Your 30-30 may fail when you need it most

[Hummer70]

Be careful when FL sizing 30-30 cases as you may well be inviting a failure to fire.


Background: About 18 months back I got a Marlin Texan model lever gun (stock has no pistol grip) that I had been wanting one for a number of years but had never even seen one and lo and behold found one at the local flea market and jumped on it.


Brought it home and gave it a good looksee with the bore scope and I would say it never digested over two boxes of ammo it's entire life and I knew it was going to get a regular feeds from here on out. I had been laying in 30-30 brass for years and had a packed full 30 cal can of brass.


I loaded up some ammo and commenced to shoot it and had a failure to fire. Pulled the round out and the striker indent was centered well enough but not deep enough. FL sized the cases and shot another run and had another failure to fire. The second run was a different load and hotter and I noticed the primers had backed out. I knew then there was a problem with the rifle as 99.9% of the time if your primers have been cared for (mine are) and you have a failure to fire it is a problem with the striker energy, velocity or excessive headspace or crud in the striker channel and the backed out primers told the tale. I measured the height of the primers above the case head and knew I had to change the die position.


I backed off the die setting to leave a gap between the shell holder and bottom of the die. I kept backing the die up until the case shoulder contacted the chamber shoulder before the bolt went into battery and then reversed the movement about 1/8th turn downwards. The gap between the die and shell holder is now .027".


Basically what I did was change the head space from the rim to the shoulder and now the case primer is held closer to the bolt face and the problem appears to have gone away.


Even better the die in this position only reduced the case body .001" from the as fired condition thusly my case life was going to go up tremendously as there is generally no need to overwork your brass.


Starting back on my testing and had no more failures to fire until this week when I loaded up 10 cases I had previously FL sized, stainless steel tumble cleaned and stored away. Started shooting and had another failure to fire (one in 10) and the group on the target was vertically strung about four inches.


Bottom line with this rifle I am going to have to shoot reduced load cast bullets through all the remaining cases in the can to move the shoulders forward.


Thusly if you get a failure to fire with your lever gun you might back the FL die off the shell holder and hopefully eliminate the problem before it jumps up and shows it's head in a hunting situation or even worse when your rifle is needed for a emergency

 

[Jim Watson]

Strangely enough, I picked up a factory .30-30 at the range yesterday. It was a misfire with an obviously light firing pin strike. It surely had ample shoulder clearance with headspacing on the rim. I don't think the failure to fire was Remington's fault. If the gun didn't have enough headspace control and firing pin protrusion to fire a factory load, then the flaw was in the gun.

 

[243winxb]

The gap between the die and shell holder is now .027".

This should change as the brass expands to the chamber, resulting in a gap more like .005" Other wise, there is something very wrong with your flea market rifle.

 

[Hummer70]

Actually I have run across rifles with excessive headspace right out of the box and unfired. About 14 years ago Santa snuck me in three new rifles.

On all new rifles I create a round life log book that stays with the rifle and initial examination notes where I record erosion gage readings, striker energy if it is 5.56, 308 or 30.06 and check with NO-GO gage prior to firing the first round.

All three exhibited insufficient striker energy, two exhibited excessive headspace. Two went back to factory and were corrected. The third one resulted in a conference call between the head of product service and the chief engineer where I learned they had not checked striker energy on anything they made in previous 15 years as they had run out of cylinders and failed to buy more. They said they just bought their striker springs by the box load and put them in and that was that.

They did not offer to replace the spring or send me another thusly I sold the rifle.

Thusly factory rifles can and some do have headspace problems and striker energy problems.

As well I have had to trim bottoms off about 1/4th of my 57 sets of FL dies as they were chambered too deep when made. Basically the die contacted the shell holder before the shoulder was set back.

 

[RainDodger]

I don't like the idea of hand loading like that to correct a rifle fault. I would have the rifle repaired or not shoot it. That's just me. Safe or not, I don't like it.

 

[horseman1]

My Model 94 in 30-30 seems to have primers that are backed out just a bit after firing. Maybe I should have a look at my sizing die adjustment as well. Interesting.

 

[Hummer70]

Just remembered another example of bad product.

