224 Valkyrie Failure to Fire - Reloaded Ammo

[cowboyarcher]

Hi All,

I took my 224 Valkyrie (PSA upper) out today with some ammo I loaded (77gr SMKs at mag length over CFE223 in new brass) and was surprised that many would not fire. The hammer would fall, but there were no marks from the firing pin on the primers at all. If I loaded a round from the mag using the bolt release, or they were auto-loaded by the recoil impulse, they would usually fire, but if I cycled the action by hand they would not. What gives here? All I can find is info on light strikes, but I cannot find anything about a no strike.

Thanks for any tips and insight!

 

[cowboyarcher]

I should add that the cases that would not fire were difficult to extract with the charging handle and that factory ammo functions fine in the ammo.

 

[Hatrick]

Did you size the brass before loading?

 

[cowboyarcher]

Did you size the brass before loading?

I did run the cases through a Redding FL sizing die, but there was not much resistance. I am thinking this might be the issue though, that the cases are just a tad over sized and not allowing for proper chambering.

 

[Hatrick]

I did run the cases through a Redding FL sizing die, but there was not much resistance. I am thinking this might be the issue though, that the cases are just a tad over sized and not allowing for proper chambering.

The only other thing I can think of is a carbon ring at the neck in the chamber, but you said the factory ammo cycled well. Unless the factory brass was a tad shorter.

 

[MudRunner2005]

The only other thing I can think of is a carbon ring at the neck in the chamber, but you said the factory ammo cycled well. Unless the factory brass was a tad shorter.

He could have an out of spec chamber that was cut with a bad reamer, and now his cases are too big to fit... This would also explain why new brass works great, but resized brass doesn't...Or he has a bad set of dies, or his dies aren't setup properly. I'd have the chamber inspected, and possibly casted to find out for sure.

 

[Deviant]

https://www.brownells.com/reloading...dspace-tools/match-case-gauges-prod41313.aspx.

I used to have the same problem loading for my AR with a JP Barrel. It had a pretty tight chamber and I found out that I did not have my dies adjusted correctly. Now I use the JP chamber gauge listed in the link above and check every single piece of ammo with it after I load them. I use it to set my dies and I have not had a problem since.

Al

 

[jbs2014]

You may need to get some small base sizing dies. I have a .556 upper that has this problem and the small base sizer fixed it. It had the same difficulty extracting as well.

The chamber gauge that Deviant mentioned will also help a great deal too.

 

[RT2506]

If you did not champer the case necks you could have bulged the shoulder just a tad when seating the bullets and this will cause your problem.