Stuck in bore!

[1shot]

Good evening folks!

I've been lurking/learning from this site for a few months now- and have sucessfully launched Lee's c309-160r from my Marlin 336 over 9.5gr of Unique.
They cast at .311 and my bore is exactly .308 according to the cast slug.
Very respectable accuracy as cast, pan-tumbled in crayons for lube.

Great results, however they chamber hard and if I need to extract a loaded cartridge from the rifle the Boolit gets stuck!.. On close inspection the nose of the Boolit engraves the rifling upon chambering, and this is running the minimum OAL of 2.510". The Boolit nose is .303

Any similar experiences or ideas?
Cheers!

1Shot
Ontario, Canada.

[lwknight]

Minimun OAL for exactly that boolit? If you are engageing the riflings then you need to seat the boolit deeper. You may also have to reduce your load slightly.
I think I would be sizing the boolit down to .309 and test that too.

[legend]

1shot,WELCOME. glad you came out from behind the door...lurking will only get you so far.

you are seating your boolit too far out,and thats why it engraves the nose.

i use a candle flame to add soot to my boolits,i quickly carbon the boolit(you dont need much) and then chamber in your 336;if it touches then seat a tad deeper.....


i will caution you as to useing a case with no powder or primer(not needed)
i would hate to have you set off the powder in a loaded case.just the front half of the boolit needs the carbon.

once it is the right length lock down the boolit seater and load as normal.

i hope this helps you.

[jhrosier]

.... The Boolit nose is .303 ....

30 caliber (.308) boolits generally have a nose closer to .300".
Perhaps a softer alloy or a cooler mould temperature would get you there.
If not, there are usually a few fellows looking for "fat" .30s that might trade you for a mould that casts a shade smaller in the nose.

Jack

[beagle]

You're either seating the bullet too far out, loading a bullet that is oversize for the chamber you're using causing the cartridge to be too big in the neck area or else the nose on your bullet is too big in diameter.

Check the seating lenth first as it's the easier problem to correct./beagle

[1shot]

Thank you for the wealth of replies. :)

Right now I'm seating the Boolits level with the crimping groove, and based on your combined knowledge and my own handloading experience will seat deeper and back off of the powder charge a touch until I get this figured out. Although I do have a feeling the nose is oversize for the rifle..
I read somewhere that newer Marlin barrels run .302" at the lands, and if the Lee nose is .303 it looks as though I may have to begin experimenting with different alloy.

[johnlaw484]

Check the case lenght

[1shot]

Cases are all trimmed..

Here's a pic of the problem:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f338/recymech/Picture001.jpg

[HammerMTB]

The nose of that boo is a bore rider, and the marks say it is not riding the bore, but engraving the lands.
It'll be interesting to see if you can find an alloy that will give you a boolit .002" smaller. You might.
It's kind of a shame to have to seat it that deep to avoid engraving it when chambered.

Also, you can embed your pic like this:
http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f338/recymech/Picture001.jpg
Use the pic icon above your post, and enter (copy & paste) the URL of your pic in the window.

[45-70 Chevroner]

IMHO using a marking pin to check for boolit depth works real good just coating the sides of the boolit will tell you how much to set it back. My 30 cal bore riders measure at about .302 on the nose. It sounds like your 336 is a 30-30 the neck on that case is plenty long to set the boolit back far enough with out having to much boolit below the neck junction.
It also sounds like your rifle could be short throated. That boolit you are using is not very long. If it is seated at the seat grove you should not be having any problems normally. Do a chamber cast and go from there.

[runfiverun]

i like to have my bore riders engrave the nose,but yours is a bit too much.
move it back and lightly crimp over the drive band.
the deeper seating should be offset by the boolit not being jammed into the rifling.
the next thing i'd try is a softer alloy to pour a bit smaller you might want to waterdrop the softer alloy to bring the bhn up.

[Rockydog]

If you like the bullet and it shoots well you could always trim the case shorter. Crimping over the front band will allow the bullets to push deeper in the case while in the magazine tube. Trimming the case and crimping under the top band should work. RD

[WHITETAIL]

1Shot, Welcome to the forum![smilie=w:
I would go with the shorter trim job.
Take one case and keep making it
shorter till you get no markes on
the boolet.
Then make all the others the same
length.:rolleyes:

[DAFzipper]

Try coating the mold with mold release, two coats will reduce the size.

