folks think loosening pockets is normal and ok.
Often shows up early with tight grove fitting to your shellholder.

Of course you can always back off on pressure enough to slow or stop loosening pockets. You can also build a gun to mitigate all this at desires pressures, and use hard brass, maybe small primer pockets.
I would communicate with GAP. Is this gun for accuracy, or good brass life, or both?
And keep in mind that accuracy is not really a fleeting attribute, but what you can maintain in the long run.

i was really not pushing it pressure wise, way under the 61 gr of h1000 which is the go-to load for berger 140s. i mean,,,whole point of the gap 4s is to push the 6.5's into the 3100 range and i wasn't near that but regardless, if i wanted to pushed a 6.5 at 2900 , there are several other tried and true calibers that can do that

but I will investigate the chamber being the cause,,,however, i do go on the gap 4 s forum and apparently lots of other guys are having the same problem with hornady,,,i guess switching to norma or remington if you can find it and the problems go away,,,i had been told that hornady had fixed their problem but,,,maybe not.

anyway, it was more of a rant than a cry for help. not much to be done, got the rifle, gotta live with it.

 

[Shawnba67]

hi mike, it's a gap built rifle, using their reamer and i think it is known for being a pretty tight chamber. but i hate making assumptions,,,what is the best way to check if you have a loose chamber?

A cerrosafe casting would do it.
Its pretty cheap and you'll probly use it more than once.

 

[steve123]

i was really not pushing it pressure wise, way under the 61 gr of h1000 which is the go-to load for berger 140s. i mean,,,whole point of the gap 4s is to push the 6.5's into the 3100 range and i wasn't near that but regardless, if i wanted to pushed a 6.5 at 2900 , there are several other tried and true calibers that can do that

but I will investigate the chamber being the cause,,,however, i do go on the gap 4 s forum and apparently lots of other guys are having the same problem with hornady,,,i guess switching to norma or remington if you can find it and the problems go away,,,i had been told that hornady had fixed their problem but,,,maybe not.

anyway, it was more of a rant than a cry for help. not much to be done, got the rifle, gotta live with it.

Yeah, that's painful!

I heard that people used SRP's in 40S&W for major loads back when primers were scarce. I loaded up 10 rounds and fired off just to check, they worked. Loaded 1000 on the Dillon 550. Went to a match and no worky all the time, that's heart breaking! I'm still disgusted, lol.

Anyway, I have a 6.5 Saum and a friend has a Gradous 6.5-4s. On mine and his we had to turn additional brass off the necks because there was only .001", neck expansion to begin with, some cases even less and mine was supposedly a no turn reamer. Both showed higher pressure signs, mine was not as bad as his. Both ours are now .003 expansion after turning and mine stands normal pressures fine, he has had to go down to 3007 fps with hybrids in a 26" barrel to nill the ejector smear and slightly heavy bolt lift, IIRC his load is 58.6 gr H-1000.

We both BR prep our brass and both use Norma brass. I won't even consider using Hornady brass personally. I'm about ready to load my 8th cycle but last time all the primer pockets were holding out well.

At first the high node was 3275 fps, I ran the second cycle at that speed but some of the 140gr Hybrids were blowing up so I backed off to the low node at 3175fps, been fine since. BTW I have a 29" barrel in a long action, so a longer throat, and use Retumbo, currently 59.9gr.