stubbicatt
Member
Sorry if I don't articulate my concerns here very well, but my concerns are still sort of half baked anyways, just mulling this over.
I purchased an old (nearly as old as me!) Mannlicher Schoenaur rifle a few months back, as I always wanted one, and there it was in 243, a caliber I also wanted. The rifle has been a learning curve in many ways, but I really like it and feel lucky that I found one after all these years.
Have shot 40 rounds through it, 20 of the Winchester 100 grain bullets, 20 Federal 80 grain loads. Shot amazingly well with the factory stuff, so being a handloader I have been laying in supplies to load with.
Generally when I start to load for a firearm, I try to find the stand off distance from the lands and grooves by taking a fired case, pinching the case mouth with a needle nosed pliars, hand seating a bullet, and chambering and removing this dummy cartridge, and measuring with a comparator to find the point of engagement.
I did this with a Winchester case, fired in the rifle, and all is swell. So one day I'm futzing about and I take a Federal case fired in this rifle, and the fired neck was so tight that the bullet was somewhat difficult to hand seat in that neck. This freaked me out, as the 243 is a relatively high pressure cartridge, this is a really tight neck, and so I began to look for other pressure signs on the Federal spent cases, and then compared them to the WW cases.
Other than the tight neck, I found no other signs of high pressure on the Federal cases, but the WW had significant swelling at the fire ring, and a slightly cratered primer. One or two had signs of gas leaks around the primers as well, and this was factory ammunition!
The Fed cases weighed more empty than do the WW cases.
I don't think I will attempt to reload the Federal cases. Anybody here have suggestions or input? I think maybe I see an issue where there is none, but I wonder whether I should have a gunsmith maybe re-ream this chamber to open that neck a little bit more. I suppose the easy thing is to avoid Federal altogether, which should be easy as I purchased 100 Lapua cases for the thing, though I haven't shot any of them nor seen how thick their necks are.
Again apologies if it seems like a rant, but the tight necks scare me, as I have always read that the neck should expand sufficiently to completely release the bullet, and I guess I wonder if I should be scared. I mean a day may come where, as I have done before since I am an old duffer now, I forget my ammo at home when going on a hunt and have to buy factory ammo, and I would worry about shooting said ammo in this rifle.
Thanks in advance.
I purchased an old (nearly as old as me!) Mannlicher Schoenaur rifle a few months back, as I always wanted one, and there it was in 243, a caliber I also wanted. The rifle has been a learning curve in many ways, but I really like it and feel lucky that I found one after all these years.
Have shot 40 rounds through it, 20 of the Winchester 100 grain bullets, 20 Federal 80 grain loads. Shot amazingly well with the factory stuff, so being a handloader I have been laying in supplies to load with.
Generally when I start to load for a firearm, I try to find the stand off distance from the lands and grooves by taking a fired case, pinching the case mouth with a needle nosed pliars, hand seating a bullet, and chambering and removing this dummy cartridge, and measuring with a comparator to find the point of engagement.
I did this with a Winchester case, fired in the rifle, and all is swell. So one day I'm futzing about and I take a Federal case fired in this rifle, and the fired neck was so tight that the bullet was somewhat difficult to hand seat in that neck. This freaked me out, as the 243 is a relatively high pressure cartridge, this is a really tight neck, and so I began to look for other pressure signs on the Federal spent cases, and then compared them to the WW cases.
Other than the tight neck, I found no other signs of high pressure on the Federal cases, but the WW had significant swelling at the fire ring, and a slightly cratered primer. One or two had signs of gas leaks around the primers as well, and this was factory ammunition!
The Fed cases weighed more empty than do the WW cases.
I don't think I will attempt to reload the Federal cases. Anybody here have suggestions or input? I think maybe I see an issue where there is none, but I wonder whether I should have a gunsmith maybe re-ream this chamber to open that neck a little bit more. I suppose the easy thing is to avoid Federal altogether, which should be easy as I purchased 100 Lapua cases for the thing, though I haven't shot any of them nor seen how thick their necks are.
Again apologies if it seems like a rant, but the tight necks scare me, as I have always read that the neck should expand sufficiently to completely release the bullet, and I guess I wonder if I should be scared. I mean a day may come where, as I have done before since I am an old duffer now, I forget my ammo at home when going on a hunt and have to buy factory ammo, and I would worry about shooting said ammo in this rifle.
Thanks in advance.
