Rifle no longer chambers factory ammo

I think you are suggesting the brass to be the issue. As mentioned earlier in this thread, a bullet I tried to close the bolt on, jammed hard enough to pull the bullet from the brass upon extraction. Cartridges that I closed till effort started being required, then pulled, clearly showed rub marks on the shank of the round, I'll try figure out how to put a pic up.


What I have found and done so far, believeing it to be a fouling issue in the throat of the rifle, is Hoppes 9 Copper solvent treatment. Run a saturated patch in, let it sit in the suspected trouble area for 10 minutes, push throught the bore. Followed by a rigourous brushing, a Hoppes 9 Copper patch, then dry patch till coming out clean. This morning my Sweets 7.62 arrived. I followed the directions, allowing the solvent to sit for 5 minutes, then dried out the chamber and bore. At this point, my reloads close effortlessly, as well as the Barnes factory rounds. The Hornady ELDXs still stick.

At least this tells me I am on the right track. I might have to get a bore scope or something, to tell me how far to go with this, but I figure if I go until the Hornadys fit, it should be good to go. I do have in the back of my mind that the Hornadys are a large bullet, and that this rifle might be chambered to tight to run them. But as those loads are in SAAMI spec, and this chamber should be as well, should be no reason they wont go.

This will obviously become part of my post range cleaning.

Mark
 
Consider that there may be a portion of broken case stuck in the chamber.
Be sure to deburr cases that have been trimmed.

Not a borescope but...
~ Clean the chamber well.
~ Run an oily patch one time thru the chamber and out the muzzle.
~ Insert a clean white patch into the muzzle and push it towards the chamber. Stop just shy of the neck.
~ Look into the chamber, shine a light to illuminate. Look for fouling, broken cases, damage etc..
~ After inspection be sure to REMOVE THE PATCH and verify bore is clear.

Fiddle with the location of the patch to achieve best reflection of light. Sometimes pushing the patch slightly into the neck then back towards the muzzle changes the patch shape to better reflect light.
 
If this is in fact a carbon build up I would be tempted to plug the muzzle and fill the barrel with an appropriate solvent and let it sit. I have done this for other reasons, copper and rust, with success.
 
Southcountryguy said:
If this is in fact a carbon build up I would be tempted to plug the muzzle and fill the barrel with an appropriate solvent and let it sit. I have done this for other reasons, copper and rust, with success.
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Yes, fill the barrel with a carbon solvent like a combustion chamber cleaner, or injector cleaner [both automotive products]
Let it sit for a couple of hours. The carbon will be out, or at least easy to remove. Dave.
CAUTION: do not get these cleaners on wood stock finishes.
 
Eagleye said:
Yes, fill the barrel with a carbon solvent like a combustion chamber cleaner, or injector cleaner [both automotive products]
Let it sit for a couple of hours. The carbon will be out, or at least easy to remove. Dave.
CAUTION: do not get these cleaners on wood stock finishes.
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Ha! Hours… I would let it sit days…last one I bought in rough shape sat for 14 days while I was off at work. Lol
 
I'm not sold on the carbon build up, but have noticed the patches with copper solvent coming out looking like the parliament building roof. (not quite that bad, but still). Trying some more sweets today, will let you know what happens.
 
When most solvents react on copper, they go vivid blue - this foaming WipeOut stuff does when lots of copper bullet jacket is in the bore. I think the "Butch's Bore Shine" and at least one other solvent did that when I used them. I would think a fainter colour - like pale green, is suggesting not as much reaction with the copper - suggesting weaker cleaning action against the copper buildup?? As has been mentioned in other threads, modern Hoppe's No. 9 has had most active ingredients replaced like in the 1990's - it used to work as an effective bore cleaner - not so sure any more, although the smell was kept the same. Is really apparent what is being removed or not if you get to look with a bore scope, but most people do not have access to one. The advice in Post #23 is giving you about the next best thing to actually see what is going on in there.

Your picture in Post #22 is suggesting that you had something hard in there to scratch up that bullet like that - carbon will go like that - as has been mentioned, so will a piece of case neck broke off in there, but that is less likely. Might be on a scale of things - if you have never cleaned that throat, then there could be significant build up to get out of there - that might take some aggressive stuff or techniques to loosen and remove it - whereas maybe any mild solvent and normal bore brush and patching will do fine to keep that area clean, if it were to be done regularly. A good example that you need to figure out a way to look in there, to see, what is going on.
 
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I saw that blurb about short cases and carbon buildup in the throat working its wy back towards the case. And it also said to get a proper measurement of the neck area, as you usually have around .0015, or more, of clearance from max case OAL anyway. Interesting point, how often it could happen that it could build that much is another one, most folk seem to think you'll hit pressure issues with the carbon rings, haven't heard anyone mention chambering issues til now, anything is possible though. Not sure how you get past the one to the other. I need to remember to take a jar with me to town next time, and get some EGR cleaner from the truck shop I worked at, I've seen that stuff clear a 2" EGR pipe that was packed solid, in very short order, it's powerful stuff, that stuff was hard like a rock.
 
I'm honestly quite surprised that I didn't see pressure signs. I handload my own stuff, and reuse my brass. So a broken/damaged neck would have been noted. Lots of blue coming out today with the sweets. Will keep working at it.

Couple rounds of sweets 7.62 so far, and Barnes factory easily chambers. Hornady factory I'm up to a 1/4 bolt turn before it sticks.

Progress. Debating more aggresive cleaner (patch out?), but I don't want to end up with 73 different bottles of cleaner..
 
