Howa 1500 bolt sticking

[christmasstorm]

Ok not sure if this is the right forum for this or not... I have a Howa 1500 and I took it to the range for the first time since buying it. It is my first bolt action rifle. Here is what happens...

about 50% of the time, after a shot, when trying to eject the spent casing i cannot get the bolt in the fully up position without putting it back down and pulling it back up with a decent amount of force. Is this normal at all?

[baih777]

Nice looking rifle. Are you shooting surplus or match grade ammo.?

[christmasstorm]

I am shooting cheap HSM ammo 168gr... I am still leaning how to zero my score effectively and havent shot out past 25 yet, I dont want to spend a bunch of money on match until I have a little bit better idea what I am doing...could it be ammo?

[baih777]

I would try some better ammo. I had some 308 surplus and it would get stuck every three or four rounds. It took a few range trips to go thru 300 RDS. Any other ammo I use works fine. Also use good ammo to zero the scope.

[E92335i]

Could be the ammo. My R700 bolt slightly stick on Prvi Partizan and Magtech 308. Feeds great on FGMM, Fiocchi, and PMC 308.

[stormvet]

I shot mine for the first time today, braking in the barrel and getting a semi decent zero on the glass. I had a few sticky cases, not worried about it as I was shooting Tula. As long as you can still extract the casing without using more then one hand or a rubber mallet your fine.

[MrPlutonium]

You may have a particularly tight chamber. Try a different type of ammo.

[christmasstorm]

Ok, I will take it out this weekend to shoot...sadly the only other ammo I have is reloads from freedom munitions.