When is being stubborn being too stubborn?

Hey Bill,

Seems to be some misnomers getting tossed around here, but to clarify a "cook-off" is technically impossible in an M60 and I'm pretty sure an M240 as well, at least as long as the gun is functioning properly and being fed from the belt. The reason is simple; the round's never in the chamber until the trigger is actually pulled. Most modern machineguns are open bolt weapons, specifically to preclude this possibility. When you clear an M60 (and many other similar machineguns) the "safe" position is with the bolt closed, to ensure there's no round in the chamber. If the bolt's back, it's ready to rock and roll if there happens to be a round in the feed tray. Bolt closed means the chamber's empty and the weapon's safe. Cook offs in an M16/M4 or other closed bolt weapon are another matter. I've had M16s to the point where the barrels literally glowed a dull cherry red in the darkness, and they will DEFINATELY cook off rounds in that condition. Some one else mentioned the spare barrel and the leather glove (asbestos, actually) that come standard on most heavy machineguns, and they're needed, but not to prevent cook offs. The barrels, not surprisingly, get eaten up pretty quickly if they're heated this badly. It happens, even in training, but it's not good for them and they should be swapped out every few hundred rounds if you're in a sustained fire situation. I don't know quite what happened in that first video, but I don't believe it was a true cook off situation.

As far as the heat damaging the brass, I don't know if that'd be the case with a round that's been cooked off, but I suppose it's something to consider, There's other reasons, completely unrelated to cook offs or heat realted issues, not to use machinegun brass for reloading. In the 30/06, there used to be an entirely different anneal used in cases intended for macinegun use than that intended for stuff that was bound for M1s. Softer neck and shoulder area as I recall, due to the fact that the M1919 BMGs had massive bolts (lot of momentum there) and essentially 'crush fitted" the rounds when the gun fired. Hatcher covers this, but I'd have to look it up to verify the details. In modern 7.62mm production, I'm not sure how the anneal is handled differently (if indeed it is) than that drawn as M118LR cases that are intended for use in bolt guns or match M14s/M21s. The cycling of an M14 is pretty brutal, but it's little more than a love tap compared to what an open bolt weapon does to the brass. You've already learned the lesson, but for anyone else considering it, used machinegun brass is pretty much scrap metal and little more. Unless the zombies are breaking down the door and that's the ONLY brass you have available, there's easier ways to come up with reloadable cases.

Been there, done that, buy the commercial stuff now and to heck with all the extra effort!

Kevin Thomas
Lapua USA
 
That was kind of why I posted all my trials and tribulations and expenses on here. That and to give a little humor to the place. Kind of like Roy's Superglue in the primer pockets. It might shortcut someone else making the same mistake. We all do dumb things at times its just that once in a while I get real stubborn and try everything I can think of to really make things go way off the chart in stubbornness. Ask my wife about the lawnmower that would not run sometime. She now hides my guns when I get the lawnmower out. Whats really hard to do is look at that pile of brass and decide that Yes it really is scrap. Especially since I have use LC brass in .30-06 and .223 and had awesome luck with it. None of it had been used in a machine gun though.
 
You said one of your buddy's gave you the brass, just curious where did he acquire it from?
 
I'm guessing your brass is OK. It's just a matter of getting sized the first time and once you've got that accomplished, you should be good to. I had a few 300 RUM cases that were tough to size after some over pressure loads, and I got 3 of them stuck. It finally got through my thick skull to size them a little at a time. As soon as I felt what seemed like excessive force to smoothly size a caseI lifted the handle and then brought it back down slightly farther and lifted again, repeating this until I had the full case sized. Once that was acomplished, I didn't have any more problems with the case. Make sure you use a proper amount of good lube, not too much and not too little. I like One Shot.

For stuck cases, you might try a google to get some tips. a 1/4" drill bit, and 1/4" hex head bolt with nut and washer, some sort of sleeve - a socket would probably do, a socket and wratchet for the nut and bolt and you can get that case right out the next time.

Anyway, I think you oughta call your buddy back and thank him for the brass :)
 
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:) Montana. I have done all that. (Except for calling my buddy back that is) I also keep thinking that "There has to be a way" and I am a bit stubborn. What really has me stumped is the reason that I was pushing the necks of the cases down inside of the case when I went to deprime the cases that I had been able to resize. Only had one out of 5 that this didn't happen on and sucker stuck the case. I did find that the Lee tapered de priming rod is rougher than a cob. Ended up polishing it a bit and then it slid down inside the neck just fine. Stuck the case and thats when I got ****ed and used a hammer to drive out the case as the the stem would not come out so I could drill it and tap it to remove the case. Kind of lost it some where around there I guess. I'm going to buy another set of dies and give it another go maybe. Lee dies are cheap or that is the ones I will buy to try it again with. Don't want to buy anything good and destroy it.
I'm waiting for some Imperial die wax to get here as I could not find any and might give the mink oil a go just to see what it does.
Crazy part is I have reloaded thousands of rounds in 40 years and had probably only stuck 1 or two cases before this. Now I have stuck a lifetime of cases in 350 rounds.
 
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