Inspect your rifles!

[Guy Miner]

Talked to a local gunsmith yesterday. Great guy, very thorough with his work... He bought a used Rem 700 in .250 Savage, a really neat cartridge. Handloaded for it, and shot it... Somewhere along the line he decided to try loading long, and seeing about touching the lands & grooves, or at least approaching them. As he was doing so, he found a "bump" in the chamber, before contacting the rifling...

Figured it was carbon buildup or something, but was unable to clean it out. On closer inspection, gulp, it turned out to be the remnants of a brass case neck, firmly lodged in the chamber!

So far it's been difficult to extract, but he's working on it... Interestingly, the rifle shot pretty well, even with the bullets passing through that little chunk of brass that was lodged in the barrel, like a shiny little brass ring...

So... For what it's worth - please inspect your rifles, particularly those that you pick up used... My friendly local gunsmith didn't suffer any harm from this little problem, but results could have been bad had the obstruction been worse.

Doggone case remnant wasn't even visible until he started trying to clear it out of there and ended up polishing the brass piece stuck in the barrel!

Yet another odd thing in the world of shooting...

Regards, Guy

 

[lefty315]

:lol: True story here Guy, there was an old timer back in Wisconsin when I was a younger lad. He found a spider had taken up residence in the barrel of his .30-30 just prior to deer season. He said he didn't want to evict the vermon so he just decided he would not shoot at a deer that year. Hezzy Hall from Hazel Green Wisconsin, come to think of it I don't ever remember Hezzy actually shooting anything. I think he went hunting for the moral support of his buddies.

 

[Desert Fox]

Happened to my buddy with his 338-06. He's one of those guy who never bother to look at the brass that he extract from the chamber before loading another round when shooting. We were at the range oneday shooting when I noticed, he was having a hard time chambering a round on his rifle after firing a round. Upon closer inspection, I noticed something was lodged in the chamber of his rifle. Run my cleaning rod from the muzzle and to our surprised out came the brass neck. Pulled the fired brass from the ammo box and found the brass with the neck missing. When I'm at the range, It's always a habit for me to inspect the brass after each firing. I'm always looking for any sign of abnormalities on the brass, pressure sign on the primer and split necks.