Hello all! I'm a new member, first time poster, somewhat new to firearms in general & a novice handloader. I almost posted this in the reloading section, but thought this a better fit given the circumstances... Feel free to move it if warranted.
My father-in-law gave me a Marlin 30AW lever-action rifle chambered in .30-30Winchester that had been sitting unused in a closet for many years. Despite it's unknown history, the rifle appeared to be in like-new condition save some very minor surface rust that cleaned up nicely with some 0000 steel wool. The gun functioned flawlessly through several trips to the range using a variety of Federal & Winchester factory rounds; the only problem I've encountered was coming up with the $$ to continue feeding it as much as I wanted to shoot it!
...So, I eventually decided to try my hand at reloading, with the help of a friend who has been reloading for years. While in hind-sight this may not have been the best place to start, I ultimately decided to try loading up some of the Hornady 160gr FTX bullets to see how they performed.
As this was my first time reloading ammo, I was relying heavily on my friend's experience in regards to the initial load workup. We did not have any Hornady-specific load data available at the time
but he assured me that using the 170gr jacketed bullet data in his Lee book should serve as a safe starting point to work up the load data. We found a recipe for Reloader 15 (which was the only powder he had on hand), backed down a few steps from the listed data & loaded up a batch for testing. (IIRC, the first batch was ~31-32gr RL-15 under the Hornady 160gr FTX with CCI 200 primers in once-fired Winchester brass).
I finally made it to the range to try out our completed rounds & as soon as I touched off the first round, I suspected it was too hot. As I worked the lever to eject the spent casing, I found that the lever wouldn't budge - the casing had expanded so far that the extractor couldn't remove it. After eventually popping the extractor hook off of the rim of the case I was able to open the action, only to find a loose, flattened/cratered primer inside the receiver!
Wound up having to field strip it & tap the spent casing out with a rod down the barrel. Aside from a good scare, there was no apparent damage to the rifle or myself, so I immediately decided the rest of the rounds were unsafe & took them home to be disassembled.
Did some more digging & eventually discovered Hornady load data for this particular bullet that indicated a max load of 29.8gr RL-15!!
I rebuilt the rounds using the lowest listed data point (27.2gr RL-15 @ 1800FPS) confident that would resolve my issues, while taking to heart the importance of using projectile-specific load data & cross-referencing data sources!!
On the next range trip I discovered that, much to my surprise, the same problem occurred with the new, lighter load; after firing, I was unable to extract/eject the spent shell casing. Again, I had to field strip the rifle & tap the shell out. This time the primer was still in the pocket at least, & while the primer was still somewhat flattened, the firing pin indentation looked relatively normal with minimal cratering. Somewhat mystified at this point, I proceeded to fire a few rounds of Winchester 'Super-X' factory rounds for comparison & found that they too got stuck in the chamber.
Given that I have been unable to extract/eject *any* spent shell casings since that first over-pressure round, I fear that the rifle has indeed sustained some damage that is not visually apparent (at least not to my untrained eye). While I suspect that I'll ultimately need to have a qualified gunsmith diagnose/repair it, I'm hoping that some of you more experienced shooters might be able to offer some insight as to what is going on here (largely just for my own education/experience, but on the off-chance I might be able to avoid a trip to the 'smith).
While it has been suggested that I might be better off sticking to traditional flat/round nose jacketed bullets for entry-level reloading (which I'm not opposed to), that doesn't address the fact this is now also occurring with factory loaded ammunition. I've heard suggestions that this could be caused by anything from a headspacing issue to a faulty extractor, & my head is now swimming with well-intentioned (but probably incorrect) theories & I lack the knowledge/experience to definitively sort the possible/likely from the impossible/unlikely theories.:banghead:
Sorry for the extremely long post, but I've been trying to wrap my head around this problem for a few months now & trying to give you guys 'the rest of the story'...
My father-in-law gave me a Marlin 30AW lever-action rifle chambered in .30-30Winchester that had been sitting unused in a closet for many years. Despite it's unknown history, the rifle appeared to be in like-new condition save some very minor surface rust that cleaned up nicely with some 0000 steel wool. The gun functioned flawlessly through several trips to the range using a variety of Federal & Winchester factory rounds; the only problem I've encountered was coming up with the $$ to continue feeding it as much as I wanted to shoot it!
...So, I eventually decided to try my hand at reloading, with the help of a friend who has been reloading for years. While in hind-sight this may not have been the best place to start, I ultimately decided to try loading up some of the Hornady 160gr FTX bullets to see how they performed.
As this was my first time reloading ammo, I was relying heavily on my friend's experience in regards to the initial load workup. We did not have any Hornady-specific load data available at the time
but he assured me that using the 170gr jacketed bullet data in his Lee book should serve as a safe starting point to work up the load data. We found a recipe for Reloader 15 (which was the only powder he had on hand), backed down a few steps from the listed data & loaded up a batch for testing. (IIRC, the first batch was ~31-32gr RL-15 under the Hornady 160gr FTX with CCI 200 primers in once-fired Winchester brass).I finally made it to the range to try out our completed rounds & as soon as I touched off the first round, I suspected it was too hot. As I worked the lever to eject the spent casing, I found that the lever wouldn't budge - the casing had expanded so far that the extractor couldn't remove it. After eventually popping the extractor hook off of the rim of the case I was able to open the action, only to find a loose, flattened/cratered primer inside the receiver!
Wound up having to field strip it & tap the spent casing out with a rod down the barrel. Aside from a good scare, there was no apparent damage to the rifle or myself, so I immediately decided the rest of the rounds were unsafe & took them home to be disassembled.Did some more digging & eventually discovered Hornady load data for this particular bullet that indicated a max load of 29.8gr RL-15!!
I rebuilt the rounds using the lowest listed data point (27.2gr RL-15 @ 1800FPS) confident that would resolve my issues, while taking to heart the importance of using projectile-specific load data & cross-referencing data sources!!
On the next range trip I discovered that, much to my surprise, the same problem occurred with the new, lighter load; after firing, I was unable to extract/eject the spent shell casing. Again, I had to field strip the rifle & tap the shell out. This time the primer was still in the pocket at least, & while the primer was still somewhat flattened, the firing pin indentation looked relatively normal with minimal cratering. Somewhat mystified at this point, I proceeded to fire a few rounds of Winchester 'Super-X' factory rounds for comparison & found that they too got stuck in the chamber.
Given that I have been unable to extract/eject *any* spent shell casings since that first over-pressure round, I fear that the rifle has indeed sustained some damage that is not visually apparent (at least not to my untrained eye). While I suspect that I'll ultimately need to have a qualified gunsmith diagnose/repair it, I'm hoping that some of you more experienced shooters might be able to offer some insight as to what is going on here (largely just for my own education/experience, but on the off-chance I might be able to avoid a trip to the 'smith).
While it has been suggested that I might be better off sticking to traditional flat/round nose jacketed bullets for entry-level reloading (which I'm not opposed to), that doesn't address the fact this is now also occurring with factory loaded ammunition. I've heard suggestions that this could be caused by anything from a headspacing issue to a faulty extractor, & my head is now swimming with well-intentioned (but probably incorrect) theories & I lack the knowledge/experience to definitively sort the possible/likely from the impossible/unlikely theories.
:banghead:Sorry for the extremely long post, but I've been trying to wrap my head around this problem for a few months now & trying to give you guys 'the rest of the story'...
