30-06 problem

[wisconsinteacher]

I am looking for some help. I have a Ruger tang safety 30-06 that is 20 years old. This rifle means a lot to me and is my deer hunting rifle. I have developed a nice load for deer hunting with Rem brass, Win LR primers, H4350 and 180 AccuBonds. Up until last week, I have never had an issue with this rifle up until the last 7 rounds I have tried to fire. I took all my brass this winter and annealed it and resized it so that the bolt would close with no tension. I have shot 20 piece of this brass with this load and with the last 7 rounds, I have had 4 not fire. It looks like it is a light primer strike. I talked to a gunsmith over the phone and his guess is that the chamber has opened up a little and when I fire the rifle the primer is pushing the round forward and not letting the pin slam into the primer. He said to try neck sizing to fix the problem. I am a little worried about neck sizing with a hunting rifle. Also, what do I need to do with the 100+ piece of brass that have been sized and have quit working? I am stumped and would love to get this rifle up and running soon. Any ideas or tips?

 

[TonyR]

You might ask the smith to check your firing pins spring. They can lose tension particularly if you leave the bolt in a cocked position either with the bolt open or removed from the rifle. Match shooters often replace firing pin springs every year.

 

[Erik Cortina]

I am looking for some help. I have a Ruger tang safety 30-06 that is 20 years old. This rifle means a lot to me and is my deer hunting rifle. I have developed a nice load for deer hunting with Rem brass, Win LR primers, H4350 and 180 AccuBonds. Up until last week, I have never had an issue with this rifle up until the last 7 rounds I have tried to fire. I took all my brass this winter and annealed it and resized it so that the bolt would close with no tension. I have shot 20 piece of this brass with this load and with the last 7 rounds, I have had 4 not fire. It looks like it is a light primer strike. I talked to a gunsmith over the phone and his guess is that the chamber has opened up a little and when I fire the rifle the primer is pushing the round forward and not letting the pin slam into the primer. He said to try neck sizing to fix the problem. I am a little worried about neck sizing with a hunting rifle. Also, what do I need to do with the 100+ piece of brass that have been sized and have quit working? I am stumped and would love to get this rifle up and running soon. Any ideas or tips?

Sounds like you may have pushed the shoulder back too far creating excess headspace. The chamber does not grow, the brass gets smaller by resizing. Get the Hornady lock and load headspace gauge and find out the difference base to shoulder from fired brass to resized brass.

 

[Raythemanroe]

Oder your self a nice Chrome silicon spring and neck sizing may help.

 

[Raythemanroe]

Ruger will fix it ! call there customer service.

 

[wisconsinteacher]

I am guessing the brass has been shot 5-6 times and FL sized every time.

 

[DRNewcomb]

Sounds like you may have pushed the shoulder back too far creating excess headspace. The chamber does not grow, the brass gets smaller by resizing. Get the Hornady lock and load headspace gauge and find out the difference base to shoulder from fired brass to resized brass.

I'll vote for this answer. Personally, the only two reasons I've ever had one of my reloads not fire are:
1) Seating the primer too deep (M1 Carbine)
2) Forgetting to add the powder. ???
I can't go for the chamber just suddenly growing. Get some factory ammo and shoot it. If you have no problems with factory ammo, my diagnosis is something about your reloads. If you have problems with factory ammo, my first guess would be either a damaged firing pin or weak spring. Another guess, if you ever used WD40 on the bolt, it might be gummed up with smutz. You may need to disassemble, clean and relube the bolt.

 

[wisconsinteacher]

I just called Ruger and they said to send it in. I plan on shooting some factory ammo first. I cleaned the bolt inside and out before I shot today so there was no gunk in it. What I don't get is how fast this came up.

 

[jonbearman]

What kind of dies and shell plate are you using? How do you set your sizing die.Is it touching,or camming over or a quarter of a turn backed off and so forth.If you annealed I will bet the spring back of that area changed alot and if you are die to shellplate with no clearance you have probably induced a minor headspace issue.

 

[wisconsinteacher]

I have Lee FL dies with a Lee shell holder. I have the die set so the shell holder is touching the die. If I did get too much headspace, what can I do with this batch of brass? Is it junk?

 

[wisconsinteacher]

Not trying to argue or dispute everyone's ideas, I am trying to give more info. I just looked at my shooting log and up until the last 7 rounds fired or attempted to fire, I had fired 28 rounds with no issues. All the rounds were made with brass that was sized all at the same time and used the same lot powder/primers/bullets. So my question is, if they were not sized right, why did the first 28 rounds work?

 

[Albany Mountain]

Lubrication could be an issue. But if you have no means of measuring the setback during the reloading process, 30-06 shells are about as cheap as they come. Buy a factory box and check it out.

With no gauge, I back off the die about 1/4 turn from touching the shell holder. Then resize and chamber. Don't force it closed. Keep turning the die closer until the rounds just close. Maybe a little more. Just barely.

Or take a unfired cartridge from the lot and add a layer of cellophane tape to the base and chamber it. if it chambers easily, you may have some setback.

Most of my none fires seem to be a set back problem. so I neck size a lot. If you are worried about neck sizing hunting rounds, you can always chamber any round to cull out the tight ones. But remove the firing pin before trying this at home. At the range, just be careful checking rounds in the chamber like this.

