Years ago I purchased a Savage 10FP in .308. It never shot well. Bad groups, sticky extraction and just typically a pain in the butt. So I went out, purchased a Shilen barrel in 6mm BR, screwed it on and never looked back. It was a real tack driver. The old .308 barrel sat all alone in the back of my safe.
Well, every time I opened the safe, the old barrel asked to be used, so I decided it was time. I took it to a smith, had it cut down from 26" to 22" and had it threaded for a brake. I unscrewed the Shilen and screwed on the .308. Reloaded up some 155g A-Max's over 42 grains of Varget and took it to the range.
Very difficult extraction. Moved up to 42.5 and had to whack the bolt to extract the cartridge. Looking at the brass, there were straight lines on the neck all evenly spaced. Looked in the chamber and saw their mates!
Tried polishing the chamber with no luck (still difficult to extract), so back to the smith it went to have the chamber rereamed. They did a chamber cast and saw what looked like reamer marks, almost like someone left the reamer in the chamber and whacked it with a hammer! That's how much it imprinted. After rereaming, a cast showed a clean chamber. Took it to the range and ran charges up to 44 grains with zero issues.
I had read a tremendous amount of cause and effects concerning difficult extraction and none of them worked. Apparently Savage let one out of the factory they shouldn't have.
So, one more reason can be added to the possible cause list of extraction problems. Reamer marks in the chamber. Who woulda thought?
Whew! I'm done!
Well, every time I opened the safe, the old barrel asked to be used, so I decided it was time. I took it to a smith, had it cut down from 26" to 22" and had it threaded for a brake. I unscrewed the Shilen and screwed on the .308. Reloaded up some 155g A-Max's over 42 grains of Varget and took it to the range.
Very difficult extraction. Moved up to 42.5 and had to whack the bolt to extract the cartridge. Looking at the brass, there were straight lines on the neck all evenly spaced. Looked in the chamber and saw their mates!
Tried polishing the chamber with no luck (still difficult to extract), so back to the smith it went to have the chamber rereamed. They did a chamber cast and saw what looked like reamer marks, almost like someone left the reamer in the chamber and whacked it with a hammer! That's how much it imprinted. After rereaming, a cast showed a clean chamber. Took it to the range and ran charges up to 44 grains with zero issues.
I had read a tremendous amount of cause and effects concerning difficult extraction and none of them worked. Apparently Savage let one out of the factory they shouldn't have.
So, one more reason can be added to the possible cause list of extraction problems. Reamer marks in the chamber. Who woulda thought?
Whew! I'm done!
