Stuck bullet after ejecting live round

[Mule man]

Have you sized a case ,then seated a bullet (no powderer primer) then magic mark the bullet and close the bolt? Open the bolt and look at the marks on the bullet whether you have to punch it out or it comes out on its own.That should tell you how far in you are seating. Adjust seating depth from there. Once you get off the lands .10,.20 or what ever you should be good to go.

 

[Elkmagnet]

It sounds like neck tension to me also.
Does it ever happen to the first round or if loaded as as a single shot?
It is possible that the bullet is working its way longer in the clip with the recoil of subsequent rounds then is jammed into the rifling when loaded.

 

[mesa3gunner]

To set my initial length with a bullet I will resize the neck only about 1/16 inch. Just enough to hold the bullet. Then I'll black the bullet with magic marker and seat it about 1/4 inch into the case. I then chamber it in the rifle and it will hit the rifling setting the bullet back and scraping the black from the magic marker off. When I extract the cartridge the bullet will probably be pulled a bit but just push it back to the line that was made scraping the magic marker off. Then I'll set my seater gently to the bullet and screw it down .025 to .050 inch more so it will be off the rifling. That should keep you safe. There's the possibility that you may have to seat it deeper so it will fit in the magazine and function properly but that doesn't happen often. Measure the inside of your case neck after you resize it and measure the expander ball. There should be at least .003 inch for proper neck tension to hold the bullet.

 

[recurveman]

The brass is all new and never shot. I am sure I measured it at the lands and backed it off. The first time it happened THE OACL was 2.64. I made a note in my book that the lands were at 2.625". My manual says max OACL for a 243 is 2.710. After the first time it got stuck I seated them deeper to 2.615. It shoots good, but it happened again!

So if your COAl was 2.64 and your lands are at 2.625 then you are stuffing the bullet into the lands. If you seat the bullet at 2.615 then you are barely off the lands by .010 which is not enough for most hunting applications. If a manual says a COAL is 2.710 then the lands should be closer to 2.8 - 2.90 not the 2.625 that you are stating. Something isn't adding up. If you are using new brass then (assuming that you aren't using an expander) you should have at least .005 of neck tension which is plenty. It would be very, very difficult to pull a bullet out of new brass with factory neck tension. Have you looked into the chamber/bore? How many shots do you have down the tube. You could have a carbon ring build up that might be helping extract the bullet too. Looking at the Hogdgon manual it says that the COAL for a .243 shooting an 80 bullet should be 2.610 - 2.635 depending on brand of bullet.

You have a measurement or two that is off by a bit and a problem with how a gun is functioning. When I get in a problem like this I go find someone in person to look at the problem and see what their thoughts are. Obviously there is a problem that needs to be fixed. For now I would look at shooting factory ammo and see if that solves the problem. If it does solve the problem then we have verified that your reloading process needs to be tightened up.

 

[Borny1]

Thanks guys for all your help. I will check all the things you suggested and report back when I get the rifle back from hunting camp. The rifle is brand new with maybe 50 rounds through it and it has been cleaned at least once.

 

[Borny1]

Okay, I apologize for the long delay... I finally got some primers, powder, and bullets. I also bought Hornady's COAL tool with a 243 case. I measured with the Speer bullets that were getting stuck and I am nowhere near the lands. I reloaded some new rounds with Hornady brass and the rounds were still sticky in the chamber. I made a batch of rounds with BT's and some ELDX's and the don't stick in the chamber at all. I guess I should measure the Speer bullet diameter but I have to think that's the culprit. I am done using those anymore.

 

[jejack26]

Okay, I apologize for the long delay... I finally got some primers, powder, and bullets. I also bought Hornady's COAL tool with a 243 case. I measured with the Speer bullets that were getting stuck and I am nowhere near the lands. I reloaded some new rounds with Hornady brass and the rounds were still sticky in the chamber. I made a batch of rounds with BT's and some ELDX's and the don't stick in the chamber at all. I guess I should measure the Speer bullet diameter but I have to think that's the culprit. I am done using those anymore.

That's weird, if I followed all of it, if not close to the lands how's it jamming? If you figure it out post it. You got me curious

 

[ImBillT]

You’re jamming your bullet hard into lands that are not well worn. I highly doubt that your Hornady gauge is giving you accurate information. I’d bet that you can see the marks from the lands on the bullets.

COAL listed in manuals is borderline meaningless.

Load a dummy round, seat a bullet, and test it. If it happens again, back off the seating stem a hair and try again. As soon as it stops sticking, that’s the farthest out that you can seat THAT bullet. Different bullets have different ogive shapes.

Once your throat wears a little you won’t be able to do that anymore. It won’t take long with a .243Win.

Your bullet’s ogive should hit the lands somewhere near 2.082” inches. The nose of course will be longer.

