What Happened With This Round?

[wingspar]

What caused what you see in the photo below?

Some background. Rifle is a Savage Hog Hunter in .308. I have 191 rounds thru this gun that I bought brand new in January. About 60 of them steel, and the rest was Freedom Munitions 168 Grain A-max rounds, of which the photo below is of. I’ve had zero problems until I tried chambering this round a couple of days ago. Any thoughts on what might have caused this?

http://www.pbase.com/wingspar/image/160006734/original.jpg

[Nor Cal Mikie]

Looks like a "burr" in the neck + soft brass. When you tried to chamber it, it caught on the edge of the chamber and being that the brass was pretty soft, it pushed the shoulder back into the case body.
Don't think you'll be reloading that piece of brass.

[earl39]

Yep defective brass

[eddiesindian]

That looks like it took a lot of force to even try to close the bolt.

[olddav]

I must confess I'm courious about that as well ^^^

[Robinhood]

Did you have a case head separation where part of another case is stuck in the chamber?

[PaddyD]

That looks like it took a lot of force to even try to close the bolt.

This happened upon chambering?? What did you do? Use a hammer to try to force the bolt closed???

[sharpshooter]

That didn't happen in the gun.....that had to happen in the press.

[LongRange]

That didn't happen in the gun.....that had to happen in the press.

^^^this right hear...youd have to beat the back of the bolt with a hammer and stand on it to close it even if the brass was bad/soft/over annealed.

[sixonetonoffun]

Looks like an over annealed case. A bullet that got started crooked. I would seriously be questioning qc.

It looks like it's so over annealed if it had chambered case head seperation was imminent.

This assumes we got the true story and this wasn't something OP pulled apart and reassembled. Because thats hard to believe it went out the door like that. Though not impossible.

[pitsnipe]

That didn't happen in the gun.....that had to happen in the press.


+2 And not a mark on the pill. Would think the case would have left a scratch on it. Sizing die set too deep. Been there, done that. Another case for the recycle bucket.




Snipe

[barrel-nut]

Sorta gives a new meaning to the term "compressed load" lol

[wingspar]

When this round wouldn’t chamber, I pulled it out, and it looked fine. That’s when I should have tossed it, but I tried chambering it again probably using too much force, cause I had to beat on the bolt to get it to open, but I certainly didn’t feel like I used that much force trying to chamber it. It came out looking like what you see in the photo. No scratches on the brass.

All other brass I shot that day looked fine. As I said, this was factory Freedom Munitions. I don’t reload, tho I am in the process of starting to reload .308. I’m just waiting on a scale which should be here today. I will pull the bullet and use it. I’ve been using Freedom Munitions for years in 9mm, .45 ACP, .38 Special, .357 Magnum, .223, and now .308 to the tune of thousands of rounds with zero problems, but none of it has been thru a bolt gun till now. I did have one .223 that sounded funny and when I broke the gun down I found small pieces of brass and I never found the case. Put the gun back together and continued to shoot.

[wingspar]

OK, a little update. I took this round to the LGS today as the guy there that I deal with has been reloading for 40 plus years, and him and another guy that works there has never seen anything like this, but agreed that the sizing die might have had something to do with this.

This was a fresh box from that day, and I put 8 rounds from that box thru the gun with no problems. Only this one round. I just went thru the remaining 11 rounds in the box and found 7 of them with the same deformity at the mouth that you see in my photo. The squishing of the neck in the photo most likely happened when I tried to close the bolt. I also closely inspected the other two unopened boxes of this ammo I have, and saw no problems.

I just sent an email to Freedom Munitions with this photo and the lot number from the box. If there is interest, I can update this thread when I get a reply. In the past, Freedom Munitions has been good to deal with. Good CS.

[Robinhood]

Did you set your die up correctly?

[earl39]

Did you set your die up correctly?

He has already said he didn't reload this, it is factory ammo.

[Dennis]

This was a fresh box from that day, and I put 8 rounds from that box thru the gun with no problems. Only this one round. I just went thru the remaining 11 rounds in the box and found 7 of them with the same deformity at the mouth that you see in my photo.

If it came straight out of the box, and 7 of the remaining has a deformity at the neck, it should be the manufacture's problem. I don't see anything else to figure out as per your statement above.

Could you post a picture of the 7 others that came straight out of the box with the deformity?

Dennis

[pitsnipe]

Did you set your die up correctly?


They were factory loads. I didn't catch that either in his first post. Bad QC from the ammo mfr.




Snipe

[wingspar]

If it came straight out of the box, and 7 of the remaining has a deformity at the neck, it should be the manufacture's problem. I don't see anything else to figure out as per your statement above.

Could you post a picture of the 7 others that came straight out of the box with the deformity?

Dennis

I didn’t see a reason to photograph all 7 of them, but here is one of them. They all look like this one. I’ll give Freedom Munitions a day or two to answer my email before I try to contact them. I’m sure they will ask me to return this ammo and will replace it with another box. Their CS has always been good.

http://www.pbase.com/wingspar/image/160048068/original.jpg

[sixonetonoffun]

Out of curiosity. Do they have their own headstamp or is this remanufactured ammo?