Exploding gun

T

Tod Soeby

New member
Well, ok....not quite. I have a problem with a gun that has a few of us stumped. First the equipment: Rem 700 trued with a bigger recoil lug. BBl. Brux 1-8 twist x 30". .271 nk, 105 bergers, RL15, 450 primers, lapua brass.

I have about 300 rounds through the gun, and with this lot of powdwer, bullets, and primers I took it from 30G to 33G during load development. I found a load at 31.3. I shot that load during further load development. I only had an off the shelf 6 dasher die.

About 3 weeks ago at Harris I decided to shoot that gun in both LG and HG shootoff. I took along some brass that another VERY experianced dasher shooter had fireformed and load developed in my gun. All I had done was to trim them to 1.55, as they had never been trimmed. I felt that this brass was more consistent than my other lot of brass. No problems. Didn't shoot great, but for conditions, not bad. I had 15 for record and another 10 - 15 sighters. Worked fine. In the afternoon matches I again decided to save my good gun, so I shot my hunting rifle in the LG shootoff and the dasher in the HG shootoff. I noticed on the last sighter that the bolt opend a little hard. During the record rounds the bolt got progressivly harder to open. By the forth shot I was standing up , holding the thirty five pound gun down with one hand whild I forced the bolt open with the other. Shot 5. Bolt frozen!!!!Stuck......I grabed my hunting gun to finish, but only got 4 0f 5 on as conditions had changed.:mad: The case was split and half was welded to the bolt. The primer was badly smoked, but still in. The bolt had to pounded open with a 12 x 12 x 2 inch board.

The gunsmith who built the gun was at the match, so he took my bolt and shells home to investigate.

All loads had a neck diameter of .269 (.271 neck) All pwder charges that he checked were EXACTLY 31.3 on his scale. All of the OAL were spot on. They thought the brass might have been to long, crimping the bullet, causing a psi spike, but I trimmed .010 off of them before firing. They had been as long as 1.567. I made sure to have a proper champher on them, also.

Now, I have 100 rounds with this powder, most of which was at 31.3. My necks have been .269 since the gun was built. Same bullets and primers. Nothing had changed. He saw no reason to not try them again.

I got my new custom die the other day and Fl sized my original brass (the stuff that never caused me trouble) Bumped the sholder .02, used my .270 bushing and went to the range. I first fired 1 of the offending rounds. Big PSI signs. Then I tried my rounds loaded with the new die. Same thing...third shot.....bolt frozen. The brass was not split in half, but the primer was blown, and the ejector was stuck. I had to pry the case from the bolt.

Anyone have any answers, or additional questions on this one. I am leaving for OHIO for the 1K nationals in a few hours and planed on taking it as a backup. I won't be back on line untill after Labor day to respond, unless I find a computer there.

Any help or ideas would be very helpful. I am ready to trash the whole project and take up golf......wait....I already golf to much. Maybe trap or skeet.

Thanks,
Tod Soeby
 
1) RL 15 can put lots of carbon in the throat.
2) Any chance of powder contamination or deterioration?
 
check chamber drawing...

I think your cases are still tooo long....the gunsmith shuld have a reamer drawing ,,or be able to measure the reamer...or u culd measure your chamber (best info of all is YOUR chamber..) lots of Dasher reamers are 1.555...if you trimed to 1.550 you are very close to max....they shuld be 1.545 at the most...check it out....if the cases are long they will grip the bullet and skyrocket pressure...(you know!!!).....most new lapua cases rite out of the box are 1.555 and fire form to 1.540 +/- ~~~a lil'....with a piece of swiss cheeze in the case neck for fireforming (or dental wax..tissue...whatever)..the touch up front is irreelevent and the cases shorten to useable lentgh and most of us never know ....check it out...let us know ....this is a very popular ctg....Roger
 
Sorry, I ment to say I bumped the sholeders back .002. My bad!!

As far as the the powder being bad, I am at the bottom of this pound..about 200+ rounds....up to 33 g. manufacture date is 10 of 2006.

Someone else sugjested the carbon-in-the-throat thing and sugjested the stuff used on plack powder guns. I will also try ISSO on a brush. The other dasher shooters have never had this problem, though. Not likely....but...???


THANKS FOR THE INPUT....KEEP IT COMMING, NO MATTER HOW SILLY.
 
