Expiriences with reloading semi auto rifle cartridges

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captain awesome

captain awesome

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To give a back ground, the first semi auto rifle i reloaded for me was my ruger sr556 in 6.8, but previously i had reloaded 223 for a friend for his ar15 and some 308 for his M1a. Since then i have done a lot more 308 and 223 for various other applications.

One issue i seemed to face that vexed me for a long time was the rifles failing to fire. While it wasn't all of the rifles i reloaded for doing it, it wasn't just one, it was several of them and i had no idea why for a long time. I even sent back my ruger sr762 who sent me a brand new one only to find it had the same issue. Light primer strikes or non at all. Which was a result of the bolt not closing all the way.
At first i thought it might be that brass needed to be trimmed shorter...wasnt the case after trial and error. Then i though maybe it needed cleaned better or the bullets needed seated farther down, or the rifle was just dirty.....nothing was fixing it. I was even using small base dies. I swapped them to different presses with the same result. Press manufacturers told me to make sure my presses were camming good and hard on the resizing dies...which they were.

I thought maybe the expander button/ball was pulling on the necks and causing the shoulder to be deformed slightly so i tried carbide expander balls, still no luck. I bought a body die to see if that would make a difference. It didnt. I used redding and RCBS dies both to no avail. I tried adding some crimp to the finished rounds...didnt work. I was finally ready to just give up...My SR762 even had problems doing the same thing with some factory ammo. By this time i was getting sick of it and tried reloading some dirty brass without cleaning it. I read some obscure post on some forum about someone having better luck reloading dirty so i tried it. It didnt help but i did notice one thing. There was a little ring of brighter yellow brass just around the bottom of the shoulder on one that had failed to fire and i ejected. I looked at my others, the ring was faint but it was there, not nearly as noticable on bright shiny clean brass. So what to do?

I called hornady and gave them the specs of the shell plates which i though maybe was too thick and out of spec....nope, they were withing spec acorting to Hornady, same thing with Dillon when i called them. RCBS and Redding both said i could send the dies back at my cost and they would make sure they were in spec....no. I was rather frustrated about that. I had already dumped a ton of money into trying to figure this out.

So what did i do? I wish i had a lathe as it would have been more precise but i tried shaving off a couple thousanths of metal off the bottom of one of my sizing dies with the die chucked onto a drill and using fine grit sand paper very carefully and slowly going at it taking measurements as i went. I started with two thousanths which didnt work, but when i went up to four thousanths, i started getting rounds going off most of the time with a few failures. I took a couple more thousanths off and bingo! I had reliable ammo. I was a little worried it would effect accuracy but i can tell you it did not. My 6.8 is as accurate as ever, cheap reloads shoot just as well as factory ammo in my sr762 after the adjustments to the die.

I cannot explain to you why i had such rotten luck with so may rifles, the issue puzzled everyone i talked to about it. No one seemd to encounter the same issue as me, which i find amazing considering i had the same issue happen on 6 different rifles with 2 diffent die manufactures on 3 diffent reloading presses. You would swear I was doing something wrong, and for a long time i thought i must have been, but i wasnt. Anyway i thought i would share my experience and potentially save someone else from pulling their hair out. I am bald now

My personal theory was i happened to have several manufacuring tolerance issues that should have been fine by themselves stack up agained me. Tight chambered rifles, slightly larger die chambers than what others may be and shelplates while within spec, were thicker than some others. Just my theorys but hey at least the problem was solved. Why i never invested in go/no go gauges I have no idea...but I recommend it. I figured it out roughly 2 years ago and wanted to make sure I didnt encounter any further issues before I posted the story and things have been flawless since.
So if you happen to be as unlucky as i was...try getting a body die and shaving a couple thousanths of an inch off the bottom, push that shoulder back a little more and see what happens. It might solve your problem.
 
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captain awesome said:
but i tried shaving off a couple thousanths of metal off the bottom of one of my sizing dies
Click to expand...
Of all the sizers I have ever had, only one needed that. Always make sure that is the issue before doing it, as pushing the shoulder back too far can can worse issues than a failure to fire.

That said, I don't see how not moving the shoulder back enough would cause misfires in a closed action. Moving it too far back can.

