My Winchester model 54 failed to extract some of my handloads today for the first time ever. Some of the loads may have been neck sized, others full-length resized, I don't know for sure since I don't write that detail on the boxes. I'm not sure if that makes a difference anyway. It seems the milsurp brass I use was not extracting nearly as well as the commercial brass I loaded. It was a fairly low power load too. What do you think the culprit is and should I be looking to replace the extractor if I can even find one.
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.30-06 not extracting well
- Thread starter will99
- Start date
Marco Califo
New member
No. You can pull the bullets. www.Midsouthshooterssupply.com sells a hammer type bullet puller for $20 Midsouth Deluxe Bullet Puller With 4 Collets (Kinetic)I have to fire them all to get the cases
Midsouth Reloading # 02031 | Item # 038-02031
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If you have another 30-06 with a looser chamber, that would be one way to fire them. You can get a case gauge like the Wilson and identify which cases have become long. Otherwise, you are looking at using a bullet puller, as just suggested, to unload them and set the powder aside. You can then remove the decapping pin from your sizing die and resize them without pushing the primer out, and then complete reloading them again.
Generally speaking, neck-sized cases need full-length resizing whenever you feel them starting to get snug. With warm loads, it might be every third firing. With very warm loads on the edge of causing sticky bolt lift, it might be every time, and neck sizing becomes impossible. With very mild loads, they might go a dozen cycles before getting tight. There's no fixed number. This fact has caused most folks to shift to minimal resizing with their dies set up to produce a head-to-shoulder dimension of just a couple of thousandths rather than the full amount. The Redding Competition Shell Holders can help with this, as they have progressively thicker decks that limit how far you resize, and you can start with the tallest and go down in steps until your rounds feed and eject normally.
If you get a case gauge like the Wilson, you can see where the head and neck are sticking out after a single firing. If they exceed the ledges on the gauge, you can use the step-measuring feature of your caliper head to see how far it sticks out. I would make this measurement, in any event, to be able to monitor its growth with each load cycle if you don't plan to adopt the minimal resizing approach.
Generally speaking, neck-sized cases need full-length resizing whenever you feel them starting to get snug. With warm loads, it might be every third firing. With very warm loads on the edge of causing sticky bolt lift, it might be every time, and neck sizing becomes impossible. With very mild loads, they might go a dozen cycles before getting tight. There's no fixed number. This fact has caused most folks to shift to minimal resizing with their dies set up to produce a head-to-shoulder dimension of just a couple of thousandths rather than the full amount. The Redding Competition Shell Holders can help with this, as they have progressively thicker decks that limit how far you resize, and you can start with the tallest and go down in steps until your rounds feed and eject normally.
If you get a case gauge like the Wilson, you can see where the head and neck are sticking out after a single firing. If they exceed the ledges on the gauge, you can use the step-measuring feature of your caliper head to see how far it sticks out. I would make this measurement, in any event, to be able to monitor its growth with each load cycle if you don't plan to adopt the minimal resizing approach.
Thanks Uncle Nick. I have the hammer style bullet puller and have used it many times. I have also resized primed cases by removing the decapping pin. It seems it would be easier to shoot them off at the range and have a stiff brass cleaning rod handy when they don't eject. I don't think I'll ever neck size again. A guy at my club told me the brass would last so much longer if I only neck sized so I bought the die but I've got loads of brass and don't reload .30-06 as much as I once did.
Erik cortina, pro shooter
Stop neck sizing your brass https://youtu.be/lLG2kSrD40g
How do the best shooters in the world resize their brass https://youtu.be/vaqg4sJvg24
Stop neck sizing your brass https://youtu.be/lLG2kSrD40g
How do the best shooters in the world resize their brass https://youtu.be/vaqg4sJvg24
The m54 is an older rifle so the though occurred to me that the possibility of the extractor claw might be a bit worn, just enough to cause problems with tight brass. Just something to consider.
On another note, about the only time I use a neck sizing die anymore is if I've bulled a bunch of bullets and need to take the neck back to the proper size. One thing I did was change the way I full length resized my brass. case necks last just as long as if they were neck size.
This is how I set up my sizing die for bottleneck cartridges.
1. Take a once fired factory round and blacken the neck and shoulders with a Magic Marker or Sharpee pen. Some people like to smoke the neck and shoulder, but I find the Magic Marker/Sharpee pen a bit better.
2. Carefully lubricate the case.
3. Loosen the lock ring on the sizing die and back off about two turns from when the die is set to touch the shell holder.
4. Size the case. Note where the marks are on the case and turn the die down about a half a turn and size again. Turn down some more, and resize again. What you are looking for is the marks on the blackening just touching the shoulder.
5. Clean the lube from the case and try it in the rifle. It may chamber just a bit on the snug side. If so, turn the die down ever so slightly, lube and size again. Wipe off the lube and try in the rifle. If it slides in as easily as a factory round, you should be good to go. If not, usually one more very slight adjustment should fix the problem.
6. Tighten the locking ring for the die and you're done. You have just set your sizing die up for a custom fit to your specific rifle, rather than a generic one size fits all guns.
