My 338 Edge will raise a circular bump where the ejector sits with softer brass at higher pressures. I have really only seen it with Nosler brass. Opening the bolt actual shears off part of the edge of the bump creating very fine hair like shavings. No issue with the case extracting from the chamber, but as the bolt first starts to rotate the raised bump gets rubbed. Rechambering a fired brass is tight because the bump is 0.001" to 0.002" tall and doesn't line back up with the extractor. A couple of passes of the case base across sand paper reveals and removes the bump. I just backed off on pressure with the softer brass. I can easily get 2900fps with 300SMK with H1000 and 30" barrel with other brass. My preferred load is 2825fps.
Having brass set back into the extractor ring is certainly an indication of pressures a bit higher then you should be at. Nosler brass is not that strong, on par with remington brass from what i have seen. As such, far overpriced for what you get. Still, if its all you can get….. fot to use it.
i do not mind seeing an ejector ring on the case head. Most brass will show a faint ring even factory ammo, especially on larger diameter cartridges. When it starts to shear off this bump though in my opinion pressures are to high as the brass is being permanently deformed to the point it flows into this recess hard enough that its elastic properties are not enough to let it stretch back out. Of said another, its elastic properties have been over powered by the force of the chamber pressure.
in a 30" barrel with conventional throat and h1000, i would expect to see 2800-2850 fps just as your seeing. I would also expect to see excessive pressure issues at 2900 fps!! Just as you were seeing.
i always prefferred Retumbo in the 338 Edge with the 300 gr bullet weights. Same velocity potential, higher load density and less ability to over pressure. Always found it less finicky with enviorn changes as well.
your preferred 2825 fps is pretty much exactly where i would expect it to be for top loads.
you mention no real sign of excessive pressure working the bolt….. this can greatly depend on the quality of the machining in the rifle but a quick story, had a customer that ordered one of my 257 STW rifles clear back in 2002-2003 or so. Built it on a new rem 700 that i fully blueprinted and did all the upgrades to. He was dreaming of the claimed 4000 fps velocity with the 100 gr bullet weights in a 28" barrel so we went with a lilja 10 twist fluted sendero contour barrel.
i did a load development and found that with the rem brass i was testing with, 3850 fps was about what i would call max but i also told him this is relatively soft brass and i am pretty conservative as i like longer brass life then 3-4 firings.
told him to watch for any of the well known pressure signs when developing a load.
several months later i get a call from him, rather upset. He had developed a great load and shot through the 100 rounds he had loaded up and had started to process the brass for the next loading and found that every single case had blown primer pockets, to the point he could insert a small steel punch through the case mouth and the instant it went through the flash hole, the primer would fall out effortlessly…. He was not impressed and asked how this could be possible with zero pressure signs, not even a faint ejector ring on the case heads….. none of the cases would hold a new primer….
this was when i asked him what velocity he was loaded to and he told me 3975 fps. I reminded him that i had gotten 3850 fps and warned him about going higher but he again said there were no pressure signs at all. Told him you were looking at the best pressure indicator we have, muzzle velocity. No magical way to develop a great deal of velocity. Velocity is simply a function of pressure and time a bullet is subjected to that pressure, longer time(longer barrel) more velocity.
he had read many posts from a guy named ferguson that was making these velocity claims and fell into the same trap many others had fallen into and after years of heated debated with me challenging fergusons velocity claims, he finally admitted he had no concerns at all if he only got one firing per case as long as he got those velocity numbers…….
anyway, the lack of obvious pressure signs working the bolt certainly does not mean your not working at pressures higher then the round was designed for as you well know and appropriately drop your velocity down to 2825 fps. Right where the Edge should be.
