So my girlfriend bought me a Grendel barrel and BCG from BCA for Christmas. I had a 223 that was missing a BCG so I just changed it over. Everything seemed fine and I got some dies and brass and such and loaded some loads using 120 ELDM, 123 ELDM, and 123 SST. Got it to the range and wouldnt go completely into batter and was very hard to extract a round by hand. I thought my mag was part of the feed problem and I thought maybe they BCG wasnt real happy with the used lower I put it in and it needed a little break in. I never had that happen but I thought maybe. Anyway I was able to single drop the rounds into the chamber and it would go into battery that way and throw the brass in just a perfect little pile.
So I got home and swapped that BCG with one that is lighter and I had a heaver buffer spring in another AR so I put that in there as well. Did a little dremmel work to the mag and I got it to feed just fine but it was a little sticky still trying to hand extract a round.
I heard about some people having to use small base dies and I thought that may be my problem. I got a factory Hornady 123 SST round from my buddy and it loaded and extracted like butter. I thought well I guess Im one of the few that needs SB dies. They dont make Grendel SB dies but RCBS does make small base AR dies for 264 LBC, Les Bear Custom, which is the same as a Grendel. I ordered those and some Imperial wax from midway. Got all excited when they came so I loaded a few dummy rounds and bingo. Didnt help one damn bit. Just wasted $50 on damn dies I dont even need. Great.
I thought it may have a rough chamber or maybe the nitride coating was too thick in the chamber, not that I know anything about nitride or nitrite or whatever it is, thickness. So I bought 2 different size bore mops that I was going to chuck up in my cordless and use a little Flitz to polish it a little bit.
So, before I started I decided to check where my tight spots were in the chamber. I used a sharpie to completely color the entire round. I dropped it in the chamber by hand and dropped the bolt on it. Extracted it, with some needed force and checked for my tight spots. And guess what. Chamber isnt tight anywhere but my bullet was way into the lands. This whole time my problem was my bullet was being driven into the lands. I double and triple checked my OAL right spot on at 2.245. Here is the crazy part, I had to seat the 123 ELDM down to 2.20 and the 120 ELDM down at 2.173 to get them off the lands. How it was that far into the lands and not pull a bullet out when I extracted a round I just dont understand. I had a crimp on the SST loads but no crimp at all on the ELDM bullets. Some of them I had to tap the charging handle with a hammer to get them out.
So the moral of the story is, crimping AR rounds isnt as necessary as I thought it was.
So I got home and swapped that BCG with one that is lighter and I had a heaver buffer spring in another AR so I put that in there as well. Did a little dremmel work to the mag and I got it to feed just fine but it was a little sticky still trying to hand extract a round.
I heard about some people having to use small base dies and I thought that may be my problem. I got a factory Hornady 123 SST round from my buddy and it loaded and extracted like butter. I thought well I guess Im one of the few that needs SB dies. They dont make Grendel SB dies but RCBS does make small base AR dies for 264 LBC, Les Bear Custom, which is the same as a Grendel. I ordered those and some Imperial wax from midway. Got all excited when they came so I loaded a few dummy rounds and bingo. Didnt help one damn bit. Just wasted $50 on damn dies I dont even need. Great.
I thought it may have a rough chamber or maybe the nitride coating was too thick in the chamber, not that I know anything about nitride or nitrite or whatever it is, thickness. So I bought 2 different size bore mops that I was going to chuck up in my cordless and use a little Flitz to polish it a little bit.
So, before I started I decided to check where my tight spots were in the chamber. I used a sharpie to completely color the entire round. I dropped it in the chamber by hand and dropped the bolt on it. Extracted it, with some needed force and checked for my tight spots. And guess what. Chamber isnt tight anywhere but my bullet was way into the lands. This whole time my problem was my bullet was being driven into the lands. I double and triple checked my OAL right spot on at 2.245. Here is the crazy part, I had to seat the 123 ELDM down to 2.20 and the 120 ELDM down at 2.173 to get them off the lands. How it was that far into the lands and not pull a bullet out when I extracted a round I just dont understand. I had a crimp on the SST loads but no crimp at all on the ELDM bullets. Some of them I had to tap the charging handle with a hammer to get them out.
So the moral of the story is, crimping AR rounds isnt as necessary as I thought it was.
