A couple of hunts and a reloading debacle.

First hunt headed into a different spot 4pm spotted some deer 700m away and stalked into them to 400m. Was one mature hind without a fawn and after 20min to make sure she didn’t have a little one around. We closed the gap to 360m with a good shooting position on a big flat rock, got the environmental and dial-up needed, lined her and boomfa. All I seen was 4 deer running off into the bush, I lost the sight did a follow through with a hard extraction and checked the brass case. It had all the pressure signs flattened primer, ejection mark and almost head space separation ( not ideal ). I pulled the bolt out and checked the barrel and suppressor all good.
Now did I hit the hind or not?. On with the day bag and meat recovery time. The hound made good time of tracking to the shot area with hot sent everywhere and there she was she drop off the small bluff she was feeding on. Shot placement was exactly where I was aiming, so the over pressure case didn’t change the point of impact because I thought I had missed it completely.
That was the only shot fired and pulled the pin on that trip.

Happy dog with his venison

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5 times fired case with pressure signs, I normally get 6-8 firing before I get loose primer pockets. The case separation mark is 80% around the case. Unknown reason why other than too much wind in the room when using powder scales? I pulled the batch of ammo checking powder charge weight ( all ok ).
The last time this happened was about 13,000 rounds ago on another rifle so not to bad.

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Next trip another area and more opportunities. Plenty of goats and the odd deer, most of the stags had stripped their velvet and a couple still had fully white antlers and none had any bey tines. Fawns getting bigger loosing their spots and browsing with their moms.

13 goats for the trip from 130m out 550m and they definitely didn’t like the Sierra 168gr TMK’s.

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A 48 degree uphill shot on the chest on a bluff and 4 second free fall.

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The closest deer for the trip 441m away on top of the slip in the shadows, we seen 5 deer in this spot and waited 5 hours for a clean shot up at them.

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A small head 6 pointer dropped on the spot. It was a hard climb on all fours weaving our way around a lot of stinging nettle to get up to him.

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Whats left of the 168gr TMK on the stag from a 441m shot on both shoulders on the off side skin.
Great performance for a 16” 308 @ 2550fps.

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Greetings @tikka,
I wouldant be too quick to say that was an over pressure load. A head separation has nothing to do with pressure, it is due to the case being sized a little too much repeatedly. You may wish to check that the shoulder is not set back too much when you FL resize. The ejector mark looks more like a stamp mark from where the case let go rather than a swipe mark from head expansion to me.
Regards Grandpamac.

The flattened primer and ejector mark shows it was thrown back pretty hard.That means excessive pressure.

https://hodgdon.com/faq-items/simple...rifle-reloads/

There are 5 marks on the case head. Are these all from one bounce off the ejector?

Cheers guys, when I got home first thing was pull the projectiles and weight the charges all good there. Next I checked the dies for head space no problems in that department. I run all my sized brass and loaded rounds through a Sheridan Engineering slotted case gauge looking for any problems.

my last check before seating is to shine torch down into whole batch of cases..you will pick anything out of ordinary...1/2 a grain of rice in case fills .270 case so much more it sticks out likes doggies danglies...might be piece of mind in future????
you got away with it this time...might be time to get really active with paperclip feeler guage,MAYBE that particular case had been used on hotter day a couple of times in its life already and last one was straw/camel/back......

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Originally Posted by Jhon

There are 5 marks on the case head. Are these all from one bounce off the ejector?

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nope thats his way of keeping track of how many times its been loaded

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Originally Posted by Jhon

There are 5 marks on the case head. Are these all from one bounce off the ejector?

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I mark them with a fine file for how many times reloaded.

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Originally Posted by Jhon

There are 5 marks on the case head. Are these all from one bounce off the ejector?

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Methinks they are marks to show how many times the case has been reloaded.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

my last check before seating is to shine torch down into whole batch of cases..you will pick anything out of ordinary...1/2 a grain of rice in case fills .270 case so much more it sticks out likes doggies danglies...might be piece of mind in future????
you got away with it this time...might be time to get really active with paperclip feeler guage,MAYBE that particular case had been used on hotter day a couple of times in its life already and last one was straw/camel/back......

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I had to do that with my Ruger mini 30 brass years ago in the good old days.

its scarey when you do it on what you think is good brass and find a spot where it stops dead!!!!!
Ive got a dentists pick.....handle too fat for .223 cases but works great on anything bigger,finer point and more sensitive as firmer than paperclip.
try to make sure I do it at least every 2nd time I load...but have got lazy over the years.... dont batch brass so feeler guage is more relevant.

Two things going on here. Over sizing. Check you fls die setting with a tight fired case and wind it down bit by bit until you can just feel a tiny little bit of case as the bolt closes.

Second, the load is a touch warm - definite ejector mark.


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@tikka....the primer is looking just fine so maybe headspace is OK too. Usually too much headspace will cause head separation, but also it will cause a top hat effect on the primer and that is not apparent. What is notable is the vertical scratching full length of the case...could be from a dirty chamber or dirty or damaged dies, and just maybe not allowing the case to equalise in the chamber ie grabbing at the front first then the back is stretching until it is stopped by the bolt.....?