 

[Raythemanroe]

I would guess this is a product of over sizing also. It wouldn't hurt to replace your spring with a Chrome Silicon one because this is the first thing to get weak on your Ruger M77 firing pin assembly. You can purchase the tool and Spring from Midway for $36. Tool will work for Remingtons and clones also..

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/993248/baker-firing-pin-disassembly-tool-remington-700-ruger-
77-series



http://www.midwayusa.com/product/794752/tubb-speedlock-systems-cs-firing-pin-spring-ruger-77-long-action-chrome-silicon

 

[chuckbuster243]

Change your spring.... Had a ruger doing the same thing. The factory one its a miracle it fires. Clean lube and change that spring out and i bet it will stop. Also use a hornady type shoulder comparator and measure fired vs sized you need no more than .004" difference. But I have see allot of guns that fire fine with more its just hard on brass. I have a couple rifles that factory new brass is .020" shorter than the chamber and it fires... SO my first guess is spring. Rugers are known for it. Matt

 

[XTR]

[list type=decimal]
[*]One easy way to get one question solved is to use a Stoney Point/Hornady OAL gauge and check the head space on a fired round and one of your reloads. If you have over sized the brass the unfired brass will have significantly shorter measurement to the datum line.
[*]Another problem that I ran into once after I restocked a Remington 700 action. The relief cut for the bolt handle was just enough that the bolt felt closed but wasn't all the way down, the pin would drop, but the lugs weren't fully engaged and the pin put the slightest dimple in the primer. (I'm really glad none of them fired before I figured that one out or I may have ended up with bolt in face syndrome)
[*]If the rifle is that old you may need a new firing pin spring.
[*]Bad Primers - It happens. Last yr I was shooting BR2s in competition and I had way more FTFs than I should have, was running better than 1% and on occasion I'd have two or three in a match. It got to the point that I was afraid to go for record inn the last match of a day w/o at least two extra rounds.
[*]Lastly it's probably possible that if you have been doing brass prep that you have made the pockets too deep.
[/list]





Before I shipped the rifle anywhere I'd check the other possibilities

Have you tried factory ammo?

 

[wisconsinteacher]

Re: 30-06 problem Update

Thanks for all the help. I was able to shoot the rifle today with factory ammo and it fired 6 for 6 so I don't think it is the rifle. I was also near a supply story and grabbed a Hornady headspace gauge kit.

Here is what I came up with so far.

18 pieces of fired brass from the same batch that had the misfires averaged 2.046" with the gauge.

I then took 18 random pieces from the bag and averaged 2.039".

So the difference from what I was reloading to taking out of the chamber after shooting is .007"

I guess that I am oversized and need to fire form my brass that is still too short. I really think that when I resized after annealing, I pushed the shoulder too far and now have to deal with it.

I also grabbed 50 rounds of new Win brass so I have a total of 100 sitting here. I may just put the Rem brass to the side for now and start over with the new brass.

One thing that I don't get is that my resized brass averages 2.039" and the 10 unfired factory Rem brass measured 2.040". That means my stuff compared to factory is off by .001" and will not fire. I guess I could go though my bad of brass and cull out the short ones and then fire form them.

Any thoughts or ideas?

 

[CatShooter]

Re: 30-06 problem Update

Thanks for all the help. I was able to shoot the rifle today with factory ammo and it fired 6 for 6 so I don't think it is the rifle. I was also near a supply story and grabbed a Hornady headspace gauge kit.

Here is what I came up with so far.

18 pieces of fired brass from the same batch that had the misfires averaged 2.046" with the gauge.

I then took 18 random pieces from the bag and averaged 2.039".

So the difference from what I was reloading to taking out of the chamber after shooting is .007"

I guess that I am oversized and need to fire form my brass that is still too short. I really think that when I resized after annealing, I pushed the shoulder too far and now have to deal with it.

I also grabbed 50 rounds of new Win brass so I have a total of 100 sitting here. I may just put the Rem brass to the side for now and start over with the new brass.

One thing that I don't get is that my resized brass averages 2.039" and the 10 unfired factory Rem brass measured 2.040". That means my stuff compared to factory is off by .001" and will not fire. I guess I could go though my bad of brass and cull out the short ones and then fire form them.

Any thoughts or ideas?

It doesn't smell right.

You have eliminated the "Bad spring" theory" and a few others, but 0.007" is not a lot of space - the allowable space is around 0.014", so you don't have a short case problem. The firing pin protrusion is 0.055" to 0.060" so with 0.007", your cases should be getting a good whack.

You might start neck sizing, and save yourself a lot of problems...

 

[KUZU]

pull the loads and replace the used primers with a different brand primer. if this doesnt cure, go with new swpring. would give odds its the primers.

 

[Raythemanroe]

catshooter, I 2nd that!

 

[wisconsinteacher]

I am now thinking primers. I just did some more cross checking and realized that the miss fires have started since I opened up my new lot of primers. I thought they were from the old lot. I will load up some ammo for my 25-06, 22-250, and 30-06 and retest the primers before I move on with this issue.