 

[1_pointer]

You’re jamming your bullet hard into lands that are not well worn. I highly doubt that your Hornady gauge is giving you accurate information. I’d bet that you can see the marks from the lands on the bullets.

COAL listed in manuals is borderline meaningless.

Load a dummy round, seat a bullet, and test it. If it happens again, back off the seating stem a hair and try again. As soon as it stops sticking, that’s the farthest out that you can seat THAT bullet. Different bullets have different ogive shapes.

Once your throat wears a little you won’t be able to do that anymore. It won’t take long with a .243Win.

Your bullet’s ogive should hit the lands somewhere near 2.082” inches. The nose of course will be longer.

A Sharpie makes doing this pretty easy. Color the bullet and keep shortening the seating depth until you no longer see marks on the bullet. I start out loading for a new rifle this way, just off the lands or the max mag length, whichever is shorter. That way in developing the load you only have one way to go.

 

[antelopedundee]

What's stuck? The bullet or the case?If you have managed to stick the case in there, probably the case is way to long and was forced into the lands. Trim the case's! You should have had a hard bolt close. If it's the bullet, seat deeper. Again if it's the bullet you'd have felt the lands touch the bullet. Don't need a magic marker to see the land marks on the bullet. There would be marks on the ogive for every land and easy to see. Easy to feel when you close the bolt.

I don't think it's possible to force a case mouth into the lands with a bullet seated.

I had a conundrum awhile back about fire forming 6.5-06AI cases. If you start with a .25-06 and seat a bullet the fire formed case is going to end up about 0.012 - 0.015 short of starting length. This may be undesirable to some and others believe that it promotes carbon ring formation.
One can also start with a .270 case and try to trim it so that it's maybe 0.001 short of the maximum length of YOUR chamber. I could NOT get a sized .270 case to go into my chamber without possibly using a lot of force.
Another way to fire form is to use a fast burning pistol powder like Bullseye and no bullet. If you do it this way you could take the .270 case and size it down with a .25-06 die and no expander. I believe it would chamber without difficulty and you could then trim the fire-formed case to standard length.

I know this is a bit divergent, but I expect the OP's issue is simply the bullet seated too far out or possibly not enough neck tension. I've seated dummy rounds just to touch with a little effort and was able to extract with the bullet in place.

 

[Don Fischer]

I use 270 case's for my 6.5x06 and they do need trimming. But I'd suspect that if the bolt were slammed hard enough the mouth might stick a ways into the lands but then might make getting the bolt closed a problem. A friend years ago had some handloads in his 25-06 and he got the bullet's out to far and slammed a round into the lands. Couldn't close the bolt and couldn't get it out. I got it out and dumped powder all over inside the action! have only seen that one time before a guy did it with a 284 win in a bolt using some ammo his buddy loaded for a different gun. When I seat bullet's first time in a case, I do start the bullet out just far enough to touch the lands but if there is to much resistence, never try to close the bolt on it fr fear of sticking a bullet in the lands. Actually the bullet can touch the lands and be barely felt in closing the bolt but it doesn't stick. Find it by looking for land marks on the ogive. Won't stick a bullet but bet it would raise pressure some.

Seen just enough silly things over the years to believe anything is possible!

 

[ImBillT]

Your lands are typically well beyond the case mouth. Most SAAMI and CIP minimum chambers are .010”-.020” longer than the max cartridge, which is .010” longer than trim length. The end of the chamber then tapers to freebore diameter sharply...30-45 degrees. The lands are then after the freebore. Jamming the case mouth into the 45deg angle will crimp your case onto your bullet and cause massive pressure spikes.

Below are 6CM, 270Win, and 260Rem.

The specs demonstrate one of the reasons that some more recent hit cartridges are “more accurate” than older ones. The .270Win has a throat .0013” larger than the bullet, the .260Rem is .001” larger, and the 6CM is just .0005” larger. Also, all lead angles erode to about 1.5 deg. Most modern cartridges start at 1.5 deg. The .270Win at .5deg will erode rapidly, leaving you chasing your lands. The .260 at 3deg will erode more slowly, but as the angle changes, it can be a little frustrating to hone in on how much jump or jam a particular bullet is going to need to shoot at it’s best.

 

[cahunter805]

Okay, I apologize for the long delay... I finally got some primers, powder, and bullets. I also bought Hornady's COAL tool with a 243 case. I measured with the Speer bullets that were getting stuck and I am nowhere near the lands. I reloaded some new rounds with Hornady brass and the rounds were still sticky in the chamber. I made a batch of rounds with BT's and some ELDX's and the don't stick in the chamber at all. I guess I should measure the Speer bullet diameter but I have to think that's the culprit. I am done using those anymore.

