Guy Miner
Master Loader
- Apr 6, 2006
- 17,541
- 4,864
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
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