Any M14/M1A guru's out there?eject not!

[krellmen]

My M1A will not eject reloads IMI brass with sierra matchking 168gr hpbtl 42gr H4895 but will eject portugese and south african surplus. With the gun at home and recoil spring out and dropping any spent brass in the chamber it will not go completely in the last little bit whereas any resized brass or live round will drop right in . Closing the bolt into battery with a any spent brass requires a pretty good wack on the op. rod handle. The spent IMI brass really sticks hard in the chamber and requires the hardest of pushes on the op. rod. I resized brass with a regular 308 and a small base die and they drop right to the bottom. I don't know much about gas guns but I reload for my M1 and it goes bang everytime and cycles great with reloaded korean crap brass. I'm going to look around for someone with some 308 go/no go gauges. Hey, any M14 experts out there? I got a $1400 dollar gun that I can't trust!

 

[m1009]

Sounds like you have a tight chamber....

A good fix is to get the pull thru reamer from Brownells. They also have headspace gauges, a good thing if you need to see what your chamber is measured at. The pull thru reamer will do the job though, it's a must have! The go-no go gauges are ok, but they won't tell you what you need to know, which is the exact dimension of your chamber. We've built many M1A's and have had fantastic accuracy, even was told better than a guy's NM M1A!
Anyway, check out Brownells, they're online, www.brownells.com
and good luck. if you need any more help, just reply here and I'll check back to see. Hubby has done lots of these.
(if you're ever anywhere close to N. Indiana, we'll do it for free! )

 

[Sunray]

"...reloads IMI brass..." Your handloads or somebody else's? They've likely not been full length resized. If they're somebody elses, quit shooting it. Pull the bullets, full length resize 'em and reload them.
A spent case should not just drop into the chamber.
"...I can't trust..." It isn't your rifle, it's the ammo. If the headspace was bad you'd see signs of it with all your ammo.