A contract was let my Rock Island Arsenal a number of years ago for M14 match replacement barrels and the winning bidder made them up. They got by the DECAS and were delivered to RIA where they were submitted for first article and a few of them failed hardness but passed gaging.

A investigation was undertaken where it was learned a couple of the good ole boys in the vendor plant had taken a few of the barrels for their M1As and replaced the barrel stock with cold rolled steel. Once they hit the CNC machine the cold rolled just just like the 4140 ones and after parkerizing they were a perfect match.

As well I have seen a new rifle that had been made, inspected and shipped however the barrel had never been rifled.

I had also examined M1911A1 replacement slides certified as having been proof fired with no striker hole having been drilled therein which makes them real hard to fire.

I have also seen M1911A1 replacement barrels certifed as having met targeting requirements that were never rifled.

I served as COTR on a weapons contract and went to the factory to witness proof series after I discovered they had been improperly proofed on initial inspection. Proofed 200 revolvers and had 57 failures to fire in 57 different revolvers.

I siezed the ammo and sent it to Picatinny Arsenal and had it inspected by ammo engineers and it was determined the failures were attributed to off center striker hits and were not the fault of the ammo. This was exactly what I surmised had occurred but I wanted their investigation for the record.

When I worked Product Engineering for the Army Small Cal Lab I did malfunction investigations on catastrophic weapons failures. Several were found to be soft heads but best one I had was a M16 had failed.

My investigation via industrial X ray revealed a cleaning rod jag with a patch on it had come off a rod having been inserted throught the muzzle by a range officer to clear the weapon and when the next firer got the rifle and loaded it and pulled the trigger the bullet arrived at the jag/patch driving pressures out the roof and the upper receiver bulged, the lower bulged and soldier had magazine inserted into his forearm. Amazingly the bolt was in battery and did not fail nor was the barrel enlarged.

Along with the barrel we got a nasty letter from this company commander who berated us for fielding such a sorry weapon. The division chief was presented with my findings and said he was going to write a response himself and it was a barn burner for sure complete with a copy of the X ray.

I also examined a bolt from a commercial rifle that had one lug broken off. I submitted it to SEM analysis and the metallurgist report stated it had been case harded six times deeper than the drawing called for and was already cracked when it left the vendor.

 

[Hummer70]

Horseman 1 , yep sounds like the same problem. If you have the capability measure how high the primers are. Chances are they will all give different readings so use the highest and insert feeler gage between shell holder and die for initial adjustment.

 

[Walkalong]

I have always sized .30-30 to headspace off the shoulder for my (Now my son's) .30-30.

If you are making rounds for one rifle only, this is the way to go IMO.

If you measure where the shoulder is on new factory ammo, and then measure a couple of them after being fired in your rifle, you will know if you have a problem with mechanical headspace.

 

[horseman1]

Thanks, I will do that the next time out.

 

[Hummer70]

To borrow a Corps term, "adapt and overcome"

 

[Sunray]

"...change the head space from the rim to the shoulder..." Headspace has nothing to do with the case. It's a rifle manufacturing tolerance only.
"...Bottom line with this rifle I am going to have to..." Check the headspace with proper gauges. Primers backing out is one of the signs(usually an excess pressure indicator though) . Any extraction issues?

 

[rcmodel]

Primers backing out is never a sign of high pressure.

It is a sign of low enough pressure the case didn't slip in the chamber, or stretch to the fullest extent the excess headspace allows to re-seat the primer.

Primers backing out slightly is pretty common on lever-actions with rear locking lugs however, because of the relatively low-pressure and springy action.


Mis-fires because the firing pin can't reach the primer is clearly a sign of excess headspace though.

The 30-30 should normally head-space on the rim, and the rim shouldn't let the case get that far away form the firing pin unless headspace is very excessive.

rc

 

[gamestalker]

I don't know what it is about those 30-30 lever guns, but everyone I know of has the same problems, and it's been with factory ammunition. My brother in law bought an M94 back in the 80's that would constantly mis-fire with factory. I reloaded his fired brass, and was careful not to bump the shoulders at all, no more FTF's when using the reloads.

Backed out primers would be an indication of both excessive head space, and low pressure loads, not high pressure loads.

