I have a Marlin XS7 in .243 cal. that just will not shoot accurately regardless of what I try. I have been tinkering around with reloading for about fifty years and have now ran into something that I had not experienced before. A few days ago I measured the inside of the neck of a fired cartridge and was surprised to see that it only .0241. Then I tried to insert a new bullet in the case but, of course, no go. I have tried WW, Rem and Fed cases, all have had their necks turned and yesterday I tried three new WW cases with same results.

Anybody else experience this?

I have no experience with the .243 but would be interested in hearing what the problem is when you solve it.

I am not an expert but will offer an opinion anyway. It seems to be a gun or chamber problem not a brass problem, because it is unlikely that three different brands of brass would all have the same problem ie inadequate fired diameter of the neck. My suggestion would be to take it to someone who does a lot of rechambering work, have them test or measure and either fix or contact the manufacturer.

Seems to be another example of the shoddy work Remington is putting out in the Marlin line! Send it back. Call and they will likely issue a return shipping tag. jack

The necks of .243 Winchester brass will thicken over several firings, but if they thicken that much after only one or two firings it sounds like the Marlin factory over-used a reamer and wore the neck section way down. Or the reamer was defective in the first place.

Rbell, I agree with you and actually that was what I was attempting to say.

This Marlin is one of the early ones, before Remington, and the bad thing with warranty would be that it began life as a .308 but I purchased a new, takeoff .243 barrel from one of the members here and changed it. Might try to give them a call, though.

John, it just about has to be that the chamber is too tight, especially when just one firing of new brass comes out the same. The fired brass will chamber very easy even without any resizing at all. I guess that's a plus.

Shouldn't a competent gunsmith be able to ream the neck part of the chamber? Maybe even AI it? That would be the quickest way of fixing it, I think, if that is possible.

Thanks for the advice.

Ivan

Soon as I can get it cured, I sure will post here what had to be done.

Thanks

.0241 or .241?

Bigbuck,

Yeah, it's to be the chamber. A competent gunsmith should be able to ream out the neck.

Ha! That sure would be mighty small, huh. Must have had zeros on my mind.