What Is This???

[MagnumManiac]

When I was working on rifles as my full time job, I had this very experience with a 7RUM and factory Remington reduced velocity rounds.
First 5 shots had those exact dents and sooted cases. We also tried loading for it, and found that any attempt to start with STW max loads as start loads produced the same thing. The rifles were very new then, and no data was available.
The cause is lack of pressure to seal the chamber before peak pressure is reached.
We used the cases again without issue, once we had increased the charge weights considerably.

Cheers.
gun)

 

[shortgrass]

Factory loads are certainly not immune. My buddy had some factory 30-06 Federal Fusion 165 grain ammo, box stated it was going 2800 fps. He was shooting a Howa. After 2 years of hunting with it, he wasn't satisfied with its performance, one small cow elk he shot at 90 yards was hit behind the shoulder, didn't hit any ribs, and the bullet was inside the rib cage on the off side. It didn't act like it was even hit when he shot, and his cousin shot it in the neck and dropped it. He wanted to buy a new rifle, but I told him I would look at it, as a 30-06 should perform better than that.

First thing I did was chrono them. They were going 2150 fps. Fired 10 rounds over the chrony, then immediately fired 5 rounds of my .223 over it, and the velocity was correct with what I knew those rounds to do. I pulled the bullets, and there was 57 grains of a large extruded grain powder, which 57 grains doesn't give that low of a velocity with any of the powders listed in my reloading manuals. My only thought is they used the wrong powder, one that was much slower burning and simply didn't get the pressure up. My thought was "good thing they didn't screw up the other way and mix it up with a faster burning powder that would blow up the gun due to overpressure..."

I loaded him up some 180 grain ballistic tips @ 2810 using H-4350. He has since killed 4 elk with 6 shots.

Also, I went to federals site to inform them of this, and when I did they had a recall on .243 ammo, stating that your firearm could be damaged if you fire it in your gun due to overpressure because the wrong powder was used. To the people that shoot factory ammo...how often do you go to you ammo manufacturers site to check for recalls? Probably not at all. This is a mistake that should not be made by ammo manufacturers.

Moral of the story, I will not ever buy factory ammo, I do not trust it. When I'm dealing with 55,000-65,000 PSI explosives 5 inches from my face, I prefer to roll my own. That way if I blow myself up, at least it's my fault, and not some guy in a factory that was having a bad monday.

Nice you have the time to reload every round yourself, Cody. Many (many!) people don't have that luxury of 'free time'. The demands of life, family, job and all. Over the past 3 yrs I've built many custom rifles that'll never see a handloaded round of ammunition. Their owners just don't have the time to become handloaders.

 

[codyadams]

Nice you have the time to reload every round yourself, Cody. Many (many!) people don't have that luxury of 'free time'. The demands of life, family, job and all. Over the past 3 yrs I've built many custom rifles that'll never see a handloaded round of ammunition. Their owners just don't have the time to become handloaders.

I too have a full time job as a Deputy, as well as 2 young kids, I do not have "free time". I never said anything bad about people that don't reload, if you noticed I was pretty specific about it just being the way I do it. No need to explain the obvious by saying some people are too busy for it.