GS

 

[horseman1]

Dont want to hijack this thread.

These occurred with factory and reloads. Never had a misfire and just a hint of the primer backing out. My reloads were at the lower end of the reloading data and the factory rounds were standard 170gr Remington loads from Wally World. I did a search through this forum and found it was not unusual. I will measure unfired, and the the same case fired to see if I need to play with the sizing die a little.
Great info here.

 

[Walkalong]

rc is right, primers backing out in .30-30 is a sign of low pressure. Mine does the same thing with light loads, but things go back to normal when the pressure gets up.

Any rifle caliber actually. Some are more prone to it than others it would seem. The more slop, the more it can back out of course.

Could be two problems, low pressure and excess headspace, whether mechanical or sizing induced.

 

[Walkalong]

"...change the head space from the rim to the shoulder..." Headspace has nothing to do with the case. It's a rifle manufacturing tolerance only.
"...Bottom line with this rifle I am going to have to..." Check the headspace with proper gauges. Primers backing out is one of the signs(usually an excess pressure indicator though) . Any extraction issues?

I'm not going to argue this one with you again. Yes, technically headspace is a static measurement machined into a rifle. In reality there is more to it than that for the reloader.

Check out Post #1 & #24.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=734058

 

[ArchAngelCD]

IMO the OP found the reason why a rifle that "never digested over two boxes of ammo it's entire life" was available for him to buy. Yes you can work around the problem by moving the shoulder forward but the problem still remains. Before I went any further I would have that rifle checked by a competent gunsmith.

 

[243winxb]

30 WCF or better know as the 30-30

Even when the 30-30 is working perfectly, its still a poor choice for deer. Using factory 170gr silver tip bullets at under 100 yds just doesnt knock them over. Then you have the most accident prone rifle ever made, the M94.

[/URL][/IMG]

 

[FROGO207]

Boy I guess I am the exception to the rule. I own 4 WIN and 2 Marlin lever 30-30's and never once had either of these problem with mine------not even when conducting load development for each of them. I used a set of Lee and a set of RCBS dies with equally good results as well. I use the Lee factory crimp on all of them no matter which die set is used. Never fired any factory ammo through them either so that part may happen if I was to do it though. I had heard of this but not experienced it first hand though.

 

[Curator]

When reloading any rimmed, bottle-neck cartridge it is a good idea to make sure your sizing die does NOT touch the shoulder. Factory ammo is "one-size-fits-all" and is purposely made small enough to fit the tightest chamber out there. Ween you resize fire-formed brass and bump the shoulder back, you create additional "headspace' which allows the round to move forward with the firing pin blow, effectively softening it. Leaving the shoulder alone when resizing your brass insures the case is held back against the breech face when the firing pin strikes the primer. Yeah, yeah, the .30 WCF is supposed to headspace on the rim. Whose to say the rim recess in your particular rifle is cut to match the brand of brass you are using. Or cut a bit too deep? Measure the rims comparing Winchester, Remington, Federal, and even in the same box. Keeping the fire-formed shoulder from being moved back also significantly increases your cases' life and helps prevent head separations.

 

[R.W.Dale]

If the shoulder position of a 30-30 is critical to the rifles ability to fire said rifle is in fact broken and in dire need of repair or replacement.

Partial length resizing is just masking an underlying headspace issue that very possibly could continue to worsen until.......

 

[Walkalong]

Agreed.

 

[Swampman]

Originally posted by:Hummer70 Brought it home and gave it a good looksee with the bore scope and I would say it never digested over two boxes of ammo it's entire life

It sounds like maybe both boxes were loaded by "Bubba Beernut" with his super accuracy load, featuring a caseful of the most accurate powder he knows; BULLSEYE!

Seriously, have you checked the locking bar and its mortices for peening?
I'm with RW, that rifle is busted and should be fixed.

A better title for the thread might be: Your 30-30 may fail when you need it most if you don't maintain it properly and perform repairs as needed

But that's pretty much true of any equipment and the "failure" part of the equation does not rest on the gun in this situation...

 

[R.W.Dale]

^^

As is the possibility that it's been that way since it left the factory.


Whatever the case the gun is not right NOW