Have a new .308 barrel and bought several boxes of factory ammo to shoot through and then reload the brass. Some factory ammo was a little tight on close, but ejected ok, with no stiff bolt. But now, the same fired brass will not go back into chamber and hangs up at the web. It's going back to the gunsmith to be opened up a bit, but I'm curious... How can brass be fired in a chamber and eject smoothly, but then not be able to go back into the same chamber? It's like the brass statically stretched, after ejection. I understand this can happen with hot ammo and case stretch, but you feel that with a stiff bolt upon ejection. This stuff ejected pretty smooth. It's like it grew AFTER ejection. Help me wrap my mind around this.

Maybe it didn’t stretch after ejection, but was held tightly by the chamber. Once out of the chamber it expanded. Think of a compressed spring.





P

SDHNTR, index the brass, that is try and put it back in the same way it came out.....

Had a barrel chambered for a # 1 that caused me grief, when resizing the die would shave brass off the case. Further inspection revealed that the fired brass was noticeably
'bulged' on/to one side, when observed from the base, the case wall protruded out wider than the rim!?!?!? ......... don't know what happened, maybe the reamer 'got away'.......... IDK, I'm not a 'smith'.....

Guy made it right, to the tune of another Lilja barrel.........

Brass would go back in the way it came out, but not if you rotated it 180 degrees.....

Yes, that's what makes sense and of course I know brass stretches. Just seems like a LOT of post ejection expansion.

It's back at the smith again being worked over. Nothing was noticeably out of round.

Common sense would indicate a warm or hot chamber would be bigger than a cold one.
Which leads me to my question, Why are earth would you try to rechamber an “empty” piece of brass?

Troubleshooting. I knew the chamber was on the tight side, confirming it with spent brass that wouldn't go back in pushed it into the "too tight" category and a ride back to the gunsmith.

I had a custom .17 Ackley Hornet that had this issue. It turned out there was a bulge on one side of the chamber. The ejected brass wasn't noticeable until it was measured. It ejected fine, but the brass being rechambered wasn't going back in the same orientation that it was ejected from and was thus too tight. Unfortunately, the brass was all trash after that. The gunsmith set it back and rechambered it for free, but I lost a little barrel length.

I agree with Muffin. If it’s a tight chamber slightly out of round the empty might not go in.

SOP - I do this all the time. It tells me whether I'm good to neck size with the LCD or need to body size with the Redding.

Is it a Remington 700?

Run it through a standard FL size die, then check. If it chambers fine, don't rebore the chamber.
Second option is use a small base sizer.

have you thought about running some lighter loads thru it, less powder and even a lighter bullet?
That would not expand your brass as much and give you an idea of the chambers parameters.

Is their something work with the chamber, or are you loads on the hot side.

I see the variations in how much brass has expanded by picking up range pick up brass, people have abandoned and didn't even have the courtesy to clean their shooting area. But hey, I love em, because its free brass for me...

I tend not to try and get the last fps out of any of my loads...regardless of what caliber or bullet on it may be.

The life span of my brass's use is a fair number of shots...40 and 50 reloads is not uncommon. In a test of a batch of 10 Range pick up 223, courtesy of OSP, that test batch has been loaded 122 times at this point. Remington Brand brass, but that really doesn't matter. MV has been 2650 fps with 55 grain Bullets. Still good for being minute of sage rat to 250 yds.

If you sized the brass, then you have made the cases longer because you haven’t sized the brass enough.
If you haven’t sized the brass, then you have one of 2 things happening, one is excessive headspace or you have primer cratering that hangs up the bolt because it never goes back in in the same orientation.

Cheers.

Yes sir, chamber a bit too tight

I had a chamber that was not round. If the fired brass was clocked exactly as it came out of the chamber, no problem, but if it were out a fraction of a turn, it would not go back in the chamber.

I’m sure this is a reloading issue, but, if your chamber is tight, it would NOT cause your brass to swell larger above the web. If it was short, but wider at the web, then this is your issue.

Cheers.

Exactly nailed it 💯% I had a Remington M-600 in 308 that if you necked sized only the brass had to be rotated until it was in the exact orientation that it was fired. Full length resizing cured the problem.

This was factory ammo folks.

Mark the factory round to index at the top fire it and see if it fits chamber at index mark, then off the index mark if it does not, then chamber chamber is not round.

I had a fellow chamber a barrel for me some years ago and he managed to do a hexagonal chamber, it was supposedly something wrong with the reamer which caused chatter, according to him.

The shells would go back in if I turned them to the correct orientation...I got my money back and another fellow did the job properly.

How many rounds did you fire? and were they all like that?
I`d look at the brass it`s self. If the brass is not uniform when made, basicly a bannana, one side thicker that the other, the thin side will swell, making it difficult if not impossible to rechamber with out resizing. My quess is nothing is wrong with the chamber, but is with the brass. You mentioned some cases were "tight" from the get go?
BTB, did you get a fired case from the smith? It should have been test fired, maybe several times. That would give you a clue.

Good Luck

That is what FL dies are for...

Phil

He's trying to understand the situation, not just fix it. And he's already said the gunsmith didn't find anything out of round.

I’d try spinning the fired brass while inserting, see if it slips in. If so, chamber is out of round or brass is uneven. Try several pieces to rule one out. Even though smith said it’s ok.
Also try factory loads again to see if they still chamber, making sure you don’t have another issue.

What's all this talk of out of round [bleep]? New factory ammo was tight going in, after ejection it wouldn't go back in. First thing you should want to do is see if full length resizing the fired brass fixes it. If it doesn't then you know for sure its the chamber and not the brass. Probably a worn reamer used leaving a tight chamber possibly with even a rough finish, there's not 2 out of 10 smiths that fully inspect their work, if this one had it would have been caught before being returned to the customer.

Phil

Yeah...FL die.


No mention of the actual ammo brand chambered.

Other brands, loads tested?

Aftermarket barrel or original?

"Going back to the gunsmith..."

Whut??

It doesn’t have to be “noticeably” out of round to be measurably out of round. If I had to speculate, I’d say the guy who chambered it didn’t have the bore dialed in coaxial with the lathe axis. A pilot is not enough to overcome the stress that causes and you will end up with a measurably (if not noticeably) out of round condition. The nearer to the end (in this case the case web area) the worse it will be. It sounds like sloppy machine work to me.

To the OP...did you ever find the problem??

I have two 300 WSM's, one a full custom, the other a commercial rifle. Neither one produces expansion rings upon firing. They eject smoothly, but the fired brass will not interchange between them. After testing, there is a .004 difference between them and it results in a go, no-go situation.