Just thought I'd share some recent developements. In this thread: Couple bricks of bad ammo!
I was whining how I got a few bricks of bad ammo, and how dumb I was to integrate it into my old stock with out at least shooting a sample of the new stuff, basically contaminating my whole inventory. Of course lessons learned.
I didn't want to mention the manufacturer at the time, however after several month's of emails, I didn't get even a polite "too bad" complimentary response.
It was the Aguila Golden Eagle Match Rifle ammo. I have in the past preached about it being good enough to use for actual matches and priced low enough to actually use for practicing. I know all manufacturer's at one time or another have a bad run, which I can "accept", but no response IMO is bad customer service, so F'em.
Anyhow, enough with the back story, on to the resulotion. I had enough time and good weather to hit the range (didn't want to risk an "accidental" discharge at home) and cycle several hundred rounds - placing those that did not eject / failure to extract (NE) into one box, those that ejected / extracted into another (OK). After 3 hours it got old, so I headed home.
Back at the ranch, I took out the homemade rim thickness gauge and and made, IMO, a good correlation - those that didn't extract or eject had a rim thickness of .034 or less, the rounds that did had a rim thickness of .0345 or more. So I started to measure the rest of my stock, seperated them by that criteria, went back to the range.
Just as before, the ones I measured at home at .0345 and thicker ejected, the ones .034 and thinner didn't. I could only figure that the rims weren't thick enough to be "picked up" by the extractors.
I was chucking the multiple misfires (as frustration set in) over the last few months, but then kept the ones that misfired on my lastest outing. I measured the rim thickness of the 30 misfires I had, 29 of them were under the .034 mark, and one was .0345. Hopefully that will solve the misfire problem, but if it doesn't, at least I'll have confidence that it will extract. Possibly the thinner rims (all though dented) are not getting the full force of the firing pin, and just not firing. As with the failure to extract problems, these rounds where put through 2 different rifles, failing to extract and fire in both, with bolts and extractors / firing pins dirty and scrubbed clean ruling out a mechanical problem.
As I'll be using this stuff for our smallbore silhouette matches, at least I will not be losing time on the clock trying to dig out a shell from the chamber, and of course the losing mental game that follows shortly thereafter.
I still have to see if the ones that do extract will have a relatively high number of misfires, and visa versa on the non extracting ones, but it looks as if this was the fix for the failure to extract problems with those bad bricks.
Hope this helps someone out along the way - either when it comes to determining a lot of bad ammo, failure to extract or eject, and possibly any misfiring problems.
I was whining how I got a few bricks of bad ammo, and how dumb I was to integrate it into my old stock with out at least shooting a sample of the new stuff, basically contaminating my whole inventory. Of course lessons learned.
I didn't want to mention the manufacturer at the time, however after several month's of emails, I didn't get even a polite "too bad" complimentary response.
It was the Aguila Golden Eagle Match Rifle ammo. I have in the past preached about it being good enough to use for actual matches and priced low enough to actually use for practicing. I know all manufacturer's at one time or another have a bad run, which I can "accept", but no response IMO is bad customer service, so F'em.
Anyhow, enough with the back story, on to the resulotion. I had enough time and good weather to hit the range (didn't want to risk an "accidental" discharge at home) and cycle several hundred rounds - placing those that did not eject / failure to extract (NE) into one box, those that ejected / extracted into another (OK). After 3 hours it got old, so I headed home.
Back at the ranch, I took out the homemade rim thickness gauge and and made, IMO, a good correlation - those that didn't extract or eject had a rim thickness of .034 or less, the rounds that did had a rim thickness of .0345 or more. So I started to measure the rest of my stock, seperated them by that criteria, went back to the range.
Just as before, the ones I measured at home at .0345 and thicker ejected, the ones .034 and thinner didn't. I could only figure that the rims weren't thick enough to be "picked up" by the extractors.
I was chucking the multiple misfires (as frustration set in) over the last few months, but then kept the ones that misfired on my lastest outing. I measured the rim thickness of the 30 misfires I had, 29 of them were under the .034 mark, and one was .0345. Hopefully that will solve the misfire problem, but if it doesn't, at least I'll have confidence that it will extract. Possibly the thinner rims (all though dented) are not getting the full force of the firing pin, and just not firing. As with the failure to extract problems, these rounds where put through 2 different rifles, failing to extract and fire in both, with bolts and extractors / firing pins dirty and scrubbed clean ruling out a mechanical problem.
As I'll be using this stuff for our smallbore silhouette matches, at least I will not be losing time on the clock trying to dig out a shell from the chamber, and of course the losing mental game that follows shortly thereafter.
I still have to see if the ones that do extract will have a relatively high number of misfires, and visa versa on the non extracting ones, but it looks as if this was the fix for the failure to extract problems with those bad bricks.
Hope this helps someone out along the way - either when it comes to determining a lot of bad ammo, failure to extract or eject, and possibly any misfiring problems.
