First trip with rifle, Round stuck in lands.

So I took my 10 FCP McMillan out for its first trip, rifle ran flawlessly with Federal 149GR XM80C, then tried some 169GR FGMM and shot some good groups, then went for the 175GR FGMM and noticed it was hard for me to close the bolt. Sent 7 rounds down range having to stuff the bolt closed each time. 8th round would not go in, went to put the bolt back and the case and all the powder came flying out leaving the bullet stuck in the lands. Grabbed a rod and literally rested it on the bullet head and it fell right out. Not sure what to think. Loaded up one more of the 175's and still hard to close but went in and shot fine, but I put those back and went back to the 168's for the rest of the day. Why might this be?

I have also noticed that I have to force my bolt handle up in order to get it to unlock, if you try and baby it then it simply wont unlock the bolt. I had to bang on the hand multiple times to get it unlocked which I know is not right. What do you guys think?

Thanks

http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/...psomxrlvao.jpg

you really need to get a hornady overall length gauge and measure the max overall length of your cartridge with all the different bullets you shoot.

Pretty obvious you are really jamming them in the lands. Are these reloads or factory ammo?

Of the rounds that you jammed in and got to fire, were there any pressure signs? Sounds to me like you are potentially working up to a bigger problem of having an over pressure load.

M12lrs has it right when he said get a Hornady OAL gauge. If you can't do that, at least use one of the less precise options out there to ensure you aren't jamming things with the heavier bullets.

You can't always trust that the factory didn't short chamber your gun.

I will do as both you suggest. These were all with factory ammo, not set up to reload yet but working on it. I checked every piece of brass and there are no pressure signs.

Seeing this with factory ammo says to me do not shoot it until you have the chamber checked.

They usually are on the conservative end for OAL's, so less likely to see jammed bullets.

Roger that, would that also attribute to the bolt being hard to unlock? I don't remember it being too hard with the 7.62x51 stuff but I was more focused on getting the bullets on paper rather than the action itself.

You say you had to stuff the bolt handle down so not surprised that you had a heavy bolt lift.

If the bolt closes normally but opens heavy, that is a sign of pressure. It's hard to say if it's jamming, pressure, or both that gave you the heavy lift in this case. I would guess both.

I will get some gauges and do some detective work. Besides OAL gauges, what else would I benefit from having?

You'll need a modified case to use with the OAL gauge, a comperator kit and a caliper.

https://www.hornady.com/store/Bullet-Comparator-Kits/

If a factory bullet does not load, then the throat (lands) is closer than normal.

You can avoid that bullet or you can get fixed.

Factory ammo is kept at a save distance off normal lands so this is not correct.

Was the bolt issue only with the problem rounds? ie the ones you forced the bolt on?

If so the answer is its simply not intended to pull a bullet out of the lands.

As for the some do and some don't, its an Ogive (bullet shape on the nose) thing. Even quality bullets vary some so some will be really bad and some not so much (if you are on the edge) which yours obviously is.

If you are getting the bullet comparator inserts for use with your caliper, you might want to grab the case comparator ones as well.

Granted, you are using a caliper so it won't be micrometer accurate, but with the case comparator you can get an idea on differences in length on cases in different conditions.

It started to get noticeably harder to open and unlock the bolt when I started running the Federal Gold Medal Match stuff. Whether it be 168's or 175's. They 168 close smoothly, only the 175's were hard to close the bolt on

This comes around every so often. Avoid the 175 SMK's until you can get it throated. Meanwhile the Berger 175 and 185 VLD's with some 4064 or Varget should make you smile.