Winchester 94 - Dented Case Mouths

[film495]

I was going through some brass that I shot - and one of the rounds was 30-30 factory loads that I shot a year or so ago in a Winchester 94. I noticed several of the case mouths have sort of a bent over flat spot, and most of them appear to have some sort of bend to the case mouth.

I sort of stared at it for a while. Not sure if that is from extraction, or possibly spinning and hitting the concrete floor at the range just right. Or if that is cause by some other problem?

I did some searching/reading and it appears a fairly common problem with auto-loaders, but I didn't find so much on lever guns.

 

[243winxb]

Top ejection or newer angled ejection, which became standard in 1982? The case mouth may be hitting the receiver, if your rifle is angle ejection?

 

[film495]

It is a top eject made in 1952, I'll have to cycle it and observe the ejection to see if there is something that could be causing it

 

[ericuda]

My 1892 25-20 sounds like it does the same thing and leaves a slightly flattened spot at top of brass no matter how soft or hard I operate the lever.

 

[film495]

It was about 1/2 of a box of 20, had a noticeable dented part of the case mouth. I could see no other difference between the cases with dent and those with no dent. Think I'm mostly concerned with confirming that is from extraction, and not something taking place with firing. I do see a small carbon ring around the mouths of the cases about 1/8" behind the case mouth.

 

[243winxb]

Last year i shot 10 factory rounds out of my very old M94 top ejection 30WCF (30-30). Iron sights , no scope.

If your rifle has a side mounted scope, ejected brass may make contact with it??

My fired brass has 2 dinged/dented case mouths.

Soot/carbon on the case mouth can be normal. Depends on the powder used in loading. Mine have no soot.

 

[film495]

I'll take a pic of the cases. kind of makes me wonder if the case slips off the extractor and the ejector kicks it up, with the case still a hair in the chamber, if it would dent the case mouth like that. just thinking out loud making a wild guess. those cases look very similar to what I'm seeing.

 

[film495]

once fired brass, factory loads from Winchester. not saying the factory loads have anything questionable about them, am just trying to determine why the case mouths are dented. these were fired in a 1952 Winchester 94, Chambered in 30-30

this is half the box, the other half looked better so, I just took a picture of the ones with the most noticeable denting and tumbled the other ones to start cleaning them up since I had the tumbler out. These were fired about 18 months ago.

 

[film495]

The carbon ring around the top makes me wonder if the rounds did not seat correctly when they were fired and the denting is from chamber pressure. The condition of the firearms as far as I know is very good. The barrel looks new and I took it down and cleaned it thoroughly before firing it. One thing is the extractor is stiff when chambering a round, and it will shave a tiny little piece of brass off the case when locking up and the extractor pops over the rim of the case. Maybe I should inspect the chamber better to see if any little brass slivers worked their way in there.

 

[film495]

I found another couple boxes of 30-30 that were fired through the same gun. Maybe many years ago. At first glance, I did not find any with any dented case mouths of any significance.

 

[FROGO207]

Some of them look like they are dented in more than one area. Could they have been stepped on as well? Might explain the bigger dents.

 

[film495]

Some of them look like they are dented in more than one area. Could they have been stepped on as well? Might explain the bigger dents.

I guess anything is possible. That the other 2 boxes of fired brass did not have anything that looked like these dents, certainly makes me think it was something I did or didn't do that caused that.

 

[BBBBill]

I'm not sure that I understand the concern as I am not a regular lever gun user. My semiauto handguns sometimes dent the brass, particularly the unaltered military issue 1911's. Your dents are less pronounced than the ones I commonly see. No big deal to iron them out in the die when reloading. Is this indicative of a serious issue on a lever gun or just an irritant for lever gun guys?

 

[film495]

I'm not sure that I understand the concern as I am not a regular lever gun user. My semiauto handguns sometimes dent the brass, particularly the unaltered military issue 1911's. Your dents are less pronounced than the ones I commonly see. No big deal to iron them out in the die when reloading. Is this indicative of a serious issue on a lever gun or just an irritant for lever gun guys?

Honestly, don't know. I've only ever put that one box of 20 rounds through this and that was about 1.5 years ago. I recently started thinking about reloading and kind of going through the various brass I've collected and noticed the dents on these cases so, just trying to figure out if it is a problem or not.

