Uh oh?

antelopedundee

antelopedundee

internet bum
What may have caused this? Crappy brass? Pressure?

Not my situation, but posted on another site.

Tikka T3 bought in 2007. The fired case was the first round fired from a box of factory ammo from maybe the early 90s.

Would firing a single round like that damage/gas cut the chamber?

4qBbsCE.jpg
hGd2Pyg.jpg


Here is his post on the subject. Seems like Federal brass is at least partly to blame.

"So for Father’s Day I decided to hook my dad up with giving his rifle a makeover. He has a Tikka T3 in 308 I bought for him for Father’s Day back in 2007. I bought a new Leupold scope, new rings, bedded the rifle, modified the bolt stop to make it a long action and bought a new LA magazine.
Because we live in the great state of CA I also told him I would load him up some non lead rounds. Well, today I went to the range to start load testing.

Before I started I needed to zero the new scope so I had a box of old old Federal 308 rounds my dad gave me when I took his gun (not sure of the date but I’d guess they were bought in the late 80s early 90s). First round I touched off left me with a face full of hot gases and burning oil. Tried to eject the round and nothing. So after cycling the action a few times the spent round came out. I decided not to use those rounds anymore and sighted it in with a box from the range store then started load development with 175 grn LRXs. No issues with those at all, think I’m going to settle on 44 grns of IMR 4895 pushing them at 2613 FPS.

Well my last 3 shots I had 3 Berger 180 grn I reloaded 2 grns below book max with a jump of .010. Just wanted to see how the gun liked Berger’s. Well, first shot I got a face full of smoke again. I know it was stupid, but I figured it was a fluke and shot another. Same thing?

What would cause this? Is the headspace on the gun off or would you think something’s off with the brass? I was using RP brass with the LRXs and I was using Federal brass (same make of brass that separated with the factory round) with the Berger’s. The Fed brass with the Berger’s was on it’s 3rd firing, once from a SCAR and once from this gun. I just received new 308 brass in the mail today so I’m going to chuck all the brass I used and start new. Just hoping nothings wrong with he gun! "
 
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Oil

The only time I have smelled oil is when fireing a stored gun I didn't run a swab thru.

Mort
 
alinwa said:
hmmm

ya' THINK?

Tell me more about the smell of oil.

I find this sort of thing fascinating and have NO FRIGGIN' IDEA!!! what happened here.
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Some think it could be excessive headspace, but I doubt it. Even more interesting was that another poster to that thread said that he experienced the same thing with ammo from a box of Federal factory loads.
 
Really looks like a bad piece of brass.

It happens in mass production.

The what to be sure would be to section the case and see how thick (and hard) the brass is at that point.
 
brickeyee said:
Really looks like a bad piece of brass.

It happens in mass production.

The what to be sure would be to section the case and see how thick (and hard) the brass is at that point.
Click to expand...


Ask and Ye shall be given.

8g4qjlf.jpg


The case on the right is the one pictured above. FWIW, the bullet was 180 grains. The case on the left was one of the twice fired FC cases used to fire the 180 grain Bergers. Odd that it survived 2 firings but went to chit when fired in the Tikka 3.
 
antelopedundee said:
Ask and Ye shall be given.

8g4qjlf.jpg


The case on the right is the one pictured above. FWIW, the bullet was 180 grains. The case on the left was one of the twice fired FC cases used to fire the 180 grain Bergers. Odd that it survived 2 firings but went to chit when fired in the Tikka 3.
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WHOAHHH!!!!!

Is the busted case in the original pic NEW, UN-FIRED FED FROM THE 90'S as stated in the OP?

Or has this stuff been mutilated by reloading hackers?
 
Smell of oil???? Did someone leave oil or a patch piece in there and increase psi???

I might have missed it, but was the barreled action modified after the factory or stock? How did he modify bolt stop?
 
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alinwa said:
WHOAHHH!!!!!

Is the busted case in the original pic NEW, UN-FIRED FED FROM THE 90'S as stated in the OP?

