Random notes from range trip with a 10P

I bought a new Savage 10P. A .308 with a heavy barrel (Savage told me it has a 5R barrel that is supposed to be for accuracy). I gave it a light cleaning. Not many posts on this model, so I am giving a few random notes for anyone that might be thinking of getting one. I shot it for the first time last Saturday using factory PMC and Federal .308 ammunition. Shot great, but it was very difficult to extract. I had to pull very hard on the bolt to get it out. I tried a couple of different 7.62 NATO military surplus rounds (Spain, Argentina and British) with the same problem. This is important as I recently married into a large cache of 7.62 NATO and I need them for practice. Savage is closed for two weeks so I cannot ask them. Internet posts suggest:

1. “new” guns need to be broken in,
2. Chamber needs to be polished and
3. Gunk in chamber.

I cleaned it again, very thoroughly, including the chamber. I shot again with no problem with factory .308, but some sticking with the 7.62. I cleaned it thoroughly again and shot a third time on the 4th with the factory .308 and most of the 7.62 working great. Action feels smoother. The British linked 7.62 still sticks and about every other round will not chamber (I did not shoot these) so I may have to sell them off. I also shined the brass of the 7.62 with steel wool thinking the gunk on the military brass was contributing to the sticking. I am not going to send it in to Savage now as it appears to be shooting well. Do I need to clean the gunk off the brass? It is a lot of work.

There are many discussions about using 7.62 in a .308 rifles including Savage’s. My impression is that it is OK. I bought a .308 to use my cache of 7.62. I am going to need alot of practice. I just went through the Savage website and found they state to not use 7.62 in their .308 rifles. New factory .308 ammo is really high (if you can find it) so I want to keep shooting the 7.62 as long as it works in the rifle. The military ammo appears to be accurate. I like the heavy barrel. Does not heat up fast and I think has lower felt recoil. It will be heavy to carry hunting, but easier for the kids to shoot.

Do you know if your primary extraction is good ? With the bolt closed if you look at the back of the bolt near where the handle is there is a collar with a cam shaped feature in it. If you cock the striker by raising the bolt, then lowering it again (so that the bolt lift will be light) as you raise the bolt handle you will see that the clearance between the receiver and this collar gets smaller and smaller and eventually they touch and force the bolt rearward. If the gap in that location is too great, you may get very little benefit from the cam feature which will make it very difficult to get fired brass out the chamber.

It doesn't help if ammunition is dirty. You might ask your friends who reload if they have a vibratory bowl type tumbler in which case you could run the live ammo through it and it will clean up nicely. The dirtier it is, the longer this will take. After you try a batch, you might want to get your own one to clean your stash.

To prevent this from happening again, consider vacuum packing it after it is cleaned. Any vacuum packing machine of the type used for steak and sausage will do. Get the narrowest roll material you can find since you ideally want small handy packages that hold 20-40 rounds max.

Links often cause some bimetallic corrosion where they touch the brass. Depending on how bad it is you may want a polishing wheel on a dremel but don't get it hot. Any time you have linked ammo and no machine gun, get the brass out the links ASAP. Otherwise its just more trouble later.

"junk" on the brass?? Got any photos of this? My reloads don't have junk and it is rare I buy surplus ammunition. I do believe I've read in some forums that foreign 7.62 mil-surp ammo may or may not adhere to spec, whatever that might be. SAAMI is a US standard, which your 10P chamber is designed to, and I've no idea what some other country might load for their military. I would not hesitate to shoot US military ammo but I personally don't have much faith in some foreign country's mil-surp. Good luck.

Westcliffe01,

Thank you for the good info. I believe I understand what you are saying about the cam feature. With the rifle empty, the cam appears to pull the bolt back about 3/16 inch to 1/4. I am going to the range tomorrow and will note how it does with a round chambered and after firing. The vibratory bowl tumbler is a good idea. I was not sure if they were OK with live ammo or just the brass. Good point about the linked rounds. I should have remembered that two different metals touching will cause corrosion. I will get them apart.

I do not seem to have permission to add a photo. I will work on that. Basically, the gunk is not very thick, more like tarnish. Handling them gets my fingers a little dirty. Some rounds have some black spots, but they are not showing up on the photos. There is some talk on the internet about the brass expanding at firing and grabbing onto the rough parts of the chamber. Which is why the chambers are not perfectly smooth. I am only guessing, but I thought the tarnish may be putting gunk on the chamber wall and contributing to the jams.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jawom

I do not seem to have permission to add a photo.

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Yes, actually you do have permission and the ability to post photos from a computer. No member is restricted from posting photos. There is a good thread on how to post photos in the "Help and FAQs" section of the forum.

If you are accessing the forum from a mobile phone, however, you may or may not be able to post photos, I honestly don't know.
:focus:

Take your pictures. Then edit them and scale them down to not bigger than 1024x768 (no bigger than that needed for seeing stuff over the web)

Then go to http://www.fotoshack.us/index.html

Pick the scaled down image in the directory on the HDD.
Where it says "Resizing options" select "do not resize" from the pull down menu.
Upload the picture. Scroll down to the link at the very bottom and copy that.

I create a notepad file and save it as "fotoshack links" Then paste links to the pictures in this file. That way if you want a link in future you know where to find it.

Now come here or on another forum, start a new post then click on the "insert Image" icon. It is on the toolbar a few places down from the URL Icon. It is a yellow green box with what looks like a tree in the middle. The dialog box will ask for the URL. Paste in the link you copied earlier at fotoshack. The link should always start with http://, make sure that part is not there twice because sometimes it is provided by default and you have to overwrite it if you have the full address in your link. Click OK.

Write the text you want and submit. You should see the image in your post when it uploads to the forum. Some editors show the image immediately and others don't. This is an example of how the code is put into the editor "IMG]http://your picture location/[/IMG"

Once you have done it a couple of times you are all set.

The reason I like fotoshack is you don't need an account or login. I would not post my personal pictures there (from vacations etc) but for illustrating something I think it is fine.

I think the issue with the Radway green and the other surplus is 1, dimensional and 2, corrosion. Many of the mill surplus sealed ammo packs had moisture in them and it corroded. I have clean thousands of them and tossed a hundred or so. Aso if you measure the case OAL length you will find much of it .025 out of spec on the long end. Inspect every piece you plan on shooting.. or sell it.

Good post Westcliffe.