Can a rifle release the firing pin if the bolt isn't closed all the way? Sounds dangerous to me. You certainly don't have full lug contact if it does.
captain awesome said:
There was a little ring of brighter yellow brass just around the bottom of the shoulder on one that had failed to fire and i ejected.
Click to expand...
I am not really understanding this. Bright from being to fat there? Bright from being stretched there?

You should invest in some way of measuring the shoulder postilion on fired and sized brass. A no go gauge might be a good investment as well.

Interesting, and a little worrisome.
 
When you'd have a failure to fire would you remove the round and treat it as a dud (i.e. disassemble it, whatever)? Did you ever take a F2F round and try a 2nd attempt to get it to fire? If so - did it ever work on the 2nd attempt?
 
Wait. Hold up. Why were you having the same issue with factory ammo? Didn't that indicate an firearm chamber issue?
Click to expand...

Missed that part the first time around and I agree. I would have fixed the rifle instead of having to make "special" ammunition for it.
 
"...shaving off a couple thousanths of metal off the bottom of one of my sizing dies..." Totally unnecessary. Dies are made to SAMMI specs.
Reloading for a semi-auto is really not any different than a bolt action. Except, you must FL resize every time, check case lengths and trim(chamfer and deburr) as required, only and watch the OAL.
"...go/no go gauges..." Only tell you if whatever you're testing is within spec.
"...issue happen on 6 different rifles with 2 different die manufactures on 3 different reloading presses..." Indicates the issue is the dies were not set up correctly. Too low, likely.
"...Missed that part..." I've read it 3 times and still don't see any mention of factory ammo.
 
captain awesome said:
[snip]

I thought maybe the expander button/ball was pulling on the necks and causing the shoulder to be deformed slightly so i tried carbide expander balls, still no luck. I bought a body die to see if that would make a difference. It didnt. I used redding and RCBS dies both to no avail. I tried adding some crimp to the finished rounds...didnt work. I was finally ready to just give up...My SR762 even had problems doing the same thing with some factory ammo. By this time i was getting sick of it and tried reloading some dirty brass without cleaning it. I read some obscure post on some forum about someone having better luck reloading dirty so i tried it. It didnt help but i did notice one thing. There was a little ring of brighter yellow brass just around the bottom of the shoulder on one that had failed to fire and i ejected. I looked at my others, the ring was faint but it was there, not nearly as noticable on bright shiny clean brass. So what to do?

[snip
Click to expand...

I presume people are referencing the bolded statement above. I left the whole paragraph there for context......

I presume "...had the problems doing the same thing with factory ammo." is referring to F2F problems....although comments earlier in that paragraph refer to reloaded issues - not factory stuff. That's why it might be flying by people. I certainly missed it initially.
 
I had a similar thing happen to me, but with a Remington R25 (.308 A10 clone).....and I had never got to reloads for it yet. Remington factory was perfect......Federal factory would chamber the first round fine, then hang (would not fully chamber and close) on the second. Over and over.

Everything dropped into a Wilson just fine! What I found was the Federal cases were slightly wider from .5 to the base than the Remingtons.....just enough. So I reloaded a few (Remingtons) and found the same problem........tried again with small base dies and the problem went away. For me small-base dies are worth the insurance.

Yes, the chamber was at fault and I could've sent the rifle back to Remington......but that'd be such a pain, plus the damn rifle was accurate.....very accurate.....and small-base dies solved it, so why mess with success? Needless to say I don't shoot Federal in it.
 
Wow didnt expect such a dramatic response, so in order:

Yes i thought at first maybe the shoulder was to short but that didnt end up being the case. It was easy to see with the m1a because if the bolt doesnt close all the way it is obvious.
I rand the 223 and 308 brass through a dillon superswage to get rid of the military crimp but the 6.8 it was never an issue. Either way i always made sure the primers were seated flush or ever so slightly below.

"Can a rifle release the firing pin if the bolt isn't closed all the way? Sounds dangerous to me. You certainly don't have full lug contact if it does."

It is not possible as far as i can tell, the bolt gets in the way of the hammer striking the firing pin on an ar15 and ar10 thus causing the light or nonexistant primer strikes. But yes it was very worrysome.

As fare as the shiny ring around the shoulder of the brass, this was caused by the brass jaming up agained the chamber wall. One thing i forgot to mention, with all of the failure to fire it was almost always very difficult to open the bolt. I believe this was because of the brass jaming into the too tight chamber.