I wouldn’t be the least surprised to find those Speer bullets out of spec especially if you loaded BTs and ELDs in the same new brass without a problem.
I’d simply move on from the Speer bullets and work up a load with the BTs I’m assuming are the 95gr and go kill stuff.

 

[antelopedundee]

I use 270 case's for my 6.5x06 and they do need trimming. But I'd suspect that if the bolt were slammed hard enough the mouth might stick a ways into the lands but then might make getting the bolt closed a problem. A friend years ago had some handloads in his 25-06 and he got the bullet's out to far and slammed a round into the lands. Couldn't close the bolt and couldn't get it out. I got it out and dumped powder all over inside the action! have only seen that one time before a guy did it with a 284 win in a bolt using some ammo his buddy loaded for a different gun. When I seat bullet's first time in a case, I do start the bullet out just far enough to touch the lands but if there is to much resistence, never try to close the bolt on it fr fear of sticking a bullet in the lands. Actually the bullet can touch the lands and be barely felt in closing the bolt but it doesn't stick. Find it by looking for land marks on the ogive. Won't stick a bullet but bet it would raise pressure some.

Seen just enough silly things over the years to believe anything is possible!

The issue is that if you fire form 6.5-06AI from .25-06 cases the FFed cases end up too short. Some may or may not find this detrimental. The thing too is that they are not likely to grow back to the starting length. Sow how to get 6.5-06AI cases that are 2.294 inches in length. Start with .25-06 cases that have been fired a couple times and are now long enough to maybe need trimming. But you'd have a FFed case that's then been fired 3 times. Also pointless to shorten a .270 case to .25-06 length. So you have to get the .270 case into the lands. So just size down to .25 or even .24 and have at it. Add about 20 grains of bullseye, a touch of buttwipe paper to keep the powder in, point R straight up and fire away. I think the case should be about 95% there at that point. Now you can trim it down to 2.494 inches and have a 6.5-06AI case at the length it's supposed to be.

 

[Don Fischer]

I have a 25-06 and no 270 or 280 so those are the case's I used to make mine with.

 

[Borny1]

I realize OACL is a horrible way to measure and I should use ogive. I used the Hornady tool and it is pretty slick. You can see the shoulder on the Speer bullets are much higher.

 

[Borny1]

BT's are 2.695 and Speers are 2.610"

 

[Don Fischer]

A Sharpie makes doing this pretty easy. Color the bullet and keep shortening the seating depth until you no longer see marks on the bullet. I start out loading for a new rifle this way, just off the lands or the max mag length, whichever is shorter. That way in developing the load you only have one way to go.

I might add to this that if you can see the lands with the sharpie, you can see it without and you can feel them when closing the bolt. On a bullet without the sharpie it it touches the lands you'll see the scratch at the ogive and there will be one for each land around the bullet.

I don't recall ever measuring a loaded round when I started. Didn't have a caliper but rather a slide rule in inch's ans MM's made of plastic by RCBS. Didn't know how to read inch's so converted to MM's and went with them! Then I'd either seat a bullet to the crimp grove on a bullet and call it good. Then down the road I learned to start a bullet and seat it by feeling it hit the lands. When it no longer hit, I was good to go. Pretty much the same way today but get the start using a bullet and cleaning rod to measure bolt face to the lands, works fine!

ou mentioned it was out to deer camp? Your using it like that? I would guess your using factory ammo in it and that works. If that is the case then loading to the deminitions in your loading manual should work also! In every manual I've ever seen they are always the same. Reason being the ammo you load into your rifle from your manual is designed to work in all rifles chambered in that cartridge at SAMMI min specs. Should work in every rifle and fit every magazine well. If not your doing something drastically wrong or your rifle needs to go back to the manufacturer. If it is the rifle I believe the manufacturer would appreciate it. That is a liability to them.

 

[std7mag]

First off, take your Hornady measuring tool and throw it the eff away!
If you do a search on any of the forums out there, the ones with "need help with COAL" the majority will start with " using the Hornady tool".

Using a case with the neck loose enough that you can insert a bullet by hand and move it. Leave bullet seated long. Chamber. Remove & measure with caliper. That is the measurement to your lands for THAT bullet. Subtract 0.020".
Then start your load development with powder charge. Once that's figured out, you can change seating depth to shrink your group sizes.

I use this method for 40-73gr bullets in 223 Rem through 100-168gr bullets in 7mm Rem Mag.
No wasted money on a tool that confuses the chit outta ya, no stuck bullets, no headaches!

 

[grizzly63]

Welcome to the web advisory panel. Get a lot of different opinions on how to do the same job. I personally use the rifle cleaning rod method. It works for me. Your hornady guage probably will too. I do use a final crimp die on everything i reload. Keeps the bullets from moving around too much. Good luck.