2 Jams at the Range Today

View · by **gearguy10** on Sat Jan 26, 2013 8:44 pm

I picked up a SOTA upper in 300 Blackout just before the craziness. A few weeks ago, I took it out to the woods and put 50 rounds through it just for fun. No problems at all.

Today, I decided to sight in a new scope so I loaded up 50 more rounds and went back to the woods with some targets. During my shooting, twice the BCG failed to lock forward and I could not get it to close by hitting the forward assist or get it to open by pulling the charging handle. Both times I fired a few rounds and then I got a click as the hammer dropped on a live round. I waited 3 seconds then inspected the ejection port where I could see the BCG wasn't engaged it was forward but I could see the lugs on the bolt head. There was no way I could budge it with my hands. I ended up grabbing a chunk of 2x4 and whacking the crap out of the charging handle until it popped loose. The second time I used the 2x4 to beat on the forward assist until the BCG fully closed. When I cleared the action, I put the bullets back in the mag and they reloaded and fired just fine.

Anyone experience this or know what I do to avoid it in the future? The rifle was clean and lubricated. The ammo was brand new brass I loaded myself (and worked fine the 2nd time through). It bothered me to have to beat on my gun with chunk of wood with a live round in the chamber. From now on, I'm going to carry a small brass hammer in my gear bag.

View · by **Shawski** on Sat Jan 26, 2013 9:01 pm

Are you seating and crimping at the same time? When I tried that I got a few that bulged just enough they wouldn't chamber so I switched to seating and crimping separately.

View · by **gearguy10** on Sat Jan 26, 2013 9:39 pm

I am seating and crimping in one step. But like I said, the same shell, once ejected, was put right back into the magazine and chambered just fine.

I'm going to strip it down tomorrow and take a good look at things. Kinda wondering if I was a bit conservative with the lube and the temp was 18 degrees today.

View · by **Shawski** on Sun Jan 27, 2013 7:04 am

Too little lube could be a problem as well. I'd double check everything and look closely at it all. I will be shooting my 300 BLK for the first time today, hoping it all goes well.

View · by **Rem700** on Sun Jan 27, 2013 2:01 pm

If you skip the forward assist you wont require the 2X4 imho

View · by **Snowgun** on Sun Jan 27, 2013 2:38 pm

Rem700 wrote:If you skip the forward assist you wont require the 2X4 imho

+1

Stoner never had the dumb FA on his original design, the military requested it because they were too lazy to correct their cleaning regimen.

The only time you should use it is when your life depends on firing the next shot, otherwise its just tacticool weight that has the capability to ruin your gun.

View · by **gearguy10** on Sun Jan 27, 2013 4:38 pm

I may have figured out my issue. Since it was sleeting then snowing today, I decided to make up another batch of ammo for the next trip out. This time I decided to seat all of the bullets first and then run the rounds through again to crimp. Everything looked great until the crimping. I used a quarter-turn crimp and I noticed after inspecting the first 10 rounds that one of them looked like the shoulder of the shell was smooshed down like a mushroom cap. I measured it at .372 and tried feeding it into the barrel of my AR and it was a no-go. The other 9 went in just fine. I tried another ten and had another smooshed one come out. Again, same results. In the end I pulled the decapping pin from my .223 sizing die and ran the smooshed ones through just enough to iron out the shoulder. SAAMI specs say it should be .3619 which it was after I ran it through the .223 sizing die. I'm thinking I may order a Lee factory crimp die and see how that goes.

View · by **FJ540** on Sun Jan 27, 2013 4:52 pm

I forgot I had mine set for crimping when I loaded up some yesterday, and it too mashed the hell out of the shoulder.

No crimping for me. Haven't had any moving around on me yet - even the moly ones stay put.

View · by **gearguy10** on Sun Jan 27, 2013 5:08 pm

I just placed an order for RCBS small base dies and a Lee factory crimp die. I'll see how that goes.

View · by **Countryfried Frank** on Sun Jan 27, 2013 6:00 pm

Case lenght might be one of the causes. I've had a similar issue in the past when my setting on my trimmer drifted.

View · by **bothwell** on Thu Jan 31, 2013 7:04 pm

I occaisionally had the smooshed-shoulder with one-step seat+crimp (30-06). I too ended-up backing-off the seating die so it doesn't crimp, and using a separate Factory Crimp die. It works much better.

View · by **gearguy10** on Sun Feb 03, 2013 9:08 pm

I ordered the RCBS small base die set and a Lee factory crimp die. Much better results. Not a single jam from any of the ammo I made this weekend. Smooth as butter. I had about 10 rounds of the old stuff I had made with my Hornady set and one of them jammed. Highly recommend the Lee factory crimp die. Actually squeezes the neck instead of pushing down on it. No smooshed shoulders.

View · by **chopper** on Mon Feb 04, 2013 10:37 am

If you measure your shell lengths you will find them all different lengths unless you just trimmed them all the same, setting your die to crimp will work for the ones that are the same length but the longer ones will be over crimped because of the extra length
a lee factory neck crimper will cure the problem.

View · by **Cavscout** on Thu Feb 07, 2013 9:44 pm

The forward assist helps a lot when there's sand in the star chamber lugs. Glad it's there, being that the charging handle does really control the BCG like other designs.

Sorry, no experience with 300 blk. I guess you could take it in, see if the chamber is fully supported. Do you have a chamber brush? Bore brushes/snakes don't get that as well as you might need.

I'd like to say all guns hickup, but these 2 sound bad. But, even these can happen? Maybe something got in the chamber?

Good luck!

View · by **gearguy10** on Sat Feb 09, 2013 10:01 am

chopper wrote:If you measure your shell lengths you will find them all different lengths unless you just trimmed them all the same, setting your die to crimp will work for the ones that are the same length but the longer ones will be over crimped because of the extra length
a lee factory neck crimper will cure the problem.

The first batch I made was with brand new Hornady brass that I did run through the sizing die but I did not trim. Those were the ones I had a few issues with. My second go-through with the brass, I sized and then trimmed. No problems. Shows how tight the tolerances can be when a little extra length can cause a little bit of a bulge that is hardly seen by the naked eye. I'm learning every day. Just like I learned that pulling back on the charging handle with my thumb while striking the butt pad of the stock on a log clears it faster that trying to whack at it with a chunk of 2x4.