There was no bulges in the brass.

Yes my ruger sr762 was having the same issue with SOME factory ammo. This rifle was the worse offender, it was sent back to Ruger and i was sent a replacment. Factory ammo worked in the replacment but still not reloads..

Some times the second time i chambered the failed rounds they would fire, some times not.

Yes i thought maybe my dies were set up improperly as well. Believe me i tried it so they would barely touch the shelplate and also tried adjusting so the press was camming VERY hard and everything in between. I had the both the press and die makers walk me through setting them up. And yeah i know it sounds absolutely insane that it would happen that much to one person without
It being user error. If some one else was telling me the same thing i would have been beyond skeptical as well.
 
captain awesome said:
Some times the second time i chambered the failed rounds they would fire, some times not.
Click to expand...

The following doesn't address all of your problems (otherwise you'd still be having them)....but I'll comment.....

You didn't comment on your cleaning regimen - either in general or for primer pockets specifically.

I've had 3 F2Fs in the 3,000 rounds or so of .223 I've loaded. In all three cases I observed a very light primer strike.....and they each fired on a 2nd firing attempt.

I'm convinced in those situations I hadn't seated the primer fully - and the first firing attempt simply pushed the primer all the way into the primer pocket. Then, after being fully seated, the round then fired on the 2nd attempt.

Again - if that were your issue in totality I would think you'd still be experiencing your issues. I'm assuming, of course, that your cleaning and case prep methods have stayed constant through all of this.

Congrats on getting reliable ammo going!

OR
 
You know thinking about it, i wonder if the shouder was too wide or not far enough back or what... It does seem odd to me that the round would be difficult to exteact it it wasnt to wide in diameter...maybe i am way off and it would happen either way
 
Cleaning of the brass: intially i was using a vinigar solution in a tumber then rinsing thoroughly then drying thoroughly and waiting a day or two to be sure all the water was gone and checking several as well. I also did walnut media in a vibrator for others and washingnit all out after using a media separator. The dirty ones that made me notice the slight ring around the shoulder after chambering, i didnt do anything to except make sure there was no lose or caked dirt on/in them. None of these methods changed my results at all.
 
It appears to be the case of tight chambers. So 2 of your 6 problematic rifles appears to be Rugers. What were the manufactures of the other 4?
 
captain awesome said:
As fare as the shiny ring around the shoulder of the brass, this was caused by the brass jaming up agained the chamber wall. One thing i forgot to mention, with all of the failure to fire it was almost always very difficult to open the bolt. I believe this was because of the brass jaming into the too tight chamber.
Click to expand...
Then the brass is too large in diameter at the base, whether a fault of the brass/sizer or a tight (diameter) chamber. A small base die might be the answer. Sounds like you got the rear sized by shaving the die and getting the base sized, but this could be moving the shoulder too far and cause brass failure from stretching after 2, 3, or 4 firings.
 
@Salmoneye

Ummmmm thats what i did.....and no that was definitely not the problem. If it stops and its still sticking out a bit is that somehow acceptable? Thanks for mentioning it but that was part of my research i came across Trying to fix the issue and using a hand primer to make double sure they were all the way in did nothing. And if that was the case doing what i did would have not fixed it and i would have continued to have the same issues. Quite frankly unless you are using a priming system similar to the dillon super 1050 and its out of adjustment i dont even know how what you are describing would be possible. I prime by feel for most of my casings. And the 1050(which was purchased well after i was having these issues) i have set to make just below flush.
If one is sticking out a bit then i address it.
 
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For what its worth i was worried about pushing the shoulder back to far and having those issues to contend with.wish i swhy i ounly took a few thousanths of a inch off. From what i understand chamber tolerances and variations depending on which mfg can. Be greater than the amount i removed from the bottom of the die.
 
2 were rugers, 2 were springfield m1a's i dont know who made the 2 223s i thing one was called an xtr? They both belonged to a friend of mine who i am no longer in contact with the 223 i remmwber it was not as much of a problem only once in awhile
 
captain awesome said:
To give a back ground, the first semi auto rifle i reloaded for me was my ruger sr556 in 6.8, but previously i had reloaded 223 for a friend for his ar15 and some 308 for his M1a. Since then i have done a lot more 308 and 223 for various other applications.

