Problems with his .30-30

Q: I work on a property in outback Queensland and have a Winchester 1894 that I use almost daily for pigs and dingoes. 

Recently I started having problems with my reloads to which I hope you can offer solutions. 

Some of my cases are giving sticky extraction. The load I am using is 32gn of AR2219 with Hornady 160gn FTX bullets. 

I’ve owned this rifle for nigh on 20 years and it doesn’t stick cases with factory loads. But when I use reloads some chamber easily while others stick and have to be forced home. 

Some of the rounds that are hard to chamber have a slight bulge at the base of the shoulder, but others that were loaded in exactly the same way chamber easily. 

What do you think is wrong? I enclose two cases for your inspection.

Henry “Tex” Morton

A: First, your charge of AR2219 is excessive and explains why fired cases are sticking in the chamber. I suggest you reduce the charge to 30gn of AR2219 which will give you 2280fps with normal pressures. 

The bulge at the base of the neck is probably caused when you crimp your reloads. This often happens if the bullets are seated and crimped as a single operation, but more likely when crimping cases that vary in length using a traditional roll crimp, because the longer cases are over-crimped which can cause the shoulder to bulge as per your sample cases.

You can confirm this by full-length sizing cases and see whether they chamber with ease. If they do, then the problem is happening during the seating/crimping operation. 

The solution is easy. First, trim all your cases to the recommended trim length and full-length resize them. 

This will allow you to crimp uniformly, but take care not to over-crimp, or you will bulge the shoulders again.

Alternatively, you can seat the bullets to the correct overall length, but do not crimp. 

Or you could use a Lee Factory Crimp die which gives uniform results with cases of varying lengths, and won’t cause the shoulder to buckle or bulge. 

Obtaining the correct crimp in lever-gun cartridges is a crucial part of producing trouble-free reloads.