Hornady black 105 hpbt swipes

[Pwoller]

Is anyone else getting ejector swipes or marks with factory hornady black?  Is it a pretty hot factory round from your experience?  I tried different bolts, buffer weights, gas tuning and I still get swipes. Some flattened primers too.

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Should of mentioned I’m shooting it suppressed. I’m going to test it without the suppressor next time.

[StoneHendge]

What temperature were you shooting at - it's loaded with either CFE or Lever which can get extremely fiesty when it gets hot out.

[CZ527 Guy]

I had recently watched a youtube video where the OP was experiencing this with the same ammo roughly 6 months back, in one rifle and not w another rifle. OP tried seating bullet .02" deeper I believe. Increasing the jump to the lands cleared up the pressure as well as improved accuracy as I recall, in that instance.

Distance to the lands vary between rifles to some extent. Your milage may vary.

[grayfox]

Some of the early 105 factory's were loaded too long so they jammed into the rifling for some barrels. Could be that's what you're seeing. Now Hdy loads them to 2.200", earlier they were at 2.200", IIRC.
There are a couple threads on here talking about all that. I think maybe proof and cmmg's, I have a faxon and Monster barrels, they don't jam for me.

[Pwoller]

I was hoping it was jamming in the lands when I first noticed it. It’s not though. It was 80 one day and 50 the other. I can’t figure it out. I tried some hand loads with benchmark and 70 grain nosler bts. Did a ladder and started seeing swipes around 28.6 grains. I tried smoothing the ejector hole, buffer weight changes and tuning the gas as low as possible but still getting swipes.

I’m loading up a ladder with 8208 and 70 bt my plan is to shoot it unsuppressed. I can’t figure out if it’s high pressure I’m seeing or something wrong with the gun. It’s a 18 inch proof barrel and a maxim bolt.

[Dino11]

If the swipes are not heavy, like if you can not catch it with your fingernail I would not worry about it. It seems to be a characteristic of this round. Another thing you can look at is your ejector, does it have sharp or rounded edges. If they are sharp remove it and chuck it in a drill and us a jewelers file and round the edge, then use some 1000 and 1500 sandpaper to polish it. Not a guarantee it will fix it but the edge should be rounded anyways. Every type II bolt I have encountered has needed this done. The sharp edge is catching the brass as it is rotated in the bolt during extraction.

During the infancy of all this I pulled down a bullet and weighed the powder, poured it on a white piece of paper and then poured some CFE223 next to it. The two powders looked identical, but when I tried to duplicate the load with the same weight of powder and the same bullet... the velocity came up short with the CFE, so the powder that Hornady is using is something similar but not exact to CFE. Most manufactures use canister powders made to their specs.

Nobody that I know of to date has had a problem like blown up guns or broken bolts. But it does raise an eyebrow though. I know that the new Hodgen load data has changed and is quite a bit lower for this round across the board. Another thing to ponder is how much higher the bolt gun data is, and again no real problems have been reported.

[grayfox]

That is a good point, I had forgotten. This was also a fix for several 6.5 Grendels. Especially on the inboard 1/4-circumf-or-so of the ejector. I mostly filed down/beveled it slightly for mine when it looked kinda swiped. Probably have a couple I haven't done yet but Dino's point is a good one.
Thanks D.

[StoneHendge]

Turn your gas off. If you still get marks, it's pressure.

[Pwoller]

I figured out why my reloads are having pressure issues. My bullets are moving out of the case when chambered. I’m guessing some of them are hitting the lands. Any tips on getting more neck tension ? I’m using a Hornady full length sizing die.

[Trashy]

You’ll probably hear the recommendation to purchase some type of bushing die and it might be the smart decision if you have an extra $150.00 laying around. Some more modest recommendations are; remove the decapping rod from the sizing die for the final neck sizing; polish the button on the decapping rod to make it a thousand smaller; and annealing the cases will help with neck tension if the brass is work hardened.

I don’t worry too much about neck tension with gas guns because I am a crimper because I mainly hand load to hunt and practice. The debate still rages wildly “crimp or don’t crimp”, I say it depends. I don’t crimp for my bolt guns but I crimp for tubular magazines, gas guns, pistol magazines and heavy recoiling handguns, not saying it’s the right thing, it’s just the way I roll.

Sorry for being long winded but I will recommend you get a Lee Factory Crimp Die, they are cheap for the service they render. Also do your decapping and full length re-sizing in two separate processes, decapping with a universal decapper and remove the decapping rod from the sizing die when you full length resize (unless your necks are really bent up, then once with and once without the decapping rod). Hope this helps in some way.

[popgun]

I thought you can adjust the crimp on the Hornady seating die. I guess I should read the instructions but I don't want a crimp.

[topclass2017]

took my ARC to the range today for its first outing.  Had ejector swipes on the Black 105's (averaged 2724 fps, 9.2 SD over 20 rounds), but not on White 108's (2679, 15).  Had time for 1 5-shot string of handloaded 107 SMK's over CFE223 in Starline Grendel brass - 2402, 10.9. 

Called Berger tech support the other day to talk about loads with their 105 or 108 bullets, and speed ran between mid 220's and mid 2400's for each.  To me, that would seem to suggest that the Hornady factory rounds are a little hot, maybe more appropriate for a bolt rifle?  And that my SMK load was in the correct ballpark.

Should note my upper is from Sanders Armory and has a 20" barrel.

[grayfox]

My 20" faxon shoots the hdy factories in the low to mid 2600's. The Hdy Black you have looks to me to be hot, like you say. Could be your box is one of the earlier batches that was set too long. The 105 IIRC needs to be at about 2.200 but some early hornady boxes were set at - from memory now - 2.24 or so? You could check their OAL, and if long could set them down to 2.200 and see how they do.

[topclass2017]

My 20" faxon shoots the hdy factories in the low to mid 2600's.  The Hdy Black you have looks to me to be hot, like  you say.  Could be your box is one of the earlier batches that was set too long.  The 105 IIRC needs to be at about 2.200 but some early hornady boxes were set at  - from memory now - 2.24 or so?  You could check their OAL, and if long could set them down to 2.200 and see how they do.

measured COAL of both rounds.  Black is at 2.210", white at 2.254".

will slowly shoot them up to recover the brass...