Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles .204 Ruger bolt close issue

Sadly I inherited my father’s Remington model 7 in .204 Ruger last month and am having trouble getting the bolt to close with a round or a piece of empty brass in it..

When he’d shoot it, He always seemed to be having trouble getting the bolt closed on it and I’d tell him it looked like he needed to bump his shoulder back a bit. Primers usually looked like they had hard nipples sticking out of them but his loads weren’t crazy high powder charges.

Trying to narrow the problem down a bit, I’ve tried the following steps:

Cleaned the barrel - didn’t help.

Bumped the shoulder back as far as the RCBS F.L. Die and shell holder would allow. - didn’t help.

Trimmed case mouth of empty brass .009” shorter than min. - didn’t help.

Filed the case head down an additional .015”- .020” - seemed to help a little. But still too tight.

Marked from the shoulder to the mouth with a sharpie and forced the bolt closed. Wore off some at the shoulder, but not what I was expecting.

Checked to make sure the brass and the barrel said .204 Ruger about 20 times!

I’m fairly convinced that the headspace isn’t set properly from the factory, but short of ordering a set of go gauges I can’t prove it.

Any ideas as to what the problem might be, or any thoughts on what else to check?

Obviously a trip to a gun smith is in order, but I would like to figure it out on my own if possible.

Chris

Sounds like a tight chamber Chris. I’ve had similar issues with Rem 700’s. One reason I don’t own them anymore. Good luck with it

I'm betting the 204 barrel was set back and chambered for the 20 Practical or 20 Tactical to be able to use plentiful 223 range pick up brass...

I took a 204 barrel off of a Ruger 77 sporter, that was only 20 inches, and replaced it with a 20 Practical. Someone locally gave me almost as much as I paid for the new 20 Practical barrel.

No need to buy 204 brass, when I can pick up 1000 rounds of range pick up brass every month at our local range, just laying on the ground. Cost for making the 20 Practical, was just $20 for a Hornady 20 caliber neck sizing die.

Have you tried a factory round in it?

That sounds like the firing pin hole is larger than it should be, and/or it has a significant chamfer.

If you are shooting reloaded ammo check the case length they maybe to long

No, I’d be shocked if that gun ever had a factory round fired in it. I have ground down a shell holder about .033” shorter and bumped the shoulders on some new brass incrementally just to see if they fit better. It was definitely better but it dented the shoulders something fierce. Also had to trim the case length by that time. At that point the extractor was not grabbing the case head very consistently, sometimes not at all.
The ejector seems fine, I removed it at one point thinking maybe it was frozen, didn’t help.

Mathman, I’m not sure, I think the primers are just cratered badly from higher pressure ……?

As far as I know, this rifle has never been modified, and he bought it new shortly after the cartridge was introduced.

I’m fairly befuddled

Thinking about neck sizing some .223 brass like Seafire mentioned and trying to fireform to get some measurements of that.

Try a factory unfired round to see if it chambers. If it does then it is likely not a rifle issue.

drover

Make sure it is not your extractor. I had one which was chewing up brass around the cartridge rim and causing the bolt close to feel hard.

My man!!
That was the problem, I took the extractor out and it chambered the rounds like a champ.
Thanks all, especially Barm!

You are welcome. I had to take it to a gunsmith to figure out my problem.