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Ruger wont eject hornady brass.

Noticed today my m77 mark 2 in 243win wont eject hornady brass. Winchester and remington work perfect but when i cycle the bolt hornady brass just pops out half way and sits half on the mag follower and half on the feed ramp. Even if i really work the bolt its the same and i end up javing to fish it out every time. Took some measurements of head dia and rim thickness and extractor groove and there the same as win or rem. Called ruger he said probaly have to send it in. I dont want to due to the rifle was given to me when my dad passed away when i was a kid and if it got lost or broken in shipping i would feel terrible. Any thoughts on why they wont eject? The extractor looks great and i even tried a extractor off a diffrent rifle and still didnt work with hornady.
 
in Stopp429,
If you decide to send in anything to Ruger, I'd only send in the bolt to have it checked (extractor, ejector etc). The other thing I can think of would be to run that brass through a Body Die or a Small Based die. I have four M77's that whenever I have a brass hanging up issue, I run it through one of the aforementioned dies and the problem goes away. The other solution is don't use Hornady Brass as the rifle may not like that brass. Just a thought.

Alex
 
Savage bolt action rifles are fairly well known for having ejection issues such as you describe. I have 5 and none of them will reliably eject a spent cartridge. About the time I learned of an aftermarket "ejection improvement kit" and purchased 2, I also read about another hack that fixed the problem.

I primarily shoot off the bench at a local range, and I always return the carefully prepared spent cartridge case to the ammo box for reload, so chasing it down after eject is not on my list of preferred activities.

Solution: remove the ejector from the bolt head. Now the cartridge case sits on the bolt head after I open the bolt, and I pick it off and return it to the box. Works 100% of the time, and I no long have to lift my head off the stock to load another round.
 
Sorry, my bad.

So your saying the M77 has no ejector, and the extractor is releasing the case prematurely?

Yea, I see how that could be a problem.
 
No problem. The older m77 have a plunger style ejector on the bolt face. The ejector is spring loaded in the rear part of the action. There is a groove milled in tbe bolt for it. Similar to the fixed ejector in a 1911. Ruger is sending a new extraxtor and extractor band. Hopefully it fixes the problem. Right now it pulls the case 90% out of the chamber but drops it in the action so i have to pick it out or tip the gun sideways for it to fall out.
 
There has to be something different about the Hornady brass if it ejects Winchester and Remington brass. It has to be a different diameter on the rim or rim is thicker. I don't like Hornady brass becuase most of it soft and won't take the loads or last as long as others. Matt
 
Check the extractor groove diameter on your cases that won't eject, with a pair of calipers. SAAMI spec for that dimension is .409" - 0.020", or .389"-.409". In my experience, Hornady tends to run on the lower end of SAAMI spec, say .391-.397", as compared to most other brands that run .405"+.
 
Hornady is about .385" in the groove. This sucks i was given 350 new cases. Just my luck. Ive had good luck with other calibers but your right they dont last as long as winchester. But then most of the newer win brass ive got has had a really high percentage of cull brass per bag. Been running remington in my 338 win just because its all i can find, i have 3 loading on them with a pretty hot load and there holding up decent. I do have 2 100rd boxes of old winchester ive been hiding from myself i might have to break them out.if i cant find winchester what should i go with? I cant afford lapua right now.
 
Hornady is about .385" in the groove. ...Ive had good luck with other calibers but your right they dont last as long as winchester.

My personal theory is that the lack of 'meat' in that critical region around the primer pocket may contribute to their tendency to loosen up earlier than other brands.

In my case (pardon the pun) with a spring-loaded ejector, it appeared the extractor wasn't able to 'bottom out' and get a good grip on the extractor groove. It'd extract the case okay, but as soon as the case mouth cleared the chamber it'd drop free of the bolt face. As near as I can tell, with that setup the extractor and ejector need to work in conjunction to keep the case 'pinned' in place. Switching to cases with larger groove diameter immediately 'fixed' the problem. It was a bit more of a PITA than that, as this was when Hornady was the *only* source for 6.5 CM brass unless you wanted to form it from Lapua. Eventually I did make up about 20 cases from Lapua Palma brass, and they just about *flew* out of the action. Previously I'd made about every modification to the bolt face, ejector and extractor that I know of (more than a few) with no success.

Good luck with yours. I'd imagine about any kind of brass will work well enough - if you search on the internet you might be able to find some 1x fired stuff for reasonable prices.
 
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There is a guy selling .308 brass, earlybirds I think is his name. It has been neck turned, once fired Lapua I believe. I think he's doing 100 cases for $50. You could neck that down. The brass is very good.
 
My experience, albeit limited, with Hornday brass has been positive. I've use their 223 Rem brass and have had no problems with extraction or ejection. Also I'm up to 12 reloads with no ill affects thus far. Nice thing about the lot I purchased was there were no defective cases.
 
New extractor and band showed up. Installed and wow what a difference. Ejects everything with authority now. Slow or fast the hornady stays in place untill it hits the ejector. Have to give Ruger a big hand they helped me out and sent the parts for free no questions asked.
 

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