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I was at the range yesterday shooting factory Remington Safari Grade 160 gr A-Frame rounds out of my Sako AV rifle. I've shot these rounds out of this rifle for a dozen years with very god results. I had decided that I wanted to try to duplicate the round in reloads so I set up the chronograph to determine the speed. This is the first time that I've checked the velocity of these rounds in my rifle. The muzzle velocity on the box states 2,900 fps.

I fired five rounds with very inconsistent speeds of 2868, 2994, 2953, 2976 and 2922. The grouping was not as good as normal. I let the barrel cool down before shooting the next round.

When I fired the sixth round I felt blow back on my face and wondered what the hell happened. The chrono logged the shot at 3,190 fps (290 fps over listed) and the bolt was locked up. With the help of a mallet and rod I was able to free the bolt and found the extractor was broken. Now I'm scared to shoot any more of these rounds.

What caused the excessive pressure in these factory rounds? What would you do now?

If you have ever pulled bullets and weighed powder charges, the variation between cases may surprise you, therefore the difference in velocity you noticed. tho I`m surprised that, except for your first shot, clean barrel?, all velocities were over factory listed.
I would shurly not shoot any more of this box. Give Remington C.S. a call, if my experience holds, they will want the rest of the box for evaluation on their end.
Good Luck

what was temperature at the Range? was ammo sitting on your dash?

The temperature was around 65 and the ammo was not on the dash or any extreme heat.

I've sent an email to Remington concerning the situation.

We’ve all seen it : warnings and recalls in the shooting / gun / hunting magazines every other month declaring recalls on factory ammunition , powder , primers , etc .

I WOULD NOT SHOOT ANYMORE OF THAT LOT NUMBER .

You were correct. They asked for the rest of the shells and the spent cases. I will be curious to hear what they find.

Good for you..I for one, would be interested in hearing their reply.

Yes, please follow up on this thread with how it all works out. I'll be surprised (and disappointed) if they don't offer to take care of inspecting and repairing your rifle as well.

For my own curiosity I would weigh each loaded round before I sent them back.

Now they have all the evidence and you can't sue them

before you do anything go see and show the sheriff in your county,talk to county attorney before you call or send anything in. otherwise you may not get your rifle fixed and new ammo.

I'm not looking at suing Remington. They've already had enough (Sandy Hook) suits filed against them. And besides that isn't my style. I wasn't hurt and my gunsmith repaired ( all the parts were usable) and inspected the rifle for $20.

I am hoping to get a few boxes of ammo to replace the 45 remaining rounds that I have left.

If you communicated that to Remington, the 45 remaining, they "should" replace them,IME, no cost to you. You are sending them ALL back, I assume? A fly in the soup could be the lot numbers. If the remaining are from different lots, and Remington has had no complaints on those lot numbers, they may only replace the box of defective cartridges. Just M.E. with a different cartridge company. I was satisfied with the end result.

Stay in touch with their CS people.

Update - The remaining 45 rounds were sent back to Remington. They asked me what I wanted for replacement or reimbursement. I chose reimbursement as I'm going to try reloading. They covered the cost of three boxes of ammo and the gunsmith. I'm satisfied with this.

They were unable to determine the cause of the malfunction. They said it was possibly the age of the ammo at 16 years.

I had the same thing with some federal 3006 rounds sent back what was left of them and they sent back the same + one extra box. no damage to the gun. soon there was a recall on that lot of ammo in all the shooting mags, and several shooting sights. first rate service for me.

Good to hear. Two fold that they are responding and providing good service.
Did the auction concluded? Who owns the ammo business now?

Just last week I had a similar experience with my new to me 7x57. Every shot caused the bolt to stck with factory ammo. They were 140 grain Sellier and Bellot round nose. I was more concerned about them being rather bland. But they actually had some noticeably strong recoil, and like I said, the bolt stuck on every shot. However, there were no flattened primers. I'll reload the cases and use a book recipe and see what happens. They're made in the Czech Republic but I've had nothing but good experiences with any ammo from there. This is a newly built rifle, assembled from a Zastava Charles Daly Commercial 98. My gun smith did the work and he's done several rifles for me and the only hitch I've had was my .257 Improved which was a feeding problem which I solved by relieving a little metal off the inside of the claw extractor. Otherwise I've had good experiences with his work. I'll see how it handles my hand loads.

Oops! upon closer examination comparing one of the spent cartridges with an unfired cartridge, the primer appears to be slightly flattened. I was comparing them while in the box but when I took two, one fired and one unfired out of the box and gave it a close exam I could see there was a difference. The fired cartridges do have slightly flattened primers. I think there's a problem with this lot of ammo. I'll let y'all know what I find when I shoot some known safe handloads and compare..

Since they are round nose bullets, what is the chance that your rifle has a short throat? Any problem chambering the rounds?

That was nice to read and in my opinion yours was the appropriate response to this situation - especially in this day and age!

PennDog