I’ve been having nothing but fits over the last 6 months of reloading for my 300 Norma Mag. Everything on the rifle is as it should be - headspace checks out perfect, barrel is a 28” bartlein heavy Palma on a Defiance Deviant.
I started off trying new Norma brass with H1000 and 230 Bergers. The throat is set up so the bullets are at the lands and just about at the max mag length. Through this rifle, the seem to like a little jump so I set them .040 back. I did load workups with H1000 and Retumbo... from around 79 grains starting to 86 grains max. With the virgin brass I wasn’t seeing any major pressure signs until mid 85 grains and pretty consistent heavy bolt lift at 86 grains. MY OCW testing showed 83.6 grains of Retumbo was shooting lights out so I loaded up 20 rounds of new Norma brass for chrono work. After I was done, I noticed a slight doughnut had formed on ALL of the new brass. It was inside the neck and large enough to where a bullet could not freely slide into a fired case. I tried neck turning new brass, tried neck turning old brass, annealing, etc..... no luck.
Fast forward... I recently made the switch to Hornady brass and am not seeing any doughnut problems at all, but I am seeing pressure signs even at very minor loads. I get extractor marks down at 79 and 80 grains of Retumbo all the way to 85 grains, then I get hard bolt lift as before
Do I have a funky chamber or what is going on??? I’ve never run into anything lol this before.
Thanks !
I started off trying new Norma brass with H1000 and 230 Bergers. The throat is set up so the bullets are at the lands and just about at the max mag length. Through this rifle, the seem to like a little jump so I set them .040 back. I did load workups with H1000 and Retumbo... from around 79 grains starting to 86 grains max. With the virgin brass I wasn’t seeing any major pressure signs until mid 85 grains and pretty consistent heavy bolt lift at 86 grains. MY OCW testing showed 83.6 grains of Retumbo was shooting lights out so I loaded up 20 rounds of new Norma brass for chrono work. After I was done, I noticed a slight doughnut had formed on ALL of the new brass. It was inside the neck and large enough to where a bullet could not freely slide into a fired case. I tried neck turning new brass, tried neck turning old brass, annealing, etc..... no luck.
Fast forward... I recently made the switch to Hornady brass and am not seeing any doughnut problems at all, but I am seeing pressure signs even at very minor loads. I get extractor marks down at 79 and 80 grains of Retumbo all the way to 85 grains, then I get hard bolt lift as before
Do I have a funky chamber or what is going on??? I’ve never run into anything lol this before.
Thanks !