Bad brass?

[ElevenBravo]

Is it possible to get a bagful of bad brass?

Did some reloads for the wife's 6.5CM AR, using Hornady brass as it's relatively plentiful around here. Brand-new out of the box. Resized them with a full-length resizer and loaded as normal. Went to the range this morning to shoot with the nephew and zero her scope. Load up a mag, hit the bolt release and the bolt wont go into battery and it's STUCK. After tugging on the charging handle a bit, I manage to get the round unstuck. Try another one. Same thing. And another. Same result.

Went home, and pulled a piece of brass from the last time we shot the rifle. It's Hornady brass like before. Resize it and seat a bullet in it, the dummy loads just fine. I pull the bullet out of one of the rounds that stuck, resize it, seat a bullet, and load it into a mag and the rifle fails to go into battery like before. Pull another box of Hornady brass, choose a case, resize it and seat a bullet... Rifle loads properly.

I've been taking measurements of the dimensions of one of the cases that was getting stuck, and they're slightly larger than others, but within SAAMI spec. Just wondering if this is just bad batch of brass and I should just recover my powder and bullets, or something I'm doing wrong...

 

[Wiliamr]

Hmmmmmmm.... If this happened to me, I would take the ones that are not chambering ad do the following: I would drop one into my case size gauge to see what it tells. me. Then I would pull a bullet or three, dump powder, resize those and without seating a bullet, drop into chamber and see if they chamber. If they do, seat a bullet and see if it chambers..... Either they didnt get sized the first time, the die was off or President Trump snuck into your reloading room and touched the cases thereby messing up the sizing.

 

[Lonesome Dove]

I never full size new brass only hit the neck a bit. Not saying this would fix your issues but try one case. Other than that give Hornady a call or email.

 

[rotor]

This is one of those situations that a case gage will show if your resizing die is set up correctly and if the case is the right length but not necessarily the right width. Then you need an ammo checker to show if the completed round meets specs. If you don't have a case gage does just a resized case without a bullet fit the barrel? If your dies are set right I find it hard to believe that this is bad brass. But I am really curious to know what happens.

 

[ElevenBravo]

This is one of those situations that a case gage will show if your resizing die is set up correctly and if the case is the right length but not necessarily the right width. Then you need an ammo checker to show if the completed round meets specs. If you don't have a case gage does just a resized case without a bullet fit the barrel? If your dies are set right I find it hard to believe that this is bad brass. But I am really curious to know what happens.

I resized a suspect case and didn't seat a bullet. Loaded it up and the rifle didn't go into battery and stuck in the chamber. Tugged on the charging handle, eventually it popped out. Tried it again, and the bolt went into battery that time.

I've resized 4 or 5 of these suspect cases now, and they all fail to chamber properly, while once-fired and fresh from another batch of brass do chamber. I've been doing reloads for years now and this is the first time I've encountered something like this.

 

[rotor]

Really strange. The only thing I can figure is that there is a problem with the rim of the case. I think a case gage would detect a problem with the rim. Perhaps it is too thick. In a case gage the rim with a properly set die would sit just under the edge of the gage when held up in the air. The only thing that we really don't alter when we reload is the rim so that is where the defect must be.

 

[hoghunting]

It sounds as if you're pushing the shoulder back too much and it's slightly bulging the case. Back your sizing die off a little and see what happens.

 

[Deavis]

This could easily be resolved with a case gage. You would probably know instantly what your issue is. Suggestions made are good but I doubt they are the cause.

First, it is probably not a rim issue since your rim is captured in the bolt and not entering the chamber area before it sticks according to your post. Rim issues are a case gage phenomena 99% of the time because they cant be in the chamber and captured by the extractor at the same time in your AR.

Second, pushing back the shoulder in a FL sizing die cant bulge the brass since it is fully supported on the taper and cannot bulge, only move brass forward or backwards where it is not enclosed by the die. You said you were using a FL die so that probably isnt it either, shouldering die only, absolutely, FL die not so much.

You may be seeing spring back, you may have a bad die, or you may not have it setup properly. I know I sound like a broken record but if you posted a picture of the brass in a case gage I bet we could diagnose it about 5 minutes flat.

 

[Wiliamr]

Just a aside question... Did you happen to buy Midway factory seconds bullets in .224 for this reload?