308 Axis and Hornady Amax bullets = Stuck Bolt

[triehl27]

SO I have been working on a load for my new $219 Hvy Barrel 308. Sierra Game Kings 165g were at 1.5moa, Sierra Matchkings 168 at 1moa. Hornady Amay 168 Stuck the bolt fast! The first round fired, and had a heck of a time getting the case out. The second round, the bolt only closed halfway and it was stuck fast. All my thoughts were that my brass was too long, so I pulled all the rest of the rounds apart. Only 3 were over 2.010, the remainder were 2.005 right where I trimmed them. Placed all the cases through a Wilson gage, all were fine. Reloaded them as dummy's, and they stuck fast again. Scrape marks right at the OGive of the Amax.

Mind you all these loads are WELL under max at around 41-42 grains Varget.

Called Hornady, they said they had heard this before with the Amax Bullet and Savages. The OGive on the Amax is farther forward on the Amax as opposed to many other bullets.

Anyone run into this issue?

[CarolinaShooter]

What OACL were you loading them to? I have a .308 Axis HB and I haven't had issues with Amax or nosler ballistic tips. I also was loading them significantly shorter by about .15-.20 than what my load data suggested. Sounds like your rounds are being jammed into the lands.

[triehl27]

Since I had found my load weight of Varget for my 165 SGK, I was playing with length today, I had 5 at 2.8", 5 at 2.83, 5 at 2.85, and 5 at 2.87. I had never run into an issue with my Rem700 or my Sav 10 with Apache Barrel.
They were sticking at 2.8" with clear rifling marks at the OGive. So I didn't even try any of the longer ones.
Ironically the 190g SMK at 2.85 shot fine, but setting them side by side tonight i can see that the 168 Amax Ogive is visibly forward compared to the 190g or 168g SMK.

I loaded up a dummy clear down to 2.75 and the rifling was still scraping and grabbing the bullet.

I am almost wondering at this point if I got a bad batch of Amaxs.

[hafejd30]

How do you mean scrapping? Savage barrels are popular for the bore not being in line with the chamber. This Will cause a scrape on one side of the bullet. Or is it actually biting into the lands?

[rfd12fv]

no matter what the rifle, barrel, chamber, cartridge or bullet - this is why you build a dummy round, in order to record the max oal for a particular bullet - and there in lies yer problem.

[Josh]

no matter what the rifle, barrel, chamber, cartridge or bullet - this is why you build a dummy round, in order to record the max oal for a particular bullet - and there in lies yer problem.

Where is the like button....

[rfd12fv]

better, faster and easier than making a dummy round, use the hornady oal system with special cartridge case ...

http://www.hornady.com/store/images/T/c1000.jpg

add in the ogive comparator and you'll not only never stick a bullet, yer rounds will be mo' better/accurate. worth the few dollars, ymmv.

[DrThunder88]

I never had any trouble making a slit-neck dummy round to measure the length of my chamber with my .243 Winchester, but my .300 Win Mag gives me a lot of trouble. I may have to get one of those Hornady things.

[rfd12fv]

there are lots of Neanderthal ways of estimating max oal, such as a threaded bolt into a opened primer hole ...

http://i.imgur.com/YsvxcM7.jpg

or the slit case method ...

http://i.imgur.com/f0LI79U.jpg

having done them all, the hornady oal thingy brought me back to the 21st century and is SO much mo' bettah. ymmv. :p