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OK longtime reloading gurus, I need somebody to stand back and take a look and see what I'm missing here. I'm no stranger to high-pressure reloading and I know I'm doing it and what's causing it when it happens. I run hot loads on purpose in some guns. This one, however, has me stumped.
I just finished building a 300WSM and high pressure signs are killing me. This is a build I did myself. It's a Remington 700 SA platform, PTG short action bolt with a mag boltface (.550), X-Mark Pro trigger set at 1.75, a 1-10 5R barrel and a Stocky's Classic stock. I was VERY careful with the chamber and it came out nice and smooth. I haven't polished it yet and won't need to.
I've tried roasting RL17, H414, W760 and H380. I've tried loads below minimum with all powders and still got hard boltlift, flattened primers and shiny half-moons from the extractor. With all loads, 90% of the time the spent cases stick in the boltface and won't eject. Boltface ID is .550 and my fire brass casehead is .553 - .555. :shock: Persian Blue shows I have nearly full contact on both bolt lugs. I didn't true up the lugs because they ended up being near-perfect allready. All I did was lap them a bit.
My headspace to my PTG go-guage is .002. The gap from bolt shoulder to barrel seat is .017. Brass neck thickness is .015 for new and third-fired brass. Reloaded brass necks measures .337. Fired brass is .344. Clearly, at .007 there's plenty of neck clearance.
I'm running Federal brass, Federal Mag primers and 168gr A-Max bullets. The jump to my lands is .780. I haven't tried adjusting my OAL yet.
What else do I need to look at? What am I missing?
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I just finished building a 300WSM and high pressure signs are killing me. This is a build I did myself. It's a Remington 700 SA platform, PTG short action bolt with a mag boltface (.550), X-Mark Pro trigger set at 1.75, a 1-10 5R barrel and a Stocky's Classic stock. I was VERY careful with the chamber and it came out nice and smooth. I haven't polished it yet and won't need to.
I've tried roasting RL17, H414, W760 and H380. I've tried loads below minimum with all powders and still got hard boltlift, flattened primers and shiny half-moons from the extractor. With all loads, 90% of the time the spent cases stick in the boltface and won't eject. Boltface ID is .550 and my fire brass casehead is .553 - .555. :shock: Persian Blue shows I have nearly full contact on both bolt lugs. I didn't true up the lugs because they ended up being near-perfect allready. All I did was lap them a bit.
My headspace to my PTG go-guage is .002. The gap from bolt shoulder to barrel seat is .017. Brass neck thickness is .015 for new and third-fired brass. Reloaded brass necks measures .337. Fired brass is .344. Clearly, at .007 there's plenty of neck clearance.
I'm running Federal brass, Federal Mag primers and 168gr A-Max bullets. The jump to my lands is .780. I haven't tried adjusting my OAL yet.
What else do I need to look at? What am I missing?
), that has been sitting idol under a black cover for years. One other maintenance guy and I are the only ones who have used it for years. I had to make a bolt holder out of aluminum block to hold my bolt in the four-jaw chuck. It burned up most of my weekend but I got it done and my bolt functions great now. Now back to load development.
