Cow Palace Ammo Vendor PSA - corrosive

[edwardm]

Just an FYI to any shooting n00bs.

At least one vendor at the recent Cow Palace show was selling old KA surplus 30-06 ammo at so-so ($0.50/rd) prices. I ran into a guy that bought some and he had troubles with it at the range last night.

After touching off a few rounds, he ran into a live round that lodged itself in the chamber (Savage rifle, looked brand new). A brass hammer and a 2x4 extracted the round without damage to the rifle. Beating on someone's rifle is not my idea of fun, but we're not going to let anyone leave the range with a live round in the chamber. I've had plenty of experience with the KA surplus, and while it generally shoots about as well as HXP, most people don't know that it's 1) surplus and 2) corrosive (I don't think he knew either).

Just an FYI to the new crew.

So to any n00bs out there, if you picked up any of this shiny, pretty ammo (the vendor had obviously tumbled it in dry media of some sort), be aware.

[mycrstuff]

KA is good ammo. Yes it is corrosive, but it is good ammo and the brass is good to reload. How did he get a live round stuck in the chamber? I have never seen a round that wasn't fired stick in the chamber.

[edwardm]

Only thing I don't like about KA brass, is the Koreans went a little nuts on the primer crimp. I've destroyed several decapping pins, and swaging the brass is a PITA. But yes, it does make for some really good reloads. In fact, I've shot my best groupings out of a Garand with that brass and pulled M2 ball projectiles. But enough of that.

I have no idea why it stuck in the chamber. I noticed the shooter was having problems, walked over, asked if he'd like help, and then took a look. The bolt was fully forward, but the handle fully up, so no lug engagement. The bolt would not move forward, backward or rotate. I managed to get the bolt rotated and into battery, lifted the handle and it would still not budge. Ended up placing a chunk of 2x4 on the handle, and using a heavy brass hammer to tap it back out of battery.

I spent a while looking at the round. There were no apparent rifling marks on the jacket. The angle where the shoulder meets the case wall was heavily burnished, like you'd see if the casing itself was dimensionally incorrect, but that usually just means the bolt won't turn and the round will come back out. The bullet was seated properly (though crimped as usual), with no bulges in the neck.

I suspect more than one dimension of the case was wrong and it slipped past QA in 1970's Korea. I did check the action screws before sending him off to shoot again, and there was no contact with the bolt, no debris, gun was new but cleaned prior to firing (so the shooter claims). It was a real oddball, and the guy had no problems with Winchester E-Tip ammo the rest of the night.

[curtru]

Maybe he had one case neck separate but didn't notice. I was at a church shooting event and one our members had a remington 700 in 7mm mag that the brass separated just below the neck and when he clambered the next round his gun would close but not lock then he noticed the round would not come out w/o force we still didn't notice the neck till we tried to chamber a dummy round.

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[edwardm]

That's always a possibility, but I checked the bore for obstructions with the bolt removed before I'd let him keep shooting it. I was thinking the previous round was maybe a squib and he had a bullet lodged in the rifling just ahead of the leade. But it was clean as a whistle.