You might color an empty case with a black magic marker, chamber and knock it out to see where it's tight.

Regards, Joe

calledflyer wrote on Apr 4^th, 2017 at 2:02pm:


Oops! Quite true, there. Brain holiday on my part - sorry!

Did some of my homework assignments. You guys are brutal. The shell can be inserted fully by hand and will extract. But after I work the action, the shell is stuck. Since I'm at the bench I'm not going to insert a new loaded cartridge in the chamber. The ink on the shell shows a slight scratch, which looks worse after several dowel removals. The spent primer may have suffered from my original whacks with the brass cleaning rod, which I quit using after the handle bent. I'm 99% sure the experts in the Schuetzen club will analyze the problem in short order. If it doesn't rain tomorrow. It was because of my impatience that I bought the gun and wanted to shoot it right away. It was suggested to me to wait to try it at the club meet before purchase. And they don't use loaded ammo. They seat bullets then follow with shell. But I asked if the gun was safe to shoot with new ammo. And my one shot was a satisfied bullseye. I'm not as far as any equipment: shell holder, sizing dies, etc. This is all new to me. I had to retire 2 months ago to start having fun in life.

The view of the case hand seated in the chamber doesn't appear to be "all" the way in by several thousandths which closing the block will accomplish easily and therein may lie the problem. It only takes a bit of oversize on the solid head relative to the chamber to jam the case.

After bending the handle of my favorite brass cleaning rod trying to push out the stuck case, I thought a wood dowel sanded down for a smooth fit would be the least intrusive method. Steel eh?

You might be able to get away with knocking stuck cartridges out with a well-oiled hickory loading rod, but a dowel will inevitably break and then you have two separate stuck pieces in your barrel, each helping the other to resist being driven out.  Even a metal cleaning rod should be regarded as for emergency use only, not as a routine method of extracting badly stuck shells.

I have a High Wall in .32-40 with a modern reline and chamber and notice that some of my shells swell at the heads, even with black powder loadings, and need a tap with a rod to get them out.  These are old balloon-head cases and the shell holder and die setup on my loading press doesn't allow sizing all the way down to the rim.  As KAF said, taking the innards out of the FLS die and using it like an old drive-in-and-out sizer might take care of this.

Of course, leave us face it, extraction is the Achilles' Heel of all the classic single shots, and nobody should be surprised by the occasional sticky case.  But even the bad lot I described can be gotten out by sliding the rod in from muzzle to breech, pulling it back slightly, and "throwing" it, with thumb and forefinger, against the back of the stuck case, by wrist action only.  This usually results in my having to chase a case around the legs of the shooting bench.  Having to pound the rod with a hammer is something else again.

Threading one of those badly sticky cases through the primer hole, attaching a rod, smearing the shell with Clover compound, and lapping the chamber using a back-and-forth motion with an electric drill, should relieve the tight spots.  I have done this on a couple undersized chambers, and, properly done, it polishes out the tight spots without enlarging the rest of the chamber.  But I would look to my brass first, and make sure it is properly dimensioned.

OK Here is a trick that you can try take your empty shell case and resize it. now take a piece of metal and put it over the shell holder and run the resize die all the way to the rim. You'll have to tap the case out with a piece of rod. Swageing the base is something that 32 MS shooters are firmilure with. This may cure the problem if it does generally once you have swaged the bases down they will not stick again.

40 Rod

Bill Lawrence wrote on Apr 5^th, 2017 at 7:00am:


They can split and get wedged.  When that happens it's next to impossible to get it out.