224 Valk Neck "Nick" What's causing it?

[berettaprofessor]

Some help, please. Yesterday, I was shooting some 224 Valk reloads for group. The reloads are FC brass, once previous fired, trimmed to 1.590, with a Berger 90 grain VLD bullet and OAL of 2.260 and had a very very light crimp. They were loaded in a 10 round 6.8 SPC metal AR-Stoner magazine. Out of 26 cases, 4 had the pictured nick at the neck rim; 3 minor, and the 4th one, on the right, was a ftf that when extracted, had the bullet significantly pushed down into the neck and this enormous nick (thank god it didn't fire). Sorry, I removed the bullet before the picture. The other three rounds fired and ejected normally and I found them later on inspection. These 4 rounds showed no signs of overcharge that I could detect and the other 22 brass cases of these reloads were pristine if maybe a little sooty around the neck.

My belief is that these nicks are occurring as the bullet is loaded from the magazine or being inserted into the chamber prior to firing, but I only say that because of the ftf in the bullet on the right.
I don't see any spurs in the magazine rim or in the chamber to explain them. The three brass on the left were 1.590" to 1.592" after firing, as were the other undamaged brass. The brass on the left was 1.608 after pulling the bullet and emptying the powder. Any ideas would be appreciated.

As a side note, for those shooting Hornady's 224 Valk Match 88 gran ELD, they are fairly hot. I tried 5 of them yesterday. Accuracy wasn't great and 2/5 rounds had ejector marks on them.

 

[Blue68f100]

Check your barrel extension for burrs. When I build mine I talked with a engineer about their bolt and he warned me that when they started making the 224 V they ran into problems with the extension nut. I machine my own barrels so I worked mine over extra good not to have any burrs. Also take a close look at your magazine, I've seen sharp edges there too.

 

[JimKirk]

You can eliminate if the nicks are happening during feeding by dropping some rounds straight into the chamber ..... firing .....then looking for the nicks .... If none ....it has to be happening during feeding .... Shoot a round then extract and look at the next round that has fed into the chamber ....I

Also as much as those brass are being nicked .... there would be some "brass color" smeared on what ever it causing it ...

 

[jmorris]

My belief is that these nicks are occurring as the bullet is loaded from the magazine or being inserted into the chamber prior to firing,

Then chamber one, don’t fire it and eject it, the nick will be there.