[JimJD]

I was out at the range last weekend, had a chance to finally take out the M44.
Put twenty rounds of Wolf through it. After each shot, I put the spent cases in the plastic holder it comes with.
Had some problems though...
First, I had trouble chambering some rounds. Sometimes when I would open the bolt to extract a live round, the cartridge would not eject. It just stayed there in the chamber foward of the internal magazine. Only after firing said round, would the spent case eject.
Hmmmm...
Then after the box was done, something told Me to check the spent cases.
It turns out that the third round fired had it's case split. If I had a digital camera, I would post a pic. Instead, I quickly ran a pic of a 7.62x54R through a little bit of photoshop to give evryone an idea of what I'm talking about.

I'm wondering, do I have a problem with the rifle or is it a problem with out of spec ammo?
As You can guess, I'm a little leery of taking the rifle out until I can have it checked over by a smith.
What do You all think?

[wasrjoe]

I think it may be Wolf ammo. That happens occasionally to me when I use Wolf in my M38. Most times it's fine but every now and then - just rarely - I get a slightly cracked case. I've never had a problem beyond the cracked case.

[jefnvk]

Is that before or after it was fired??

My Mauser will split necks sometimes after firing, its not a big deal to me. And hard to extract cases are common on Mosins, I've never used one that had to be smacked to open it.

Never tried extracting a live round.

[wasrjoe]

After fired. He had no spent cases to take a picture of so he photosh... I mean, MS painted a live one. ;)

Forgot to add:

First, I had trouble chambering some rounds. Sometimes when I would open the bolt to extract a live round, the cartridge would not eject. It just stayed there in the chamber foward of the internal magazine. Only after firing said round, would the spent case eject.

Mine does this sometimes, too. Just shoving the bolt up there nice and fast fixes it... I think. Been a while since that happened.

[GD]

Are chambering from the magazine or loading one round at a time? Also make sure you clean the chamber really well.

[JimJD]

Are chambering from the magazine or loading one round at a time? Also make sure you clean the chamber really well.

Both actually. I also made sure that the chamber was absolutely clean.

I went to the gunshow yesterday and purchased some good S&B sp ammo to test in it at a later date. Wanted to buy the match grade stuff, but did'nt have the funds to do it. Maybe next time.
Anyone try that olympic brand 7.62x54R? Thinkng about picking some up.

[WhoKnowsWho]

Anyone try that olympic brand 7.62x54R? Thinkng about picking some up.

We tried some 8mm Mauser from Olympic a while back and had to return it. Though they did say they haven't had a previous problem, might have been a bad box... YMMV

[Sleeping Dog]

Just take a rubber mallet to the range, to open the bolt. To me, it seems like the "hot" ammo is harder to rotate the bolt after firing, maybe pushes the bolt back so the lugs are pressing on the receiver. It's a theory :)

I haven't tried Olympic 7.62x54r, but their 5.56x45 seems much hotter than average. I stopped using it in the AR, all those fragile moving parts. I still use it in the Rem 700, I don't think it'll hurt a simple bolt gun.

Regards.

[foghornl]

I haven't tried any Wolf in my M-44. I have fired quite a bit of the 1988/1989 Albanian surplus, and have seen some real [ahem] 'interesting' dents/cracks/dings in unfired ammo. [It will be a day or 2, but I'll warm up the Kodak digi-cam and snap a couple of pix]

The Alabanian stuff ususally just has a date code in the head-stamp like 88 or 89.

Make absolutely certain that the chmaber of your M-44 is clean. If you have any bit of cosmoline left in the chamber, that really seems to be a 'crud magnet' for everything else. Also, a lot of the 7.62x54 ammo is lacquer coated, so it doesn't take too many rounds to build a sticky coat in the chamber.

Here is a link to the www.russian-mosin-nagant.com webssire reagarding the sticky bolt issue:

http://www.russian-mosin-nagant.com/Sticky_bolt.htm