Went hunting this afternoon loaded my gun when I left my truck with reloads I had made. When I chambered the first round it was really hard to close the bolt so I pulled it back and when I did the shell came out without the bullet. Left the bullet stuck in the barrel. My bullets were not seated to specs. Using the Sinclair seating depth tool I found the max or longest seating depth. All of my rounds were roughly .015 shorter than than max depth. I had already fired around a dozen rounds at this depth but all the ones I have currently loaded were hard to close the bolt however none of them pulled out of the shell when I checked them. Thoughts and ideas what should I do?
Bullet seating depth
- Thread starter coyotewsm
- Start date
generally when I seat bullets close enough to touch the lands, closing the bolt is not noticeably stiffer. That is usually a result of not pushing the shoulder back far enough. Are you full length sizing? Of course, that would not explain leaving the bullet in the rifling. I would go back and remeasure lead length and compare with you cartridges. If you put one of the other rounds in the chamber and close the bolt, sometime you can see marks on the bullet where it touched the rifling. Look close for scratch marks around the case mouth.
It depends how far the bullet is jamming in. It did stick in the bore, after all.
You do realize that you have to redo the Sinclair tool measurement for every different bullet you load. The different designs don't all have their ogives in the same place relative to the tip. The two bullets in the drawing below are the same distance off the lands, but look how different their COL's have to be to accomplish that.
Assuming you knew that already, and assuming you didn't adjust the die for some other bullet previously and forget to adjust it back before returning to this one, then the next most likely culprit is you set up your seating die with a lock ring not locked tightly enough in place on the die body threads. When you last unscrewed the die, friction with the press frame turned the lock nut out slightly, so that when you returned the die to the press next, it was actually sitting up a little higher.
You do realize that you have to redo the Sinclair tool measurement for every different bullet you load. The different designs don't all have their ogives in the same place relative to the tip. The two bullets in the drawing below are the same distance off the lands, but look how different their COL's have to be to accomplish that.
Assuming you knew that already, and assuming you didn't adjust the die for some other bullet previously and forget to adjust it back before returning to this one, then the next most likely culprit is you set up your seating die with a lock ring not locked tightly enough in place on the die body threads. When you last unscrewed the die, friction with the press frame turned the lock nut out slightly, so that when you returned the die to the press next, it was actually sitting up a little higher.
I am full length resizing. Not sure what you mean about pushing the shoulder I'm assuming you are referring to how deep the resizing die is set. I am aware that you have to redo it for every different bullet considering ive only ever used one bullet that's not an issue. My die lock ring has a set screw on it so that shouldn't be a problem either.
DAVID NANCARROW
New member
Had a bullet get stuck in the barrel one time, and it was because I didnt have enough neck tension on a compressed charge load. Fortunately, I had my break down cleaning rod with me, so I cleared the bullet, cleaned out the powder left in the action and continued on.