Tod
Take a fired case and see if a bullet slides back in freely. Do this on a case that you have used the new die on. I'm betting it's may be a combination of case length and carbon build up at the end of the neck.

See you in Ohio.

Dave
 
I would leave that gun at home.

When you get back inspect the bore and chamber with a bore scope. If it all looks good check the headspace. If it looks good try a different powder as has been suggested. You should also measure the dia of some of the bullets. Probably not the problem but eliminating it as a potential problem would be wise.
 
way to go Don!!!

hhahaha......I am reccomending Varget ....so nobody will discover Rx-15 ...,.shhhhhh....Roger
 
i'm in for a carbon shortened neck(mixed with cases at max).

what do you do in your normal routine to remove carbon ?


high pressure loads cook carbon hard.....


if not using a carbon buster of some sort...start.....


as others have said it all builds up along with the brass to choke the neck and spike the pressure.

mike in co
 
carbon ring removal

Long time ago I read this suggestion for carbon ring removal: Start with a brush one caliber smaller, wind a patch around it. Find an old arrow, remove tip and thread brush in it. Smear JB all over the patch. Place nock of arrow in a cordless drill. and turn for about 30 seconds as soon as brush is firm in chamber. I have tried this method and its pretty simple, but I do not have a bore scope to check for carbon.
 
Lynn, Don, Roger, I just picked up a new 5 lb. jug of RL15 and noticed it is now made in USA, not Sweden. I haven't shot the new stuff (and I may not for a while as I still have 10 lb. of the old RL15) but apparently Alliant is no longer getting this from Bofors so expect a change for better or worse.
 
Tod Soeby said:
Well, ok....not quite. I have a problem with a gun that has a few of us stumped. First the equipment: Rem 700 trued with a bigger recoil lug. BBl. Brux 1-8 twist x 30". .271 nk, 105 bergers, RL15, 450 primers, lapua brass.

I have about 300 rounds through the gun, and with this lot of powdwer, bullets, and primers I took it from 30G to 33G during load development. I found a load at 31.3. I shot that load during further load development. I only had an off the shelf 6 dasher die.

About 3 weeks ago at Harris I decided to shoot that gun in both LG and HG shootoff. I took along some brass that another VERY experianced dasher shooter had fireformed and load developed in my gun. All I had done was to trim them to 1.55, as they had never been trimmed. I felt that this brass was more consistent than my other lot of brass. No problems. Didn't shoot great, but for conditions, not bad. I had 15 for record and another 10 - 15 sighters. Worked fine. In the afternoon matches I again decided to save my good gun, so I shot my hunting rifle in the LG shootoff and the dasher in the HG shootoff. I noticed on the last sighter that the bolt opend a little hard. During the record rounds the bolt got progressivly harder to open. By the forth shot I was standing up , holding the thirty five pound gun down with one hand whild I forced the bolt open with the other. Shot 5. Bolt frozen!!!!Stuck......I grabed my hunting gun to finish, but only got 4 0f 5 on as conditions had changed.:mad: The case was split and half was welded to the bolt. The primer was badly smoked, but still in. The bolt had to pounded open with a 12 x 12 x 2 inch board.

The gunsmith who built the gun was at the match, so he took my bolt and shells home to investigate.

All loads had a neck diameter of .269 (.271 neck) All pwder charges that he checked were EXACTLY 31.3 on his scale. All of the OAL were spot on. They thought the brass might have been to long, crimping the bullet, causing a psi spike, but I trimmed .010 off of them before firing. They had been as long as 1.567. I made sure to have a proper champher on them, also.

Now, I have 100 rounds with this powder, most of which was at 31.3. My necks have been .269 since the gun was built. Same bullets and primers. Nothing had changed. He saw no reason to not try them again.

I got my new custom die the other day and Fl sized my original brass (the stuff that never caused me trouble) Bumped the sholder .02, used my .270 bushing and went to the range. I first fired 1 of the offending rounds. Big PSI signs. Then I tried my rounds loaded with the new die. Same thing...third shot.....bolt frozen. The brass was not split in half, but the primer was blown, and the ejector was stuck. I had to pry the case from the bolt.

Anyone have any answers, or additional questions on this one. I am leaving for OHIO for the 1K nationals in a few hours and planed on taking it as a backup. I won't be back on line untill after Labor day to respond, unless I find a computer there.

Any help or ideas would be very helpful. I am ready to trash the whole project and take up golf......wait....I already golf to much. Maybe trap or skeet.