Pretty unusual for a 308 to fail after 5 firings, but you need to check all the others for case head separation...I use a small rat tail file with a kink on the end....it is rigid and doesn't slip in your fingers. This could have happened with an oversized FLS or from the factory brass and started the process as early as the first firing and progressively worsened thereafter.....check the others looking for at first a smooth deflection and not necessarily a sharp depression.

Give the chamber and the die a polish and discard any brass with noticeable defects. Watch for further scratching and eliminate the cause....!

Cut one in half and inspect that base.....you will be surprised how it looks particularly at the early stages.

I did check the dies after pulling the bullets, unscrewed die 1/8 turn out sized up 5 cases and they wouldn’t chamber in the Sheridan gauge and hard to drop bolt and chamber so not the dies. I still think it’s wind breeze on the scales.

I usually visually check the tray of charged cases before seating the projectiles, looking for any differences in powder level.
I forgot this step once and ended up with some 243 rounds with no powder. Must be Murphy’s law as I have never had empty cases when I have checked. Luckily I picked up on the issue before firing any.
Another time I had one case with noticeably more powder than the others, it had several grains more when weighed. I still don’t know what happened but I suspect the beam on the scales was touching the powder trickler.

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Originally Posted by tikka

I did check the dies after pulling the bullets, unscrewed die 1/8 turn out sized up 5 cases and they wouldn’t chamber in the Sheridan gauge and hard to drop bolt and chamber so not the dies. I still think it’s wind breeze on the scales.

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Greetings @tikka,
I had not heard of the Sheridan gauges before so looked them up. They only check if your cases match factory specs and do nothing to make sure they are not too loose in the chamber. 1/8th of a turn of the die works out to 0.227mm or about 0.009" so I certainly hope that they would not chamber. There are four 308 rifles in my cupboard and all have different chamber lengths and I neck sized for years until I broke open the piggy bank and got a Hornady comparitor kit and a Redding Competition die set so am able to ensure that all cases are snug in their chamber. The only reason I know for a head separation that I know is excessive head space from either the rifle or the dies. This is where you need to look for the problem. The comparitor kits are not excessively expensive and measuring new, fired and resized cases should show the problem to you.
Regards Grandpamac.

The flat primer supports the excessive headspace as well. A lot of reloaders incorrectly assume a flat primer is just due to excessive pressure.

@tikka have you decapped the case and if so what is the primer shape like? Has it developed a "top hat".

I had to look up the Sheridan as well. They state it is cut to minimum SAAMI dimensions.

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Originally Posted by Cigar

I usually visually check the tray of charged cases before seating the projectiles, looking for any differences in powder level.
I forgot this step once and ended up with some 243 rounds with no powder. Must be Murphy’s law as I have never had empty cases when I have checked. Luckily I picked up on the issue before firing any.
Another time I had one case with noticeably more powder than the others, it had several grains more when weighed. I still don’t know what happened but I suspect the beam on the scales was touching the powder trickler.

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We load 100 cases at a time. Lifting each case after putting in powder you get a "feel" if the podwer is miles too short or a fraction over. Amazing how sensitively your fingers can assess.

2C. If you dont anneal any issue with sizing is going to magnified with work hardened brass. Never had a case seperation but then again we anneal everytime.That ejector mark has been printed so there was some pressure existing.

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Originally Posted by grandpamac

Greetings @tikka,
I had not heard of the Sheridan gauges before so looked them up. They only check if your cases match factory specs and do nothing to make sure they are not too loose in the chamber. 1/8th of a turn of the die works out to 0.227mm or about 0.009" so I certainly hope that they would not chamber. There are four 308 rifles in my cupboard and all have different chamber lengths and I neck sized for years until I broke open the piggy bank and got a Hornady comparitor kit and a Redding Competition die set so am able to ensure that all cases are snug in their chamber. The only reason I know for a head separation that I know is excessive head space from either the rifle or the dies. This is where you need to look for the problem. The comparitor kits are not excessively expensive and measuring new, fired and resized cases should show the problem to you.
Regards Grandpamac.

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Hi Grandpamac, I haven’t needed a comparator kit until now and will order a kit to be on the safe side. I do use Redding Competition S die sets in 223, 308 and 270 with great results. Don’t anneal brass yet but it is on my list of wants among other things.
@zimmer no I haven’t decapped case.

@tikka if you're going to decap it have got a decapping only die? If not make sure you remove the bushing in your S die otherwise you risk seperating the top section of the case and leaving it stuck in your nice due.

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Originally Posted by tikka

Hi Grandpamac, I haven’t needed a comparator kit until now and will order a kit to be on the safe side. I do use Redding Competition S die sets in 223, 308 and 270 with great results. Don’t anneal brass yet but it is on my list of wants among other things.
@zimmer no I haven’t decapped case.

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Annealing is an 18v drill. Decapping is a Lee Universal decapper. This die is bullet proof and top of the podium for decapping even though we run Redding gear.

Great shooting tikka, go the 308!

Reminds me of the Rimutukas.

those 168tmk are a ferkin hammer alright!

Good shooting and nice report,
I am with most of the others, in that the shoulder, has been pushed back to far, the brass stretches Apon firing, until the shoulder and base contact the chamber shoulder, and bolt face, the brass must flow to do this, normally from just above the web, Others have given the solution, and like you i have had a similar result, a long time ago, that pushed me to buy a comparator. pushed the shoulder back to far, for a 6x45 cooper, ruined a few dozen brass.