Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Savage won't chamber rounds

I own a Savage Model 10 .308 that I have shot about 200 times. A couple of weeks ago I shot a deer and did not extract the fired case. Yesterday I went hunting and noticed the round was a little tight when chambering. After hunting the bolt took excessive force to open. I have been shooting handloads with no problems until now. When I try to drop a dummy round in the chamber it will not go in all the way. What could be the issue here?

Thanks for your help.

Are you 100% sure there is no obstruction in the chamber? Also, I have seen bolt actions before that had always worked properly, then the slightest debris was in the chamber or on the cartridge, bolt was forced down, and the chamber was permenantly damaged. If that is the case, you may need to have the chamber polished or recut.

If the barrel nut is tight, then it is going to be a result of either rust or other fouling caused by leaving the fired case in the chamber, a fouled ejector, or you have an out of whack hand load. Get yourself a good light and examine the chamber, check the bolt nose ejector to make sure it moves freely, and insert a factory new case into the chamber and see how the bolt closes on that. If the chamber is fouled you will need to clean it. A shotgun bore brush on a cleaning rod would be a good start towards cleaning up the chamber. If the ejector is fouled, you will need to clean it, if the bolt closes hard on a factory case then you are not telling the complete story.

Thanks for the replies. I did try a factory round and the bolt was tight so I didn't force it. The bolt will close on an empty case.

Yes, but is it closing on a case that was fired in that rifle, or, a factory new case? Because if the bolt closes that tight on a factory round and fine on a new, empty case, and you don't have the means to pull and reset the barrel, then it's time to invoke the old saying about finding someone to look at it, because something doesn't jive, unless of course the barrel is loose.

The obvious starting place (in my mind) is to check for fouling or debris, as MALM suggested. If that checks out, verify that the barrel nut is tight. Finally, measure the OAL and neck length of your hand loads against the seating depth of the action. Because if your reloaded brass has not been trimmed, you may have several cartridges that have lengthened due to firing, and would need to trimmed. Factory ammo is not going to be the same length as your hand loaded rounds, so I wouldn't confuse the issue by introducing factory rounds into the equation.

I'd be interested in what you find out, if you're willing to share the results with the forum.