Primers coming out while shooting

[chris93555]

I have took apart 18 bullets from this load and the avg load is 39.7g, I'm just not understanding how these are over charged :banghead:, min is 38g and i'm at 39.7g and max is 42g, and what does the gun matter to the primers blowing out? Also OAL is just at or right below as stated in the book, my using Speer bullets and speer data which has data from the exact bullet, am I missing something here? Thanks for everybody help

 

[rcmodel]

and what does the gun matter to the primers blowing out. am I missing something here?

Every rifle barrel & chamber is different.

You apparently have a tight chamber, rough or tight bore, or otherwise have something different about your rifle that won't handle that load.

The MAX load in a load manual is a MAX load in the barrel it was tested in, nothing more, or less.

That is why we should always start low and work up a load in the barrel you are using.

rc

 

[chris93555]

Every rifle barrel & chamber is different.

You apparently have a tight chamber, rough or tight bore, or otherwise have something different about your rifle that won't handle that load.

The MAX load in a load manual is a MAX load in the barrel it was tested in, nothing more, or less.

That is why we should always start low and work up a load in the barrel you are using.

rc

Come to think about it, this gun does have a very tight camber, it's staring to make sense now, I have to use a full length sizer or I cant get the brass out

 

[rcmodel]

You can't get the brass out because you are running about 75,000 PSI pressure with those loads.

Otherwise, the primers would not leak and fall out.

SAAMI MAX pressure for the .243 Win is 60,000 PSI.

rc

 

[snuffy]

OK, I just looked at the brass and it's only happening to FC brass, but not all of them.

That's another reason you're seeing pressure signs, (this sign is a flashing neon). Federal is well known to be soft-in-the-head area, it expands before any other brass will.

No matter, you'll have to back off those loads. If it were me, I'd drop back 10% from that 40 grain load, 4.0. That would be 36.0 grains, then work your way back up.

I'd also check your bolt face to see if there's any craters where hot gases may have cut into the bolt face.

It DID happen to me once. I was loading .308 for a rem. heavy barrel. A starting load of AA-2520 behind a 168 match bullet blew the primer in the first round!

 

[oldreloader]

rcmodel and snuffy are VERY wise. Listen to what they say.

 

[chris93555]

I have learned a great lesson here, as we speak, my taking apart 200+ rds. (so glad I bought a press mounted bullet puller) I want to thank everybody for taking there time to help me, I wouldn't even thought it was over pressure til you guys explained it.

 

[chris93555]

I'd also check your bolt face to see if there's any craters where hot gases may have cut into the bolt face.

There is a small crater on the bolt face, should I replace it?

 

[snuffy]

There is a small crater on the bolt face, should I replace it?

Since I pointed out to look for it, now you know it's there. If it bothers you send it to Savage, let them inspect it. I don't think it will affect the operation of the rifle. Especially if it's right where the edge of the primer meets the bolt. If it's further toward the center, the fired primers may extrude into the crater making it harder to rotate the bolt open. But I might be over reacting or nit picking.

 

[Trent]

If you have a crater on your bolt face from over-pressure, you need to take your gun to a gunsmith pronto. The bolt may need resurfaced / replaced. But the real risk is only God knows what you may have done to your breech locking lugs!

I witnessed a kaboom once where the guy was using too-hot ammo and had the receiver locking lugs sheer off, sending the bolt on it's merry way backwards on a trip straight to his forehead. Scary day for everyone. He was fine, rifle was destroyed, but he could have been killed.

Furthermore, DO NOT RELOAD FIRED CASINGS FROM THAT BATCH. If they were that significantly overpressured you may have weakened the case wall around the base. If you reload a weakened case and you have a case head separate, you're in for a VERY bad day. 50,000+ PSI gasses will try to escape the WRONG END of the weapon.

If your rifle checks out and there is no stress to the locking lugs, bulged barrel, or damage to the bolt/bolt head, once you tear those rounds down, start at 10% under max load.

FWIW: Sierra 5th edition lists 80 gr, 243 Win, w/ Varget as 38.0 max load.

According to Sierra you are 2.0 gr over.

According to Hodgedon's own published data on Varget, 38.5 gr is max load on an 80 gr projectile, and you're 1.5 grains over that!

I know that Sierra tested with Federal 210M primers in a Remington 700 (they list their setups with data).

You're using tulammo primers - I have *zero* knowledge on how those stack up to normal large rifle primers. Regardless, on ANY rifle, in ANY caliber, you need to start back at "square one".