Or has this stuff been mutilated by reloading hackers?
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I believe so yes. The one on the left was loaded twice before reloading a 3rd time and firing it in the Tikka.
 
alinwa said:
Tikka's only come in one action length. The make the "short action" by decreasing the bolt throw with a different stop
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Knew they only made one size, but was curious what steps he did in the modification. Built a 28 nosler from a t3 this spring. Very happy with tikka setups. Trigger ain’t bad
 
I had a Federal GM .308 rupture in my CG Millenium rifle about six months ago. Caused the extractor and spring to fall out when I retracted the bolt. Was about a 92 lot. Call to Federal resulted in a response of "don't do that".
 
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Looks like a short chamber with too much material removed from the breech end of the chamber opposite the bolt nose, leaving the solid case head area unsupported.............not to be confused with short headspacing.

How much space is between a closed bolt nose and barrel breech end? Should only be a couple thou., no more than .008".

Show us a photo of a fully inserted empty case in the chamber to see if the case is properly supported at the breech end.

What is diameter of the case at the cracked areas before and after firing?..............Don
 
Don said:
Looks like a short chamber with too much material removed from the breech end of the chamber opposite the bolt nose, leaving the solid case head area unsupported.............not to be confused with short headspacing.

How much space is between a closed bolt nose and barrel breech end? Should only be a couple thou., no more than .008".

Show us a photo of a fully inserted empty case in the chamber to see if the case is properly supported at the breech end.

What is diameter of the case at the cracked areas before and after firing?..............Don
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First off I don't know if there are more "gas ports" on the other side of the fired case or just the 3 that you can see in the pic. Other factory ammo and reloads worked just fine so the issue seems to be connected to Federal brass. Also possible without researching it that Federal accidentally sized the cases with a small base die.
 
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I don't think anything is wrong with the rifle...just some poor choices of reloads. I'd start anew with brand new factory loads and see what happens. Of course, the very best thing to do is take the rifle to a competent gunsmith to determine if the chamber is "right"....and the barrel has the proper bore size.
 
Wilbur said:
I don't think anything is wrong with the rifle...just some poor choices of reloads. I'd start anew with brand new factory loads and see what happens. Of course, the very best thing to do is take the rifle to a competent gunsmith to determine if the chamber is "right"....and the barrel has the proper bore size.
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Some were factory loads. The cases that developed gas ports were all F C headstamp.
 
alinwa said:
WHOAHHH!!!!!

Is the busted case in the original pic NEW, UN-FIRED FED FROM THE 90'S as stated in the OP?

Or has this stuff been mutilated by reloading hackers?
Click to expand...

Al, as I stated in my previous post, I had a new unfired Fed .308 168 gn Gold Medal round rupture in my bolt gun last Fall. It had one long rupture similar to what was shown. I called Federal and they looked up the lot and it was 92 0r 95 can't remember which. Anyway, they said they didn't recommend firing any of that ammo more than five years old. I've got 13 boxes left that I'll have to figure out what to do with. I had bought a case of it at that time to have something as a back-up or to use as a standard reference when loading. Guess this is a situation where buying in case lots for that purpose is not economical. Does raise the question of why brass would weaken over time that way.
 
adamsgt said:
Al, as I stated in my previous post, I had a new unfired Fed .308 168 gn Gold Medal round rupture in my bolt gun last Fall. It had one long rupture similar to what was shown. I called Federal and they looked up the lot and it was 92 0r 95 can't remember which. Anyway, they said they didn't recommend firing any of that ammo more than five years old. I've got 13 boxes left that I'll have to figure out what to do with. I had bought a case of it at that time to have something as a back-up or to use as a standard reference when loading. Guess this is a situation where buying in case lots for that purpose is not economical. Does raise the question of why brass would weaken over time that way.
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Maybe it was chit brass to start with. Maybe the powder went funky and corroded the case. Did you ask Federal if they would replace the 13+ boxes of the stuff? Normally they'd or should be glad to get defective stuff out of circulation.
 
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