Seismic Sam wrote:The only comment I have is your consideration of trading rifles, if I understood what you said correctly. The whole point of handloading is to gain experience working up loads for specific rifles you own, and the concept of switching rifles in an attempt to get away from some glitch you don't fully understand is essentially hiding your head in the sand and hoping it won't happen again. That is NOT the right attitude to have. You either LEARN what the problem is and fix it, or walk away from handloading altogether. Unless the rifle is patently defective (like one of Shippy's .25 Jennings...), and I doubt that a gun with these specs is junk, you HAVE to figure out what's going on.
P.S. Magic marker on the bullet helps you see if it's engaging the lands or not. If it fits in the mag, I can't see how that's possible unless the ogive on these bullets is very short and blunt, and this class of bullet is meant for long range competition, so if it were that shape the B.C. would suck and it wouldn't be good for long ranges.
Sam,
I don't think I was sticking my head in the sand. Just trying to see if the issue followed the bolt or rifle around. Incorrectly troubleshooting is not ignoring the issue.
I don't think these rounds are engaging the lands either but I will check - this info is good to have and I should know it anyway. My hypothesis is that I didn't have some of the primers fully seated due to a combination of not removing the crimp enough and/or not cleaning the pockets well enough. I don't think any primers were sticking up above the case head but it is possible that some were flush with the case head rather than a bit below. I am not sure of the mechanism that this would cause pierced primers but I didn't see any soot marks around the primer to make it look like gas might escape as in your theory but what do I know. The issue is that I am not confident enough in my theory that high primers might cause this issue to load up more of the same load.
The rifle is new and I read in one of the manuals that pierced primers are often (but not always) due to an issue in the rifle. Most often the firing pin has a burr or is sharp. I changed out the firing pin and still saw the issue so this is more unlikely in my case. Also mentioned is an oversized firing pin hole, light hammer (not sure what this means), light firing pin or a weak firing pin spring. Sounds like the firing pin hits the primer and ignites the round and the firing pin should remain extended for the pressure spike. If it backs off early the pressure spike will push the brass from the bottom of the primer impact hole back out into the bolt area. I guess I can check the hole size on the bolt easy enough. Can also check for brass junk in the bolt. Not sure how to check the firing pin spring or hammer spring.
