Lazzeroni Warbird Click Bang?

[boomtube]

"I saw another thread that said to polish the expander ball for smoother in and out."

You mean someone suggested polishing an expander ball to prevent hang fires? Interesting. And a good example of the foolish info available on the web.

[royinidaho]

What Kirby said is spot on.

[rivetgun55]

I'm sorry to have mislead you. I had a second thread about having problem also sizing brass as the expander ball comes back thru the neck it seems really tight. My fault for not explaining properly. Thanks

[uncle_motorhead]

Kirby is one smart cat with a lot of experience To light a charge is spot on, and that looks like what fixed your problem.

You may have noticed, the problem was worse in cold weather, or when pointing the casing down when loading it.

A tighter neck and adding a tighter crimp can also help alleviate the symptom, so polishing the expander ball, could have made it worse.

However I disagree with the 165 being too light for the Warbird causing the problem. I have run RL25, and 130 gr Barnes bullets through my 30-378 Wby for years. Never a hangfire. I don't underload them. I also load 120 grain Lazerhead bullets in my Firebird, without issue, but 7828 works a little better in there. I have had very good luck with heavier bullets using Retumbo. These lighter "BARNES Bullets" hang together very well and don't hurt the shoulder so bad when they go boom. The 120 from the Firebird and the 130 in the 30-378 both approach 4000 fps.

You can also buy Factory Weatherby ammo with the Barnes TTSX 130 grain.

[uncle_motorhead]

I correct myself in the thread above when I said polishing the expander could have made it worse. Polishing the expander ball, depending upon how much, would increase neck tension. This, along with a nice tight crimp, will keep the bullet in place slightly longer, allowing pressure to build, so when it does start moving, it has enough pressure it does not stop when it hits the rifling, causing rapid pressure gains to unstick it. You can get a very similar fix by seating the bullet against the rifling. (not the same but similar) However you still need enough powder. Just tightening the neck is not the cure, it just helps.

I got this info from Hodgdon, when I had a cold temp hangfire problem with lower charges of Ball powder (below 80% full). With small cases they recommended AGAINST a magnum primer to fix it, because when cold it wouldn't really help, but in hot temps, the pressures could jump up to 15,000 psi higher than a regular primer would.