338 Lapua Brass not extracting

I have the Savage 338 Lapua and I am having issues with the fired brass not extracting.

I am firing Hornady match grade ammo, 285 gr butllet

I first fired 10 rounds to site in, no issues.
Next I attended a 2 day sniper class and fired 180 rounds, the last shot the brass would not extract.

Brought the rifle home, cleaned it, went back to the range.

I fired about 60 rounds and 1 out of 6 would not extract, 10%.
Some of these were really stuck, others popped out easily with the bore rod.

I have done a search and some say to get the chamber polished, seems like an easy and inexpensive fix and I will get it done.

Do I have an ammo problem as well ?

I want to reload the brass, but I don't want to see this issue whan I go back to the range.

Your thoughts ?

My thoughts would be to have the smith do a chamber cast before he touches it to be sure the neck area in the chamber isnt to tight.Ink up a round that sticks,put sharpie al over the neck and straight lines down the body and try chambering the sticky round.If it removes the ink anywhere you will be able to see where it is tight.I would also get a ball mic and measure the thickness of all your necks and you will probably see some are thicker.This is why alot of reloaders turn the necks to get them concentric.Unfortunately this is a common problem on alot of factory rifles.Until you get into reloading for real precision you are at the mercy of the manufacturer of the ammo.Lapua brass is the most consistent and norma a close second.One thing you can do is measure the outside diameter of all the necks of the loaded rounds and see if they very all over.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestion, I will use you idea.

JCat

Savage 338LM owners seem to have issues with Hornady brass.

Switch to lapua brass and you should have no more issues from my experience with 2 diff 338 lapua Savages.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jonbearman

My thoughts would be to have the smith do a chamber cast before he touches it to be sure the neck area in the chamber isnt to tight.Ink up a round that sticks,put sharpie al over the neck and straight lines down the body and try chambering the sticky round.If it removes the ink anywhere you will be able to see where it is tight.I would also get a ball mic and measure the thickness of all your necks and you will probably see some are thicker.This is why alot of reloaders turn the necks to get them concentric.Unfortunately this is a common problem on alot of factory rifles.Until you get into reloading for real precision you are at the mercy of the manufacturer of the ammo.Lapua brass is the most consistent and norma a close second.One thing you can do is measure the outside diameter of all the necks of the loaded rounds and see if they very all over.

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the first thing I have to ask is how hot does your barrel get during a range session where you fire 60 rounds? I am lucky to shoot 10-15 groups of 3 and that is done while rotating between other rifles with time to cool between strings.

As for the tough extraction first ditch the Hornady brass. It is a common problem and if you search the topic you will find several other threads on here about the same thing. After you switch to Lapua some people are even trimming brass .010" BELOW the published trim length. I am not doing this myself but others have reported it working for them.

Hornady brass are soft, same as the S&B... The tough ones are Lapua and BHA...