Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada I cooked an ejector! Armourers at play

A few times a year, some of us retired guys venture out to the range to escape our wives, family, and life in general.

Each of us brings two or three rifles out and everyone gets to try something new or different. One of rifles I took out was this beastie. It's a 6x45mm, built from a Stevens 200 (Savage Model 10). It has a Shilen barrel and a Timney trigger. SSS recoil lug...and the elephant on the bench, a Choate Ultra Varmint stock. This rifle has an aluminum bedding rail in it. The whole thing weighs a ton - something like 14 lb.

One of the things we also do is burn off leftover, old or damaged (but safe) ammunition. This last thing is usually tips that have broken off, or if it is lead, tips that have been mashed. We were shooting some leftover 68 gr Match Burners with various powders.



After they were gone, I had some 85 gr. Speers. I fired off about 10 and had an overpressure load. Oops! This was from a batch of 85 gr. Speers that (I thought) I had taken apart. I missed one.

The Savage is a trooper. It's had a few warm loads shot through it over the years, but I guess this last one killed the ejector.

The recoil on this rifle is about 2 to 2.5 lb with most loads. It felt a little sharper than normal, but the other signs were there as well. A pierced primer. It wouldn't extract or eject, and then this, Oops! As you can see, the ejector is almost flat against the bolt face. If you are unfamiliar with what I am talking about, or its function, the ejector pushes the case off the bolt head under spring pressure from underneath. With a serviceable spring, the ejector is always fully extended and resists being pushed into the bolt with a screwdriver or your finger..

I cooked the ejector spring. That's why it is almost flat against the bolt face. I had ordered two extractor/ejector kits from the US about ten days ago. One was to be a spare. I will have to use it for this now.

Have you pulled it yet?
Could very well be a bit of crap wedged in their under pressure jamming it.

Yeah, the spring is done. I am going to replace the extractor as well and clean up the bolt face.

I keep a couple spare kits on hand, just for this. One of my buddies had a problem like this with his 22-250 Predator (the older predator model). He was shooting factory ammo: Barnes vortex. It blew the primer and we could not even find where it went. Barnes did a horrible job loading that particular ammo. I told my buddy, "this is why I load my own, I don't trust factory ammo". Anyway, his was a lot worse than yours. His broke the extractor, and melted the springs. Hence the whole bolt repair kit, including plunger and extractor and all springs required. I keep these kits on hand because every once in a while you will get a Savage that does not extract well. Good to have on hand. My buddy replaced the kit I used from my stash with a kit he got directly from savage, after he made a phone call to them, they sent one free of charge. Even though it was not the rifle's fault, or Savage's for that matter. He emailed Barnes and told them about the dangerous ammo and that he would not be buying any more from them, and the dumb azzes sent him 2 boxes. I pulled all of that ammo apart, and salvaged the bullets and found the primer pockets were lose, on that ammo even before firing it.

The kits should be here Tuesday or Wednesday. It's a holiday weekend - Victoria Day is on Monday - so the post office will be backed up a bit.

FOR SALE: One slightly dead queen. All offers considered.