When none of the malfunction drills work…

JTPinTX

JTPinTX

Custom Call Maker
That is when you know you have a serious problem.

We were on a small sounder of pigs last night, just as it was starting to sprinkle. 3rd trigger pull was a dead trigger. Ran all the drills in the dark, just like I have been trained in my classes. No joy. Kicked on my light and it was still out of battery (lightweight upper, no forward assist, not that it would have mattered). Opened it up and looked in the chamber, and there it was. The dreaded separated neck.

We were done anyways since it was about to start pouring rain. So I went home and tore it down, used some cerrosafe to cast around it and pop it out. Back in business today. Already ran my test rounds and zero check, all SAT.

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Invest in a case extractor. They're only around $10 or so with shipping. I've always got one in my gear bag. Two minute job and your done.

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Are they cartridge specific? I have seen them for 556 but this was just the neck on a 300 HAMR. Would it open up enough to grab that?
 
Well, running down this rabbit hole, I think I can take one for 7.62x39, use the "grabber" part, and modify the body for the smaller diameter HAMR case. I ordered a couple of them pretty cheap off Ebay and when they get here I will play with them a bit in the lathe and get something rigged up.

I probably need a system to deal with this in an expedient fashion. One reason I bought the HAMR was to be able to form brass from 556 on the cheap (no reason to use expensive stuff just killing pigs. lol). Which means of course sometimes there are case failures from necking up from 556 to 30 cal. I do anneal before and after forming to help, but I think every now and then and old piece of 556 brass slips into my case forming process. That is probably what happened here. I try and use once fired for the initial forming, but who knows.
 
Since the separation seems to be at the shoulder, if I understand situation, all that remains stuck in your chamber is the neck of the case, isn't it? If so you might try a stiff oversized (a new .308 or bronze .357) bore brush, maybe stainless .308 brush would be all that it takes to remove just the necks???
The problems we used to have was case separation near head of case w/308 & 30-06 so lots more friction between separated case and chamber than there would be with just the neck separations.
 
I tried a brush first last night, it didn't work. I had jammed that neck in there pretty hard trying to clear it with malfunction drills.
 
JTPinTX said:
Are they cartridge specific? I have seen them for 556 but this was just the neck on a 300 HAMR. Would it open up enough to grab that?
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I'm not really sure. A 308 extractor may work for the 300 HAMR, but again, I really don't know. Check them out a little further, call the manufacture and they might be able to make one or have it in stock.
 
Bob Azadi said:
Luckily, I have been able to push the broken section out with the bore brush every time that has happened to me.
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You're right, I forgot about that trick. That's what I used before I went to the extractors. The only reason I went to the extractor was one time the brush didn't work.
 
I've had this happen numerous times. I used a fine threaded tap in a 8 point socket with a 3/8 drive extension. Insert tap carefully in neck and turn till you feel resistance then clamp small needle nose vice-grips on tap and pull rearward. The tap only touches the brass neck because it is the smallest diameter. I've never scratched the chamber doing this. Takes about 5 minutes.
 
Careful with the GI broken case extractors. We had one of our guys evidently damage his chamber at Perry once (Garand). Gun never shot well afterward.
 
Yes I do anneal. I have an Annealeze machine, and on these cases I annealed them before I formed (necked up from 556 to 30 cal) and then again after the forming process to get rid of the stresses from necking up. I imagine what happened was that I got an old piece of 556 brass mixed in with the once fired stuff when I was forming cases.
 
This is pretty interesting. I've heard of case head separation and other malfunctions but I don't think I've ever actually seen a separated neck.
 
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