One issue i seemed to face that vexed me for a long time was the rifles failing to fire. While it wasn't all of the rifles i reloaded for doing it, it wasn't just one, it was several of them and i had no idea why for a long time. I even sent back my ruger sr762 who sent me a brand new one only to find it had the same issue. Light primer strikes or non at all. Which was a result of the bolt not closing all the way.
At first i thought it might be that brass needed to be trimmed shorter...wasnt the case after trial and error. Then i though maybe it needed cleaned better or the bullets needed seated farther down, or the rifle was just dirty.....nothing was fixing it. I was even using small base dies. I swapped them to different presses with the same result. Press manufacturers told me to make sure my presses were camming good and hard on the resizing dies...which they were.

I thought maybe the expander button/ball was pulling on the necks and causing the shoulder to be deformed slightly so i tried carbide expander balls, still no luck. I bought a body die to see if that would make a difference. It didnt. I used redding and RCBS dies both to no avail. I tried adding some crimp to the finished rounds...didnt work. I was finally ready to just give up...My SR762 even had problems doing the same thing with some factory ammo. By this time i was getting sick of it and tried reloading some dirty brass without cleaning it. I read some obscure post on some forum about someone having better luck reloading dirty so i tried it. It didnt help but i did notice one thing. There was a little ring of brighter yellow brass just around the bottom of the shoulder on one that had failed to fire and i ejected. I looked at my others, the ring was faint but it was there, not nearly as noticable on bright shiny clean brass. So what to do?

I called hornady and gave them the specs of the shell plates which i though maybe was too thick and out of spec....nope, they were withing spec acorting to Hornady, same thing with Dillon when i called them. RCBS and Redding both said i could send the dies back at my cost and they would make sure they were in spec....no. I was rather frustrated about that. I had already dumped a ton of money into trying to figure this out.

So what did i do? I wish i had a lathe as it would have been more precise but i tried shaving off a couple thousanths of metal off the bottom of one of my sizing dies with the die chucked onto a drill and using fine grit sand paper very carefully and slowly going at it taking measurements as i went. I started with two thousanths which didnt work, but when i went up to four thousanths, i started getting rounds going off most of the time with a few failures. I took a couple more thousanths off and bingo! I had reliable ammo. I was a little worried it would effect accuracy but i can tell you it did not. My 6.8 is as accurate as ever, cheap reloads shoot just as well as factory ammo in my sr762 after the adjustments to the die.

I cannot explain to you why i had such rotten luck with so may rifles, the issue puzzled everyone i talked to about it. No one seemd to encounter the same issue as me, which i find amazing considering i had the same issue happen on 6 different rifles with 2 diffent die manufactures on 3 diffent reloading presses. You would swear I was doing something wrong, and for a long time i thought i must have been, but i wasnt. Anyway i thought i would share my experience and potentially save someone else from pulling their hair out. I am bald now

My personal theory was i happened to have several manufacuring tolerance issues that should have been fine by themselves stack up agained me. Tight chambered rifles, slightly larger die chambers than what others may be and shelplates while within spec, were thicker than some others. Just my theorys but hey at least the problem was solved. Why i never invested in go/no go gauges I have no idea...but I recommend it. I figured it out roughly 2 years ago and wanted to make sure I didnt encounter any further issues before I posted the story and things have been flawless since.
So if you happen to be as unlucky as i was...try getting a body die and shaving a couple thousanths of an inch off the bottom, push that shoulder back a little more and see what happens. It might solve your problem.
Click to expand...
I didn't find where you mentioned what primers you used, how old they were, and how and where they were stored. That is one variable that could have been common to all your reloading. I cannot follow the logic of the rest of the troubleshooting or how you solved anything by shaving dies.
 
A AR-15 will drop the hammer no matter what the position of the bolt. When the bolt is not fully forward the hammer hits the bottom of the bolt. Due to design it only has enough energy to set off a primer when the bolt is only fully forward.

Glad you found something that worked for you. An easier way would be to place a shim under the base of the brass between the shell holder. Normally a shell holder has 0.010"-0.012" excess clearance. Once you find how much need to come off, I prefer to take it off the top of the shell holder.
 
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