You should be starting these loads out somewhere around 34.2gr and working up slowly from there. Do 5 round batches every .2 gr until you see signs of overpressure (cratered / flattened / displaced primers, etching of bolt mark on headstamp, pressure rings around base, etc).

IF YOU SWITCH POWDER, BULLET TYPE (even if staying at 80gr), or PRIMER BRAND (cci, federal, ww, etc), IMMEDIATELY BACK OFF TO 10% BELOW MAX AND START OVER AGAIN.

If you switch POWDER OR PRIMER LOT, it is a damn good idea to back off a LITTLE. I have had different lots (but same brand) of primers and powder behave VERY differently before. If you're skirting close to max load, you could be in for a surprise if you switch lot #'s on a batch of powder. Suddenly that load you've been using (for perhaps years) will suddenly show signs of overpressure and you'll be scratching your head!

 

[rem22long40x]

are you using 223 brass or 5.56 NATO brass , I have heard of this with loading NATO brass and shooting them out of a 223 rifle.

 

[chris93555]

are you using 223 brass or 5.56 NATO brass

neither, 243 brass

 

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

After reading the entire thread, I'm with rcmodel, snuffy and Trent. Save, but don't use your fired casings. Get your rifle checked out by a qualified gunsmith or send it back to Savage to be checked out.

You were smart to post this question on the forum and to be honest, factual and detailed in your answers to everyone's questions. Probably saved your rifle blowing up and you possibly getting hurt. It's very good you pulled down all the loaded cartridges. You can now reload those with a better load.

One suggestion I would make: Get yourself a couple more reloading manuals or check more than one source when making a decision on what weight to start a particular load. In doing so, you'll help yourself avoid a situation like this in the future. I own several, check them all and go to the various manufacturer's websites for more recent data as well. Things change over time and like has already been said, not all barrels are equal.

More than anything else, I'm glad you weren't hurt.

Best Regards,

Dave

 

[P-32]

Chris, I'm glad you decided to step back and look at things again. A couple of things. One: Federal brass is pretty heavy which cuts down case capacity. Looking at the Speer 13, the cases Speer used to test was WW brass . WW has a larger case capacity than Federal because it's light. For example, I have a match 223 load which works well in Lake City brass. Loading the very same load in Federal brass would pop primers out and jam the trigger on my expensive match AR. It’s embarrassing to have the armorer have to come and open up the rifle while shooting at Camp Perry.

Number two: I use Speer data and have for 20+ years. I do know Speer has published some data which was freacking HOT. For example Speer 11 had 357 and Blue Dot data which was pretty dang hot. The listed starting loads were hotter than my favorite load I had been using for years. Just because the book says you can do it doesn’t mean we can or should get there.

Number Three: your load data is not the same as my Speer 13. OK, I understand your book is newer than mine. My ‘06 hunting load has not changed one bit through Speers 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13. Speer is slow to change most data. What I’m saying is recheck your data because your max load is wrong.

Finally, I’ve found in some cases, the reloads shot the best about midway. My '06 hunting load is midway. The deer will never know I could have shot the bullet another 100 FPS faster. Good luck.

 

[FROGO207]

One other thing I would like to add is to make sure that your brass is NOT OVER max length. I would trim it to min length before reloading it anyway. Even once fired brass could be over length in your particular rifle if the chamber is bored shallow. This is another thing that I would have the gunsmith check when he inspected your rifle for a safety check. If the bullet is pinching the neck brass against the chamber when exiting you can have a massive overpressure spike as a result.

 

[rcmodel]

Good info from FROGO207 on checking case length.
If the case is too long it jams into the end of the chamber and may not be able to expand to release the bullet.

Also worth a look is whether or not your fired & unsized cases will allow a bullet to slide in & out of the neck easily.

If your brass has thickened necks, or your rifle has a tight chamber neck area, the same thing will result.

Not enough room for the case to expand and freely release the bullet which will also raise pressure.

rc

 

[30Cal]

OK, I just looked at the brass and it's only happening to FC brass, but not all of them. I'm using 80gr. Speer Hot-corr bullets, 40gr. of varget, and tulammo large rifles primers. I use a Lee Single stage press with Lee 2 die set with full length sizer. I put a light crimp on them if any.

Federal brass is known to be soft. Loose primers are the norm when dealing the FC. I'm really surprised that nobody else caught this. I wouldn't even bother picking them up. I've had some where the primer was loose after the first firing.

 

[chris93555]

Get yourself a couple more reloading manuals

Thanks for your input, I'm so glad I posted to ask the questions before I kept using these bullets, I have 6 other reloading books, but at the time of reloading these bullets, I only had speer. I checked my other books last night and Lee has them loaded between 36-38.5, and lyman doesn't even show varget, for now on I'm double checking all the data for my next loads.