 

[shooter1niner]

I would think the carbon ring being where it is indicates how far back the carbon traveled before the sealing of the chamber stopped it. I don't necessarily believe it to be a bad thing. Perhaps the load is on the warm side. How did the primers look?

 

[film495]

I would think the carbon ring being where it is indicates how far back the carbon traveled before the sealing of the chamber stopped it. I don't necessarily believe it to be a bad thing. Perhaps the load is on the warm side. How did the primers look?

primer strikes look good, solid consistent hits, nearly perfectly centered. you know - now that you mention it - I'll just compare the dented and non dented, just to see if I can find any variance .. worth a look

 

[The Bushmaster]

Not sure what the concern about the dented(?) case mouths are. I have a 1949 Win M94 that, on occasion, flattens the case mouth. The case is striking the top of the receiver when ejected. You will note that the extractor is on top of the bolt, lifting the case up (rather violently) as it is extracted. The .30-30 brass is a lot softer then other rifle cases and when ejected is also hot. No biggy! Resize it, reload it and shoot them.

 

[shooter1niner]

primer strikes look good, solid consistent hits, nearly perfectly centered. you know - now that you mention it - I'll just compare the dented and non dented, just to see if I can find any variance .. worth a look

What I meant by " how do the primers look" is are the primers flattened all the way out to the edges or are the corners still rounded as an unfired one might look? Not concerned with primer strikes unless they do not fire. Since you sound like you are considering reloading this "primer flattening" is good to understand. I would also encourage you to read a few reloading manuals before you reload anything. Having a thorough understanding of what you will be doing is extremely important for yours and the safety of those around you.
I don't like what you said about the brass being shaved. I would look for sharp edges on the where you think this is taking place and very LIGHTLY stone or deburr the edge.

 

[film495]

thanks for the comments. it sure helps my learning curve. at some point I may reload for the 30-30, but that is a long way off. I saw the dented case mouths and did not understand if that was a problem or not, so - figured I should inquire, and it has been educational. my only plan for reloading, is to learn to do some .38 Special, then maybe some .32 ACP. I do have the dies and such for 30-30, so - as I was playing with the tumbler and cleaning up the old Herter's press, just sort of stumbled on the dented case mouths. Now I have some idea what it is from - really I was digging to see if it might be a problem with the gun, or indicate something that was potentially unsafe, which it appears it is not, and kind of normal due to design/function of case ejection.

yea, the extractor arm, struggles to get over the case rim, and it is hard to lock up when chambering a round. in a manual I got for the Winchester 94, it indicates you can just take the extractor arm off and give it a little bend to lessen the tension, but I haven't looked into actually doing it yet. a light stoning of the arm that slips over the case rim may be in order as well.

 

[The Bushmaster]

Leave the extractor alone. Even as old as my M94 is the extractor tends to "struggle" going over the rim. If you will note the rim is much higher and sharper edged then brass that head space on the shoulder.

Flatten primers. NOT a sign of over pressure in most cases. When the primer is struck by the firing pin the case is pushed forward. As the powder ignites the primer has a tendency to move out and the burning powder slams the case against the bolt face flattening the primer. This is especially commonly seen in the older M94 .30-30 (.30WCF) like yours (and mine). There is, however, a cure for that if you are interested.

My loading for my "Ol' Jack handle" is 32 grains of W748 under a Speer 170 grain Hotcore FN. 2000 fps +/- 100 fps.

 

[dagger dog]

Just for fun, check the length of the flattened cases and compare to the normal ones.
They may be longer causing the "timing" problem.

 

[film495]

I'll have to spend some time with the cases and the action to look everything over. Doing some measurements sounds interesting. I looked at the primers and they do look flattened, but not any more or less so than other samples of fired brass, British .303, .222 Magnum, 32ACP, 38 Special // they all look flat, and none are reemed tight to the edge of the primer pockets.

 

[Bugster]

I haven't noticed this with my Mod 94 AE, but I haven't shot mine in a while. I was at the rang the other day and a guy was shooting some 30-30 Win, he didn't reload and let me have the cases. While processing them I noticed a few that had the same dents at the case mouth. From my POV it looked like a model 94 but I'm not sure, but it looked like a current model. Now I'll have to take mine out and check it out.