Chamber Polishing ???

[357cyrus]

So I recently acquired a Savage 111 in 270 Winchester that is giving me a headache. Its used, made in the early 90's I believe. When I first got it I used a set of Go- No-Go gauges to make sure there were no issues with headspace. The first 4 rounds I ran through it were a starting load of a ladder test, they shot pretty good and without a problem. On every shot with the 2nd charge weight the bolt rotated up just fine, but the bolt took quite a bit of convincing with the heel of my hand to slide rearward, the case ejected fine when it was supposed to. My chronograph showed velocity to be right where I expected... mild. I stopped anyway and took it home for a bolt disassembly and found good bit of crud amongst the parts. I cleaned everything up and put it all back together with a light coat of oil.

On my next range trip I fired the next 3 charge weights (12 rounds total ) and everything went without a hiccup. Velocities were pretty close to where I predicted.

Then the other day I decided to try a heavier bullet weight, loaded up another ladder test, and hit the range. The very first shot of the first charge the same problem happened. Mild velocity, and the bolt rotated up like normal but it was jammed forward bad. I ended up having to take it home and convince it with a rubber mallet.

From the googling I've done Im guessing Ive got a rough (possibly rusty) chamber though I haven't got a chance to check it yet (im at work). That googling also recommended polishing the chamber. The easiest way Ive found seems to be taking a plain old larger caliber bore mop from a standard cleaning kit, slathering it with a mild abrasive (soft scrub, flitz, or bar keepers friend), chucking it in a drill smoothing out the imperfections.

Do you guys have any other ideas what could be causing this? Any other ideas on smoothing out a rough chamber?

[Steve]

A friend of mine wanted shells to reliably slide from the chambers on a brand new double 12 gauge he bought for cowboy action shooting.

He hadn't even fired it yet and there he was with an electric drill spinning sand paper in the chambers. When he was done it looked good and worked good. So I guess anyway a person finds that smooths the walls out should work.

[akuser47]

My remy 700 that is my long distance plan was a tight chamber. I took a tap and threaded the primer hole on a junk mil. spec. cartridge shot in her, and used tooth paste on it on a drill with extended drill screwdriver bit and spun it in my chamber for a few moments then cleaned and oiled and kept doing this until I had smooth action reliable shots. The throat is what you need to watch as you don't want to engage rifling and cause the bullet to start wrong in the barrel so I would toothpaste after the neck on the brass use whichever polish you feel comfy with. Maybe I got lucky but at 600 yard this old vls as it started. It can put 5 shots on a quarter. I wish I was the shooter to do this, but alias I am not my coworker who uses it does. I am 50 cent piece at best at 600 and pop can at 1000 on my best days anymore. Only if I have the weather and light in my favor. This is .308 with my hand loads though. I billhilly polished mine so it can work I know first hand LoL

[Okie44]

I would polish lightly with a fired case as mentioned above. Mag wheel polish, Blue Magic or Mothers should work also.

[Ranch Dog]

Very nice tool Okie!

[357cyrus]

thanks guys

[akuser47]

Yea okie that's exactly what I was talking about making. An old timer taught me that. I've only needed it once and it works.

[357cyrus]

So to update this thread... I cleaned the chamber like I had mentioned above. Before I got a chance to get to the range I kept reading on the subject and found a couple mentions that I hadn't thought of before.

I had been using brass that had been fired in a 270 that I sold about 5 years ago. I read that if brass is fired in chamber "A" which is slightly loose, and chamber "B" is slightly tight, yet both are within acceptable tolerances, the brass can swell at the head enough to make it stick in chamber "B". Full length resizing (which is what I did) isn't enough to get that head back to spec. I was under the impression that as long as you full length resized there wouldn't be any issues.

So I broke down and bought some factory ammo for the first time in a long time and went to the range. Shot a dozen rounds and not a single hitch. Everything went perfectly. Slid in a hand loaded round from the last time I shot and the bolted again locked in the forward position.

So im hoping this problem is solved by using brass that's either new or fired in this rifle only.

[Ranch Dog]

So... this rifle will never be able to use range brass. Not much 270 Win laying on the ground so not that big of a deal. Thanks for the update.

[Ohio3Wheels]

If you really want to use that old brass see if you can fin a small base die for 270. Wont make promises but it cured my 5.56 problems.

Make smoke,