 

[chris93555]

One other thing I would like to add is to make sure that your brass is NOT OVER max length.

I will be making sure I don't go over max length, as I recall I trimmed these cases, but thanks for the infomation

 

[chris93555]

I want to thank RCmodel, trent, snuffy and everybody else with there input and kept me from blowing up my gun and hurting myself

 

[snuffy]

Federal brass is known to be soft. Loose primers are the norm when dealing the FC. I'm really surprised that nobody else caught this. I wouldn't even bother picking them up. I've had some where the primer was loose after the first firing.

I DID!! Post #30----------

Quote:
OK, I just looked at the brass and it's only happening to FC brass, but not all of them.
That's another reason you're seeing pressure signs, (this sign is a flashing neon). Federal is well known to be soft-in-the-head area, it expands before any other brass will.

It WOULD be a good idea to have the rifle checked by a gunsmith. Since Savage rifles have a multi piece bolt, just the head portion is really easy to switch out. That would rid you of the crater AND at the same time you'd be replacing the locking lugs. That'sIF the axis is built like the other Savage products. Then a simple headspace check, you're good to go.

 

[mtrmn]

http://www.jamescalhoon.com/primers_and_pressure.php

Good read
When the OP stated it only occurred with FC brass that brought up old memories and I had to research my findings of several years ago.

Notice the primer size chart in this article. Federal primers are slightly larger than other brands. This would logically lead me to think FC primer pockets are most likely larger than other brands FROM THE FACTORY. I can tell you from experience that the FC brass did give me a primer-blowing problem in an AR15 with fairly light loads. I also noticed FC was extremely EASY to prime with very little or no resistance. I went through my brass and scrapped every FC shell I could find. No more problemo. So, how hard was it to prime the FC brass? Same amount of resistance as other brands?

Also, even normal pressure loads will leak around a loose primer and cause gouging of the bolt face.

Now, in saying all that I AM NOT ADVOCATING EXCEEDING MAX LOADS! Merely offering another explanation for what's going on. Stopping when you get odd results and checking things out is the proper way of going at this. You have done well seeking advice here from all these fine members and hopefully your problems will be no more.

 

[velocette]

Another item worthy of note.
Federal brass, at least with .308 & 30-06 is the heaviest of all the brass that I reload with. This includes GI and Nato brass.
If the Fed brass is the heaviest, it also has the least internal volume.
Therefore, as with most GI brass a reduced load is called for, but perhaps with Federal, reduce even more than with GI brass.
Go and weigh a bunch of various brands of fired brass. You may be surprised at how heavy the Fed stuff is. This also might be the reason many folks believe that Fed brass is soft. It might be, but it also might be yielding a lot more pressure than Win or RP or Hornady brass.

Roger

 

[dc.fireman]

I've had primers come out before. It wasn't the case, the powder charge, or loose primer pockets. It was caused by extreme copper fouling, in an AR-15 barrel. Just something to check for, if you know everything else is OK.

Get some Gunslick Foaming Bore Cleaner, or a comparable type of copper removing solvent. I let the G/S sit in my bore overnight. In the morning, when I came back, there was a pile of navy blue goop at the muzzle end of the bore.

With heavy copper fouling, you can also increase chamber pressure, and expect your accuracy to decrease - if you're getting popped primers, and can't seem to hit the broad side of a barn, then investigate fouling as a possible cause. Good Luck, you've gotten some sound advice from many of the previous posters.

-tc

 

[mtrmn]

I also had a couple primers blow out of cases on AR15's due to LIGHT loads. The gun would cycle, but the round was so weak it did not keep the case pushed hard against the bolt face and pressure blew the primer out. At least that was how it was explained to me. I can't see this happening in a fixed-bolt gun, although it may raise the primer up a little.

The cases were sooty on the outside because there wasn't enough pressure to expand the brass case against the sidewalls of the chamber and seal it off, allowing gas to migrate back around the case. I immediately jumped to the conclusion the round was too hot for some reason because, after all it's blowing the primers plumb out of the case, right? I got on the internet reading forums etc and read about this happening to others. I tried some hotter loads and all the problems went away. This was not with FC brass by the way.
My weak load was:
LC brass
20.5 gr WC844 powder (max is like 25gr if IIRC)
CCI 400 primer
69 gr SMK loaded to magazine length.
Shot bugholes at 100 yds, but having to tear down my AR to remove spent primers from the trigger mechanism kinda put a damper on my enthusiasm.