Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles WSM & WSSM, reliable feeding

In my extended family and group of friends are found many that love the shooting sports and hunting. These are people that always have a new rifle being made or on the drawing board. My role is often that of developing the loads for various and sundry cartridges for these folks. It gives me a chance to regularly excercise my old cardboard slide rule Powley load and pressure calculators ( they are remarkably good, IMHO and you can learn to cross develop from IMR powders on which the calculator was predicated). Anyway, over the past few years I have done a lot of load development for WSM and WSSM rounds. Every rifle so chambered, factory or custom, has had minor to major feeding problems.

I believe it is related to the stubby length of the cartridge that has to take a greater entry angle to the chamber from the magazine. The problems have ranged from uneven forward pressure of the bolt to outright jambing. In many cases the extraction is not a smooth rearward stroke of the bolt either. The worse was an A Bolt in 223 WSSM.

There seems to be a distinct difference between those old "obsolete" rounds and how they chamber (270, 06, even 308 -- and their children) and the newly introduced short and fat cartridges. Its enough to make me conclude that my 300 H&H in that old pre64 is far superior in reliable feeding and extraction than four rather recalcitrant 300 WSMs that I have worked with.

Has feeding and/or extraction been a problem for those of you that have rifles chambered in the short and fat cartridges?

i haven't had any troubles whatsoever to date w/ my 300 wsm. i've heard of lots of problems w/ the wsm line, so i must've got lucky... but to answer your question: no, no problems for me.



in fact, the rifle that routinely gives me the most troubles w/ jamming (double feeds) is a 25-06.



last year, after working w/ the 300 wsm for the entire year, i felt confident enough in it to bench my standard (a 7 rem mag) hunting rifle for all the seasons. would never have taken ol' reliable out of action if i did not have the utmost confidence in the 300.

i have shot 2 of the 270wsm's of different make, one 7mm wsm, 3 of the 223wssm, but i have not shot the 243wssm. i have not had one fail to feed yet. i have also tried to make my personal wsm jam without any luck. it is harder to load them one at a time but my 270wsm feeds like a hungry baby. this is in no means meant to say that it dosen't happen. i just think that the feeding issue has been overstated. at my gun club of about 1000 members i would say that 200 or so have shortmags and none of them have ever talked about feeding problems or had trouble at the range......blake

I have several "short, fats," all in either 338 Jamison or 338WSM in both M70 SA's and MRC SA's. I've had no feeding problems, but then these are all controlled feed.

my 270 WSM Super Ugly, with CRPF feeds as well as my standard rounds....

While I have no doubt that some do experience feeding issues with the new rounds, I firmly beleive that is says more about the skill of the smith or the quality of the workmanship than it does about the round. It ain't rocket science to get a round peg into a round hole.

I have seen the work of one smith in particular that has gotten darn near every action available to feed the WSM's, including a long action CRF rifle (and that is supposedly darn near impossible).

I think the issue lies in some smith's refusal or inablility to "think outside the box" about how an action works. Clearly feeding WSM's through 30-06 based feeding geometries will cause problems, but a minor bit of work can result in good things.

Interestingly enough, of all the rifles I own (including 2 WSM's) and all of the rifles I've handled (including quite a few WSM's) the poorest feeding rifle I've ever experienced was a Remington 700 in 223. Dimensionally proportional to a 30-06, theory should hold that it would feed great.

My 270WSM is smooth as silk. It is a M70, and I am wondering if the feed problems were with A-bolts or Howa?

my a-bolt feeds them fine. i have not seen a howa but i would suspect that they feed just fine also.....blake

I have an a-bolt 300 WSM and a M70 .270 WSM ... no feeding problems with either.

-Lou

I have a 270WSM in Browning A-Bolt that feeds poorly to the point that I do not trust it in the field! I'm just about ready to give up on it. I also have a Model 7, 7mmSHAMU that feeds great. I guess it 's luck of the draw!

GK

You may want to send it to a Winchester/Browning warranty center.

I had an extraction problem with a gun a few years ago, and they fixed it without charge.

In the case of the Remmy, it's probably not luck. The design of the SAUM case is a bit more moderate in shoulder angle and body taper. Not as much capacity, hence a wee bit less velocity, but I have not heard any complaints on the web about the the Remmy short mags.

IMO......it's a slightly slower, but better designed case.

JimF

JimF - I agree, my "luck" comment was really directed towards the Browning. Some of the other posters seem to have A-bolts in the WSMs that feed good.

I have not heard of anyone having feed problems with the Remmy.

GK

I have a M70 featherweight in 300wsm which often catches when feeding a round from the magazine into the chamber..that is when there is only one cartridge left in the magazine. Feeds just fine if there are two or more cartridges in the magazine. Seems the additional upward force exerted when more than one cartridge is in the magazine facilitates the feeding process. I've tried stretching the spring some but that hasn't helped. My gunsmith has polished some of the feeding surfaces which has helped some but the problem persists.

BBergman, Check and see if the last round in the magazine in binding on the follower. Sometime you have to adjust them a little to make the last round feed properly. This presupposes that the claw and rails are properly timed.
My M-70 WSM was one of the first off the line and required a little tuning. It will now reliably feed even empty's. It's just a matter of having everything adjusted and timed right. I haven't messed with an A-Bolt WSM but I wonder if they use a Magazine box that's wide enough. My Kimber 8400 270 WSM fed fine Out of the box......DJ

I have been shooting a custom .300wsm on a L/A Ruger 77 since the summer of 2001 with nary a bobble. Other guys around here that have a short mag either aren't having problems, or aren't talking about it. Al

P.S.- By "here" I mean where I live, not this site.

Follow up: there are two gunshops in proximity to home and between them were seven rifles chambered in 223 WSSM and four total in 270 and 300 WSM. We tried chambering factory ammo in all of them.

One of the 270s exhibited feeding problems. One of the 300s would chamber a round from the magazine but with extra pressure needed. Three of the 223s had chambering problems ranging from cartridges jambing in the magazine to cartridges that required extra effort to transition from the magazine to chamber.

Most that have responded on this list and one other list have been satisfied with the feeding of their short & fats. If considering the purchase of a rifle so chambered, IMHO, it would be worthwhile to load a magazine (dummy rounds, of course) and check the feeding and extraction especially with 223 WSSMs.

Onward

Handloader,

I have a .223 WSSM in a M70 Coyote that has over 700 rounds thru it and never a hitch. I know of 11 other hunters/shooters that own Win. Coyote�s or Stealth�s and they have never had a feeding problem. My new Savage in .270 WSM feeds flawlessly. I don't understand why new rifles(the .223 WSSM are still fairly new only a year old) were in a shop and not returned to the factory if they had feeding problems. Why spend the money on a gunsmith when the factory will fix it without charge? Lawdog
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[quote]Handloader,

I don't understand why new rifles(the .223 WSSM are still fairly new only a year old) were in a shop and not returned to the factory if they had feeding problems. Why spend the money on a gunsmith when the factory will fix it without charge? Lawdog

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Lawdog The rifles tried were new and on the rack and probably this was the first time someone actually chambered rounds in them. Your point is well taken; if they don't function correctly they should be sent back to the manufacturer.

OTOH, some of the feeding "problems" were related to how easily the cartridge transitions from the magazine to the chamber when compared to std cartridges. I suspect that the higher effort and lack of smoothness for the WSSMs may simply be a factor of the geometry of the case and needs to be accepted by the owner. In most cases the cartridge made it to the chamber. In a few instances the cartridge jumped from the magazine before the bolt could pick it up.

I am confident that future refinements will improve the process.