Paul B.
On another note, about the only time I use a neck sizing die anymore is if I've bulled a bunch of bullets and need to take the neck back to the proper size. One thing I did was change the way I full length resized my brass. case necks last just as long as if they were neck size.
This is how I set up my sizing die for bottleneck cartridges.
1. Take a once fired factory round and blacken the neck and shoulders with a Magic Marker or Sharpee pen. Some people like to smoke the neck and shoulder, but I find the Magic Marker/Sharpee pen a bit better.
2. Carefully lubricate the case.
3. Loosen the lock ring on the sizing die and back off about two turns from when the die is set to touch the shell holder.
4. Size the case. Note where the marks are on the case and turn the die down about a half a turn and size again. Turn down some more, and resize again. What you are looking for is the marks on the blackening just touching the shoulder.
5. Clean the lube from the case and try it in the rifle. It may chamber just a bit on the snug side. If so, turn the die down ever so slightly, lube and size again. Wipe off the lube and try in the rifle. If it slides in as easily as a factory round, you should be good to go. If not, usually one more very slight adjustment should fix the problem.
6. Tighten the locking ring for the die and you're done. You have just set your sizing die up for a custom fit to your specific rifle, rather than a generic one size fits all guns.
Paul B.
jetinteriorguy
New member
Try cleaning the bolt. Could be some crud interfering with the extractor inhibiting proper function.
Brass lasts longer because neck sizing stops the stretching that causes head separations. You still need to anneal the necks periodically when you get neck splitting, though even that is delayed if the neck sizing is done with a bushing that narrows the neck only just enough.
I think Jetinteriorguy's suggestion is reasonable. You could have crud interference, especially under the extractor.
I think Jetinteriorguy's suggestion is reasonable. You could have crud interference, especially under the extractor.
"Brass lasts longer because neck sizing stops the stretching that causes head separations."
Uncle Nick, I agree with you 100 percent. Setting up the FL dies as I posted also goes a long way toward brass longevity. In fact, the only neck sizing dies I still own are one for the 7x57 which I use to redo the necks on loads that I've pulled the bullets. The other is for brass for my .375 H&H that I use for some cast bullet testing. FWIW, the FL die for that round is set up like I previously mentioned. It's used for the full power hunting loads.
Paul B.
Uncle Nick, I agree with you 100 percent. Setting up the FL dies as I posted also goes a long way toward brass longevity. In fact, the only neck sizing dies I still own are one for the 7x57 which I use to redo the necks on loads that I've pulled the bullets. The other is for brass for my .375 H&H that I use for some cast bullet testing. FWIW, the FL die for that round is set up like I previously mentioned. It's used for the full power hunting loads.
Paul B.
I agree that neck sizing is the issue. The shoulder eventually will get pushed so far forward that you cannout close the bolt. Unless you are doing target work, just full-length resize the brass.The culprit is neck sizing. Eventually the case body swells enough to make extracting difficult.
If you are trying to neck size with full-length dies, realize that you are not neck sizing, that is a cheap short-cut. You are actually full-length resizing incompletely, so your case neck and the body of the case is not fully sized. The neck is not holding the bullet its full length.
Even with neck sizing dies, eventually you have to full-length size the cases to push the shoulder back a few thousandths. You will probably have to full-length size the cases about every 4-5 loadings to keep them feeding.
You also mentioned military and commercial brass. Military brass is generally harder to size as it is harder and a few thousandths thicker than commercial brass. Use either all military brass or all commercial brass for consistency.
Ackley tried this and found it made extraction more difficult because of hard case set-back when fired. Normally, the case adheres to the chamber wall when a round is fired. With a lubed case, all the pressure pushed the case fully against the bolt because the case could not adhere to the chamber wall.I wonder if putting lube on the reloads I have now would let them extract.
Scorch said:Ackley tried this and found it made extraction more difficult because of hard case set-back when fired. Normally, the case adheres to the chamber wall when a round is fired. With a lubed case, all the pressure pushed the case fully against the bolt because the case could not adhere to the chamber wall.
I've tried to figure that out, as there have been cartridge oil pads in several military designs in the past, and people frequently shot with greased bullets at different times in the past, the grease from which would have got into chambers.
My assumption is that Ackley was likely pushing pressures to start with. Subsequent analysis by Varmint Al shows grease lubrication in a mirror-polished chamber might increase bolt thrust by about 35% in a 243 Win chamber. The slickness needed to make the whole case slip back in the chamber had a friction coefficient of 0.01, which is not practical to obtain outside of a laboratory setting. But if Ackley were within 35% of the pressure needed to start getting sticky bolt lift via elastic chamber stretching at peak pressure, then lubricating cases could produce the symptom he reported. For most normal loads, though, it won't be that bad.
Look up member Slamfire's posts on greasing ammo for the M1 Garand. The only downside with the middling loads normally fired in that platform is grease getting everywhere, so you might want to avoid it in a gun with a bedded action. The plus side is polishing plus lubrication spreads the pressure ring out over a substantial enough portion of the case body that the brass virtually never suffers head separation before something else wears out.