Removing a case neck from a rifle barrel.

[Gewehr98]

I had a little problem with a .30-06 round and my Browning BAR. One of my rounds fired ok, then wouldn't chamber the next round in the magazine. When I look at the ejected brass, it's missing the case neck. Guess where that case neck is stuck? Yup! It's right there, solidly lodged in the BAR's chamber, and a cleaning rod/bronze brush combo won't budge it.

The military-issue .30-06 broken shell extractor, as used for the 1903 Springfield and M1 Garand, are made to remove ruptured cases with considerably more case body than just a broken bushing of a case neck, right? Any ideas what I need to use or fabricate to remove the lodged remnant in my BAR's barrel?

 

[11xray]

Try using an oversize brush like a .38 or a .40.

Other than that, without fabricating anything, you can plug the barrel just ahead of the stuck case with a cleaning patch, and pour enough Cerrosafe in the chamber to fill the stuck case. After the Cerrosafe sets, which won't take but just a minute, you should be able to drive the whole thing out from the muzzle with a good stiff cleaning rod. Just make sure you have all the Cerrosafe cleaned out before you shoot it again. I cleans out pretty easily.

Good luck.

 

[Grump]

The GI stuck case remover is made to hook onto the case mouth--precisely the situation you describe. As long as there is a bit of clearance (as in NOT an overlong neck that fills the entire chamber with no case-chamber ledge gap), the device will work just fine.

 

[BEARMAN]

Read somewhere that if you give the chamber a shot of compressed air or CO2 it cools the chamber and the brass and they expand and contract at different rates. If you do this before you try the over sized bronze brush it just might come free. This is supposed to work on brass stuck in sizing dies also, but I haven't had to try it yet. GOOD LUCK.

 

[Jim K]

In the case of the .30/7.62, broken shell extractors are both available and cheap; I would just order one and be patient until it comes. That beats maybe ruining the barrel.

I will mention this, but urge you not to try it. It has to be done carefully, but one technique I have used when a broken case extractor is not available is to thread a tap of the appropriate size into the remainder of the case, making sure not to cut through the brass. Once the tap has a "bite", it and the broken case can be knocked out with a cleaning rod from the muzzle. Note that a tap extension may be needed.

The next thing is to try to determine what happened and how to prevent it happening again. First, have the headspace checked; almost all case separations are due to excess headspace either in the gun itself, or from oversizing of the case in reloading. Second, if reloads are involved, review your loading techniques; one possible problem area is reloading cases too many times or too many times without annealing the case neck area.

Jim