Factory ammo broke off ahead of base

[mountainman56]

I recently did a little maintenance and a front sight install on a Savage 24 over and under for a friend of mine. The firearm has certainly been neglected in the past but after a little cleaning it functioned fine for me. After he took it home he fired one 20 gauge and 2 rounds through the top 222 barrel. The second round failed to eject and the extractor just pulled through the base. The extremely small model 24 extractors don't take much of a bite and Paul was actually able to remove the brass with a fingernail.........however only the base and about 1/2" of brass came out, the rest remaining in the chamber.

This is brand new Federal ammo I purchased myself to test the rifle. I'm leaning towards flawed ammo but when I get the rifle back I will do a chamber cast to be sure.

I'm wondering if anyone else has ever had a similar experience with new ammunition?

 

[orwapitihunter]

Extremely excessive headspace will cause case head separations.
After you remove the front half of the case, compare it to an unfired cartridge.
Does it still have the long neck of a 222? Someone may have reamed the chamber to 223 and failed to mark it as such. If it still appears to be 222 then get a set of headspace gages and see if headspace is in tolerance.

 

[mountainman56]

I have a dozen spent brass from test firing and sighting in. I checked several last nite and everything measures up correctly. I'm hoping the problem was faulty brass but I will have to check the chamber more carefully before we shoot it again. I have never had a reloaded brass separate before let alone a factory one, very confusing.

 

[mountainman56]

I think I'm onto something. Got the rifle back this afternoon along with one third of the brass that Paul was able to get out (the other two thirds is still in the chamber). I took another spent brass from the same box and cut it off at the same length and slight angle as the broken one. This is what I found.....the one that failed is on the right. Premium ammo my butt.