[higgins]

Trying to get a fatter bullet to fit my 336 .30/30 with a .309 groove, I tried 314299s sized to .310. They would not chamber and I found that the nose was .302. I too suspect the too-large nose is the problem, and you'd be better off with a bullet nose closer to .300.

[303Guy]

I would go with the shorter trim job. Take one case and keep making it
shorter till you get no markes on the boolet.May I suggest trimming it back untill the boolit no longer sticks in the bore?

Have you tried a heavier crimp? It might damage the boolit on firing but might not.

Now if it were me (I have a lathe) I would make a sizer die to fit my press and using the loaded case as a boolit holder, simply size the bore-ride section down a tad until it no longer sticks in the bore. It might take two stages considering that the crimp has to hold the boolit bit all that is required is to size it down enough that the rifling engraving allows the boolit to be pulled out by the crimp.

If you happen to have a bullet puller, that could be used to size the loaded boolit nose section.

[XWrench3]

i had the same problem with my c309-160-2r booliits in my marlin. i swithched to c309-150-f boolits, and the "problem" went away. the nose section of the flat nose boolits are 0.005" skinnier than the nose on "pointy" boolits ( .306" on the 2r vs .301" on the f in diameter). aparently, on lever guns, or at least marlins, the rifling does not have much freebore. or at least less than bolt action guns.

[TAWILDCATT]

that bullet is not right for the rifling.the nose is to fat.I use the lee 312-160 TL.
you could use the 312-155-2R.I shoot mine in a 1903 springfield,also in garand.
I wonder if that is throated.thats a tight throat.my 311291 does not do that.
:coffeecom :coffeecom

[canyon-ghost]

Short answer, turn the die back one/sixteenth of a turn.

Ron

[leftiye]

:kidding:I like it! Just stop pulling them out when they's chambered:kidding: But actually, you could. As has been said (plus 1) - you need to plug gage your bore, and make your boolit noses smaller to fit. You can size the bore riding section down maybe?

[1shot]

It appears I have three (non drastic) choices:

1. Trade the mould
2. Resize each individual nose
3. "Mold Release" as per "DAFzipper". :)

I'm very interested in the third option, is there a home-brew method I can use on the front "nose" section of the cavity?

[44man]

I have the same problem with a 45-70 boolit. I made the nose too large. I just size the nose with a .451" Lee die. Chambers nice after that.

[1shot]

After painting the nose section of the cavity with high temp BBQ paint on a q-tip, sadly no- it didn't work. The paint began wearing off quickly.
So I'm ordering the c309-170f this week, hopefully the nose will be closer to 0.300"

Meanwhile I'll begin looking at the stickies and have a crack at enlarging the driving part of the c309-160r mold to work in the .303 Brit. (Slugged 0.314")

[Von Gruff]

Before you start on your mould this is another solution. I had a similar problem with this bullet in my 7x57. It had worked well in a previous barrels but a new custom I built had a tighter bore and was getting nose engraving as you show, and I did de-bullet ONCE because of the nose sticking in the bore. I wanted to continue with this bullet and mould so took an un-used 353 lubrisizer die and had it turned out to except neck sizing bushes from Wilson (or Redding) Turned the stem to enter the bush and shortened the die, on the bottom end, by the thickness of the washer which goes over the bush and under the locking nut on the press. To save from continually adjusting the depth set on the press I hold a piece of correct sized hardwood against the stem and can size as much of the nose as necessary to just touch the rifling, (screwdriver is pointing to depth of nose sizing) and be .0005 under size while the rest of the nose is .0005 over bore dia. the drive bands are sized as normal. I have only had to take .001 of my nose but this system can be adapted to a number of different barrels with the change of the bush. I only use 1.5 - 2 thou neck tension for this particular load and with a softnose is now my hunting bullet.
http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv39/VonGruff/002-1.jpg

Von Gruff.

[mpmarty]

Go back to basics; Any time I have a bore rider boolit I push it into the muzzle of the rifle I intend to fire it in. If I can push it in it will be ok, if not I need to change the diameter of the bore riding section of the nose. In doing this I can feel confident that the boolit will be properly guided by the lands around the nose and can "long load" if necessary to keep boolit base above junction of shoulder and neck.

[Von Gruff]

That was why I needed to size the nose down - to keep the base just above the optimum neck-shoulder junction. I could not have seated deeper for this reason. You are right about the basics though as there are so many areas of bullet casting and loading that have been defined for a very long time, because they are shown to ring about the best results.

Von Gruff.