Scout Rifle

[Kenneth L. Walters]

Just got my scout rifle. Started reloading for it but ran into an odd problem. The bolt wouldn't close on the reloads. Nothing unusual about the reloads. I've used them before. But the bolt just would not close.

I fiddled with it for awhile and made some progress. Now the bolt closes but with a little bit of difficulty. When I cycle the bolt and eject the round, which is difficult, I find rifling marks on the brass. Probably about an eight of an inch of the neck clearly has rifling engraved on it. Never seen anything like that before.

Any suggestions?

 

[pisgah]

Have you tried factory ammo in it? If yes, any problems? Was this brass originally fired in this rifle, or another? Full-length resized, or neck-only? Have you checked case length and trimmed as needed?

Just a few starting questions.

 

[Kenneth L. Walters]

I've not tried factory ammunition. Probably will not as it is just too expensive. The brass was originally fired in another rifle but I full length resized it. Case length is proper.

 

[Pal Val]

Difficulty in loading can be due to resizing. The rifling marks on the brass are both a mystery and a warning. I can imagine what kind of overpressure that can cause. That would be the cause of difficult extraction.

I would start by measuring the brass for length after resizing. Measuring the neck length would be next. If that brass is stretched to the point of the neck going so far past the chamber, you're looking at a potential neck separation. Not something I would want to have.

 

[RJ556]

When say "rifling marks on the brass", do you mean rifling marks on the BULLET? I do not see how a case could be long enough to touch the rifling because it is beyond the throat.

 

[Kenneth L. Walters]

No the rifling marks were on the brass.

I think, maybe, that I've figured this out. I'm using SAECO bullet #315. That's a 160 grain linotype bullet with each driving band being slightly bigger than the one above it. At the nose the diameter is 0.306. At the base the diameter is 0.311. When I sized these years ago I used a 0.313 sizing die because I didn't want to size the bullet I just wanted to grease them. That worked just fine in my 7.65x53, 7.62x54R and my Ruger 30-06. But I'm starting to wonder if I should resize these to 0.309 for this Ruger. Maybe the bullets are slightly too large in diameter for this gun.

Not positive that this is the problem but it is easy enough to check and see. Does seem odd, however, that a Ruger 30-06 could handle such a bullet and that a Ruger 308 might have problems.

 

[Major T]

There should NOT be RIFLING marks on the brass, no matter what bullet you are using!!!!!!!!!jack

 

[boray]

Any change the brass you're reloading was fired in a rifle with a fluted chamber (HK91)? A fluted chamber will mark brass like that and it does indeed look like rifling on the neck. I've got lots like that. Doesn't really hurt anything but it never goes away either even after many loadings.

 

[Pentz]

I had the same trouble with cast boolits in my Scout. Lee 309-180R and Lyman 311334, as well as the RCBS 180 SIL will not allow chambering. Switching to jacked 150 gr bullets solved the problem. I'm told that 311299s will work, it must be in the ogive. The Scout appears to have little to no throat to work with, and bore-riders are not gonna work.

 

[Kenneth L. Walters]

I had the same trouble with cast boolits in my Scout. Lee 309-180R and Lyman 311334, as well as the RCBS 180 SIL will not allow chambering. Switching to jacked 150 gr bullets solved the problem. I'm told that 311299s will work, it must be in the ogive. The Scout appears to have little to no throat to work with, and bore-riders are not gonna work.

That's really interesting, especially since I intended to use only cast bullets. Tomorrow I'll try reducing the bullet diameter and see if that works.

 

[wwb]

Based on what I've read here, the FIRST thing I would do is make a Cerrosafe casting of the chamber and leade, and check it against SAAMI specs.

Under no circumstances would I fire that rifle until the chamber had been measured !!!!

 

[Kenneth L. Walters]

I e-mailed Ruger and asked about the throat. If I can not solve this problem easily I'll just return the rifle.

 

[pisgah]

You seem to be leaning heavily towards deciding there is a chamber problem when the fact is that the chances are at least equal that what you have is a load problem. Cast the chamber and see what you've got. It may be that while the chamber is within specs, at least minimum specs, your loads are over-spec -- but a cast of the chamber will tell you.

 

[Kenneth L. Walters]

I don't see the value in doing that because I can not change the chamber if there is a problem there. I have to find a way to change the reloads because that is the only thing that I can change.

If I can not find a way to alter the reloads then this gun just isn't going to work with cast bullets. And if it doesn't work with these cast bullets it is of no value to me.

 

[Pentz]

Kenneth, If your cartridge case truly impinges into the throat and rifling, that is a separate issue from the bullet diameter. What I noted in mine was that my bore-rider cast boolits that shoot 1 MOA in my 03A3s will not chamber in my Scout. I too was puzzled until I seated a jacketed 150-gr bullet into an EMPTY case and it chambered fine. Other shooters report the cast 311299 among others work fine. http://www.scoutrifle.org/index.php?topic=1445.0

My Scout chambers empty cases easily. If yours will not chamber a sized, empty case then you have a factory problem. However, I would make a dummy cartridge with a proper 150-gr jacketed bullet seated to 2.80 or slightly less and see if that chambers. That should tell the tale.

