Re: Weird reloading issue
This used to baffle me too and keep me awake at night as well. Took mine to the local guru for enlightenment. He sat me down, put his hand on my shoulder, and said: "Bennybooboo, you have much to learn..."
He then proceeded to mark up seated bullets, not loaded cartridges, with a sharpie and chamber them with his finger. When he tipped the rifle back and the seated bullet came out clean of scratches I was perplexed.
Next he pushed a seated bullet into the chamber with his finger and then closed the bolt. When it came out there were scratches on one side of the bullet that were about 1/8" long at about the 3 o'clock position.
"See, look!!! I told you it's screwed up!" I exclaimed. The wise old guru quietly chuckled as he explained that this is happens in all firearms with an extractor. According to the wise old man that some would judge to be an old hippie, based on appearances; what causes this is: as the bolt is pushed fully into battery the extractor must "pop" around the rim of the cartridge and into the extractor groove so that the spent case can be pulled from the chamber, thereby slightly pushing the cartridge to one side and scraping the throat wall/rifling in that one particular area.
If the bullets were seated too long and "jamming" into the rifling, the mark left in the ink would be much shorter (like very thin) and would be uniform around the circumfrence of the entire bullet.
Based on the description you've provided it sounds like you're experiencing the same thing. Try seating a bullet .060" longer than normal into an uncharged case (I always do this when loading to determine seating depth). After forcing the bolt to close by, presumably, jamming the bullet into the rifling and using the rifling to push the bullet further into the case, you should be able to use a little extra effort to open the bolt, eject the seated bullet, and see a faint ring in the black ink extending around the circumfrence of the bullet right at the ogive. This is the contact point of where the bullet/rifling intersectionis.
One last thought: should a seated bullet get stuck and the bolt won't pull rearward, simply use a cleaning rod or better yet a 1/4" diameter piece of wooden dowling inserted from the muzzle end to assist releasing the bullet from the rifling.
Be cool,
BBB