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OP - do not be mislead about that colour - that "blue" that you see is likely signs that whatever stuff you are using is getting at the copper residue in that bore - says nothing about getting at carbon / soot or other stuff that might be packed in there. Is also possible with inexpensive copper bristle brushes that your bore brushes are leaving copper behind, and that is what the solvent is reacting to. In the end, likely you want ALL of it to come out - was not put there by the factory - as "new" it should have been bare steel - no fouling of any sort - is some discussion about "some" or "how much" fouling might be a useful thing to some - do not let that deteriorate into an excuse to do nothing, though. It should be a reasonable expectation that once you get cleaned down to bare metal, it might take some number of shots to "re-condition" that bore to shoot the best groups - but I do not know how to predict that for any particular barrel or load - has to be experimented with, I think.

There are reports that some bores can go several hundred rounds before accuracy falls off due to fouling build-up - other barrels might get 10 good shots. No doubt varies with the cartridge, the load, etc.

From working on some bores here that were likely ignored in the past - sometimes as if it comes out in layers - get blue for a while - then just brown / black from soot, then the "blue" shows up again - as if, to me, there was copper with carbon over and under it, plastered into the walls of the barrel. And if that bore was NEVER maintained, can often see red stuff - that is rust - in a bore scope can see missing "pits", scratches, grooves, etc. along that bore and rifling.
 
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I am curious to see how this will affect a handload I made that shot 1/2-3/4 moa with the rifle as it was. Pressures SHOULD be different with that constriction more or less removed.
 
NitwiT said:
I'm honestly quite surprised that I didn't see pressure signs. I handload my own stuff, and reuse my brass. So a broken/damaged neck would have been noted. Lots of blue coming out today with the sweets. Will keep working at it.

Couple rounds of sweets 7.62 so far, and Barnes factory easily chambers. Hornady factory I'm up to a 1/4 bolt turn before it sticks.

Progress. Debating more aggresive cleaner (patch out?), but I don't want to end up with 73 different bottles of cleaner..
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Not likely that you will need 73, but perhaps 3? Something that works really well on copper. Something that works really well on carbon (soot). And then something as a lube /oil to protect and cover the barrel steel. Along with bronze bore brushes, good jags and many patches. I do not know of any ONE solvent product that does all those things well, although you can read multiple sales ads that many products will claim to do so.
 
Quick update, so pretty clearly what we had all talked about was a thing, as my Barnes factory rounds now chamber effortlessly. I can almost get the Hornadys loaded, but still sticks pretty good.

I had assumed the rifle to be at fault (cleaning, ie. this guy), in this, and never bothered to compare my ammo. The Barnes (127 gr LRX), and Berger 130 VLDs, have a shank diameter of 0.2645. The Hornadys (143 gr ELDx) have a shank diamter of .265.

That seems to be the last denominator in this issue.

Can anyone weigh in in regards to the Hornady shanks?? Online search shows the bullet specs should be 0.2644.

For now I'm going to stop cleaning, until I can get some info on this.
 
You might be on to something - is over my head to measure to that precision, especially without a tolerance called out - about nothing is made today to an exact dimension - most everything is made to a dimension, with a plus/minus tolerance? That will include those bullets and that chamber. Maybe you have found something that is outside the tolerance?

But do not discount that cleaning business - by your own posts, you gained a lot of ground by cleaning. Maybe you are simply a smidgeon away from being done.
 
I have a couple thoughts. (Weird, I know)

You have identified a problem, carbon build up, why not address it fully and get it out.

What is the accuracy range of your calipers? If it’s under 1/10000 of an inch it can have a rounding effect to bring you to .265

You do you, but I would never fire enough rounds to form a group given your pressure signs. Failure is possible.

Enjoy.

Have a great day.
 
Hi Southcountryguy, I understand what you are saying, the problem lies in that without a borescope or otherway of gauging this, I may have already removed the carbon build up, as everything but Hornady factory loads easily.

Not sure on the accuracy range of the calipers, but they seem accurate enough to reliably sort out a .005 inch difference. If they were rounding, the 0.2644 should have rounded down to 0.264.

Not sure where you found the mentioned pressure signs. The only thing I ran into was being unable to close the bolt on Hornady, then Barnes factory ammo. Handloads fed and shoot very well. After cleaning, Barnes factory now loads, but Hornady does not. Just asking in case I missed a pressure sign, but I always check my primers, case heads, necks, etc for indications of danger, and have yet to see anything except a sticky bolt lift when finding what my max load in this setup was.
 
NitwiT said:
Hi Southcountryguy, I understand what you are saying, the problem lies in that without a borescope or otherway of gauging this, I may have already removed the carbon build up, as everything but Hornady factory loads easily.

Not sure on the accuracy range of the calipers, but they seem accurate enough to reliably sort out a .005 inch difference. If they were rounding, the 0.2644 should have rounded down to 0.264.

Not sure where you found the mentioned pressure signs. The only thing I ran into was being unable to close the bolt on Hornady, then Barnes factory ammo. Handloads fed and shoot very well. After cleaning, Barnes factory now loads, but Hornady does not. Just asking in case I missed a pressure sign, but I always check my primers, case heads, necks, etc for indications of danger, and have yet to see anything except a sticky bolt lift when finding what my max load in this setup was.
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.0005 in variance to the shank diameter is why I ask. The difference between .2644 and .2645 might be what your micrometer is rounding and inside it’s tolerances, above .0005 might round up..

Hope you safely figure it out.
 
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