Thanks,
Tod Soeby
Click to expand...

Tod,it's the stinking powder,i went through the same thing with Reloader-15,i'll never use t again in my dashers.
I use Varget or h-4895,but never re-15 again.
 
Tod,

The kind of pressure you're getting sounds more like you may have accidentally used the wrong type of powder. I've caught more than one of my shooting buddies about to do this. Here's how it usually happens, and shooters never realize it.

..... You leave your powder measure partly filled after loading a different caliber, then a week or two later (you've forgot about the powder change), and you resume loading with what "Looks like the right stuff .... "

I've even caught myself about to do this. Now I ALWAYS label the powder measure, by taping a written label on the powder whenever powder goes into it. Many powders appear identicle even when they're burning rates are extremely different. In real life, there's just too many interuptions during reloading sessions.

- Innovative
 
larry,

i have heard of people having this issue.
i do 90% plus of my loading at home.
one rule:
only one container of powder on the bench at one time PERIOD.
( i have 6 different powder measures....all empty before adding to one)

mike in co
 
German - Although I have enough old stock RL-15 to keep me going a year or two, I'd be very intersted in hearing how the new US made RL-15 performs for you as I imagine many would. I may have to hit all the shops in my area and clean out their stocks of older RL-15 if things aren't up to snuff. As it is, RL-15 has been my primary powder for 22-250 and .308 for many years, hate starting load developement from scratch.

I have heard that the new RL-17 is supposed to be interesting, and the Norma 203B (think that's the right designation) which has become available again is very close to RL-15 and maybe a little better.

Well, if all else fails I still have plenty of IMR 4064 left too.

Tod - I've found RL-15 tends to burn a little cleaner towards the top of the charge range (at least in my 22-250 and .308 F/TR rifle) with the mid weight for chambering bullets I use. I'd suggest checking the chamber and barrel with a bore scope for any irregularity first off. Then I'd get one of the chamber measuring inserts from Sinclair, the one that uses a fired case with a cut down neck to exactly determine chamber length for your rifle.

One thing for sure, leave that load alone until you find out what's going on.

That said, I have in the past noticed that somewhere north of maximum SAAMI chamber pressures in a 22-250 that pressures can spike quite suddenly with very little change in charge weight or even ambient temperature. RL-15 is not unique in this respect. If nothing is found mechanically off with the rifle, then you may want to load a series of test loads working up from maybe two grains back from the load that is causing you trouble, and shoot them across a chrono. The velocity should increase close to the same amount for each equal increment of powder charge increase. If at some point velocity starts to increase more that expected it indicates that you are in the pressure range where pressure starts to increase exponentially with powder charge increases, which is not where you want to be. Of course of you know someone with an Oehler 43P with the strain gauge kit, or one of the other direct pressure sensing setups, checking this would be more accurate.

I recollect the first time I tried an Oehler 43P (not mine, couldn't afford it). My pet 22-250 AI load was just a wee bit too hot as it turned out, up towards proof load range and I subsequently had to pull down a bunch of loaded rounds. Sure was a fast load though :).
 
rhaney2 said:
Tod,it's the stinking powder,i went through the same thing with Reloader-15,i'll never use t again in my dashers.
I use Varget or h-4895,but never re-15 again.
Click to expand...


Gentleman, it would be hard to believe, that the nasty RE-15 can be so bad.

Con
 
keep the bore clean...

HI Todd....listen to Lynn...he is rite...the secret with any powder is keeping the bore clean.....and keep the pressure high.......I (and especially Don) have shot point blank "B"enchrest for many years and have adopted our own clening regimen ....none are the same...but all are rigorous and vigorous and thourough.....I never shoot more than 30 rounds without a "good" cleaning....and prefer if time allows to clean after every target....I dont do it because Rx-15 is necessarily "dirty" ...(I try to do so ,no matter which powder I am using!!) it is just my wicked ways of bbl. maintence....and I never have carbon ring buildup in the neck/throat area....guess why!!......Roger
 
Reloder 15 Update

Since I mentioned above that the most recent 5lb. jugs of RL15 are marked Made in USA, here's an update.

Alliant confirms that Reloder 15 is still made in Sweden by Bofors (Norma) and the Made in USA was a printing error that will be corrected on the next run of labels. No change in Reloder 15!!! Best news of the day for me.
 
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