What Happened?

pyscodog

Active member
Went to the club to try out some 223 loads and something weird happened. First off, the rifle is a Sako L461 with a Wilson barrel. My loads were CFE 223 powder,Fed 205M primers in Winchester brass trimmed to 1.750. I had 4 different loads, 5 each, starting at 26.5 grains. The first two shots seemed normal. Fired fine, extracted fine and ejected fine. Third shot seemed normal, went into the group but when I tried to eject it, it seemed to be stuck. Of course I left my cleaning rod at home so my trip was over. Three shots and I'm done. Got home and use a cleaning rod to eject the case and all looked fine except the primer. It had what looked to be almost pierced but not quite. Very deep but not pierced completely. I chambered the two previous rounds and they ejected fine but when I tried the one that stuck I had to use a rod to tap it out again. I measure the bad round and compared it to the two previous rounds and found nothing different. I chambered several resized cases and all was fine. I went back to the range today and fired two more of the 26.5 loaded rounds and they were fine as well. What the heck is going on? My other three loads go up a half grain from 26.5 to 28 grains. I didn't get to shoot them today, maybe tomorrow depending on the weather. I thought the extractor took a dump and finding one of those for an L461 is near impossible. I'm hoping it was just a fluke but won't know until another range trip.
 
Any chance that one case had more powder than you thought or something else was in the case that could have caused capacity to reduce causing higher pressures?
 
Just an observation of my experiences here. I have had tumbler media become lodged in cases. This usually happens when the media is still damp from the wax I add to the media. Could it be that media was in the case and possibly changing case volume?
 
The primer still has round edges, just a very deep primer strike and it stuck in the chamber. I use a Lee trimmer so the case needs to be sized and de-primed before I can trim to length, so I doubt there was any media in the case. The one case that stuck is the only one of the five that I can't load and eject.

I'm to lazy to sort brass by weight,so I usually don't worry about what my brass weighs but I did weigh a couple of pieces. The one with the deep primer strike was a couple of grains lighter.

My biggest worry is the extractor is getting worn and may need replaced soon. I don't know what I will do if this is the case as extractor for the L461 Sako are non existent or so it seems.
 
Swipe/ejector marks on the cartridge? Color the case and chamber, see where it is sticking. The new Winchester brass is my least favorite to use.
 
No marks at all on the case. Its old Winchester brass. I don't care for the new stuff either. I haven't tried coloring the case. I'll give it a try. Either way, that piece may end up in the trash.
 
I blackened the case with a marker. It chambered as easy as a new sized case, no heavy bolt close at all but still didn't extract. No visible marks on the case that I could see. I resized the case, checked OAL and tried to chamber again. Chambered fine and extracted and ejected fine. Bang my head against the wall. Dam if I can figure it out.
 
I don't think it's the case unless it has a odd ball rim or base. More likely the spring/detent ball is gummed up or stuck behind the extractor. If you feel comfortable dissembling the bolt I would clean,lube and reassemble. The extractor may not be moving quite far enough to slip pass the rim, don't push hard on the extractor. Better to remove and clean.
 
Why did it pull all the other cases just not this one? And now that its been resized again it chambers and extracts just fine. Doesn't make a lot of sense.
 
If you can remove and clean the extractor, than only your time and you will see if there is some cruddy grease(or piece of brass moving around) causing an odd extraction. Extractor is ruled out
if you don't find anything than either an over charge or odd funky case(both can happen).
 
Shot 17 rounds through the 223 today and not a problem at all. Guess it was just a fluke. But...I hope it doesn't happen again.
 
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