Help with a difficult bolt cycle.

I'm shooting a Savage 10 FCP-RS in 6.5CM. It's a brand new rifle.

During my first trip to the range, I had difficulty pulling the bolt to the rear after shooting a round.

I DIDN'T have difficulty lifting the bolt, I had difficulty pulling the bolt to the rear.

I have no issues ejecting a round that has NOT been fired.

I was zeroing the rifle with my reloads. I'm shooting a 140 partition over 39grains of H4350. Thirty nine grains is right in the middle of the factory recommended max and min powder weight.

I using virgin Hornandy brass.

I use a Redding full length sizing die with a Redding competition bullet seater.

I noticed during seating bullets, a small amount of bullet brass being scraped off by the case of the mouth of the cartridge. (Never seen that before).

I'm not seeing any signs of pressure on fired cases.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Would you happen to have a picture of a fired casing?

I had a rifle that did that. Every piece of fired brass had a very shallow line engraved about a inch long and then it turned 90 degrees. It made the case stick every time. It was harmless but annoying. A mild Emory cloth in a plastic shot gun patch attachment on a piece of cleaning rod chucked in my drill polished my chamber and eliminated it in about 5 minutes.
I still have the rifle and forgot all about the sticky case until I read your thread.

Canadian Bushman said:

Would you happen to have a picture of a fired casing?

Click to expand...

You're thinking the same thing I am I bet, rough chamber/throat causing a slight stickiness?

I have a .260 LR DPMS with a custom barrel on it that required some polishing as when I first got it, shooting factory ammo the first round would stick so hard it wouldn't cycle at all and I had to pull hard on the charging handle and bang the butt hard on the ground or bench to break it loose.

Strangely enough I had no trouble after that but the first round was a bear.

Halfway between the neck opening and shoulder the brass showed a slightly raised ring about 25/1000 from where a burr ha left a corresponding gouge in the chamber.

Drilled out the base of one unfired hull, inserted a 1/4" rod and epoxied it in the hull and would alternate between it and some 0000 steel wool, both dipped in lapping compound which ultimately polished it to a mirrored, baby butt smooth finish.

Problem solved.

Chamfer the inside of the case neck slightly to avoid scraping copper from your bullet jacket when seating.

I had the same issue with a R700 Long Range. After a quick chamber polish, the issue went away. You may want to return it for a polish job or take it to a local gunsmith if you do not feel like doing it yourself.