Best,
Pentz

 

[Kenneth L. Walters]

It chambers a sized empty case just fine.

Before I start reloading I make up a couple dummy rounds. No powder and no primer. Then I try chambering the rounds to be sure no problems will show up. Almost never does this detect a problem.

But with this one gun it did. I can not remember the last time this procedure detected anything wrong but this time I had several problems.

The first dummy cartridge jammed. No idea why. The bolt wouldn't close and getting the cartridge out wasn't easy. Never figured this out.

On the second try I had measured everything. All was fine. The round chambered but turning the bolt took a little bit of effort. Not a great deal but just a bit to much. When I extracted the dummy cartridge I had a hard time finding anything wrong. Eventually, however, I noticed rifling marks on the end of the cartridge case. Probably went up about an eighth of an inch. I've never seen anything like that before.

I made up a third dummy cartridge. Measured everything before chambering the cartridge. Got the exact same result. The brass is toughing the rifling.

This cast bullet, SAECO #315, has been used in three other guns (three different cartridges) without incident. It is a stepped design with each driving band being a hair bigger than the one in front of it. I size these to 0.313. That doesn't size anything. It just lets me use the L/S for greasing. The front band, as I recall, is 0.306 and the back one is 0.311.

I'll try seating the bullet deeper so that the driving band at the front of the case is significantly smaller.

I'll also try resizing these bullets to 0.308 and see what happens.

 

[Beachbum]

I am curious why it is not worth buying one box of factory ammo to try out in the rifle. Ruger is not going to give your complaint much creedence if you ask them for help having only tried you own reloads. The $25 price tag of a box of Remington or Federal ammo is nothing compared to blowing up the gun from overpressure. If the Factory ammo won't chamber properly it has to be the gun and Ruger will happliy fix it free of charge.

 

[pisgah]

I don't see the value in doing that because I can not change the chamber if there is a problem there. I have to find a way to change the reloads because that is the only thing that I can change.

If I can not find a way to alter the reloads then this gun just isn't going to work with cast bullets. And if it doesn't work with these cast bullets it is of no value to me.

Your option is to send it back to Ruger if the chamber is out-of-spec. They do stand behind their stff rather well. All I am saying is, you need to know what the problem is before you do anything, and casting the chamber is a way to eliminate it, or confirm it, as the source of the trouble.

 

[Kenneth L. Walters]

The word moron comes to mind but...

I changed bullets. Switched to SAECO #305 which is an entirely different design. Nothing special except that it has a very obvious crimp grove. So I used the crimp grove. Yielded a cartridge of 2.477 inches. A bit short for a 308 round. The cartridge chambered perfectly. No problems whatsoever.

Then I examined the case. Found rifling marks on the front of the neck. But the cartridge did not bind up. Those rifling marks could not possibly have come from the Ruger.

So I carefully examined all my range pickup 308 brass. Some of it, not much, has those marks. How you get those marks I don't know but the point is that they didn't come from my new Ruger. I was wrong about that. I was certain, of course, but I was wrong.

So I went back and examined the bullets on my dummy rounds. If you look VERY closely you'll find rifling marks on the bullets. Not very pronounced but there are there on the SAECO 315 bullets.

That SAECO bullet has tapered driving bands. The front one is 0.3025 inches. The second is 0.3035. The others are 0.3055, 0.3075 and 0.3100. I bought that mould because I figured with all the rifles I was planning to use a 30 cast bullet with that this would give me the most flexibility. Never have needed that until now.

So I tried several cartridge lengths. My original cartridge had an OAL of 2.6975. That didn't work to well. Next I tried 2.824, 2.732 and, finally, 2.651. Rifling marks on all but the last one. The last one worked just fine.

So if I had shortened by original bullet by approximately 0.05 inches this problem would have never shown up.

The problem clearly was that the bullet was being driven into the rifling. That made closing the bolt a bit of a problem and it made extracting the cartridge hard.

I'm going to stick with the 2.651 overall cartridge length.

 

[Pentz]

Yup, boolit profile. The Ruger has a very short throat, kinda like the K31. If the boolit does not taper sharply it will not chamber at spec length. If you were to switch to more of a Spitzer, sharply-tapered profile you may find that COAL will be greater. It's the obvious conclusion that comes last!!
Good shooting,
Pentz

 

[VinnieBoomBah]

Then I examined the case. Found rifling marks on the front of the neck. But the cartridge did not bind up. Those rifling marks could not possibly have come from the Ruger.

So I carefully examined all my range pickup 308 brass. Some of it, not much, has those marks. How you get those marks I don't know but the point is that they didn't come from my new Ruger. I was wrong about that. I was certain, of course, but I was wrong.

Good chance those aren't rifling marks, they may be fluted chamber marks from an H&K or CETME rifle. There delayed roller lock action relies on a fluted chamber to help "float" the cartridge free of the chamber. This is an extreme example, but cases can look like this: