Tell me what went wrong!
 

Recently I purchased a customShillen riflebarrel for my T/C Encore, chambered in 7-08. I had plenty of .308 brass on hand, so I resized them to 7-08.I had30casings of "virgin"Winchester brass and 20 casings of "virgin"Remingtonbrass, all.....resized to 7-08. I loaded various loads of five, using the brass I had. Using different powders and different primers,not paying attention to the brass......away I went. When I went the range to test the loads......Ihad 19 mis-fires!!!!! I did not pay attention ....at the time...but all the mis-fires occured with Winchester brass. ALL the Remington casings fired without a problem. All fired and mis-fired roundshad a firing pin strike in the center of theprimer.

I thought it might be a bad batch of primers, but I used different primers during the differentloads. ( Fed 210, CCI 200, REM 9 1/2, Win LR) All batches had mis-fires!!!!! (All mis-fires were from Winchester casings)

I began to wonder what was the problem:

What about the chamber. Was itcut toodeep?

If so.....why did the Remington brass fire and some Winchester brass did not??

I have sent my Shillen barrel back to Shillen.....and they have said my barrel is AB-SO-LUT-LYperfect.

I have since...sent my action to Thompson Center.

My action is perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So what has happened?????

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssssssse help a brother out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks

BIGDADDY014

RE: Tell me what went wrong!
 

You introduced too many variables (different brass, primers, powder) into the equation to solve the problem. Eliminate some of the variables and try again.

You could have some pieces of the Win brass that were sized too short. Win brass ain't what it used to be.

If you have a set of head & shoulders gauges and a caliper, you could measure the shoulders of the fresh fired cases and compare them to those that didn't fire. My guess is that the shoulders are pushed too far back.

Could also have some bad primers.

RE: Tell me what went wrong!
 

Could have some bad primer pockets? Just a guess.

RE: Tell me what went wrong!
 

KelBro:

Check this out: http://www.bellmtcs.com/store/index.php?cid=367Good luck.

RE: Tell me what went wrong!
 

Wow! Didn't know that they were that big of a PITA to get to shoot.

Sounds like the head and shoulders gauge is definitely required for one of those rifles.

RE: Tell me what went wrong!
 

I had a 7-08 T/C Encore that did the same thing. It just would not shoot my handloads for some reason. I even went as far as sizing the brass and priming and trying an empthy primed case in the action. These always went off. But when I added the powder and bullet, the round wouldn't fire. I sent the rifle to T/C and they sent it back saying everything was fine. I used these same dies for 2 other 7-08s I have and never had a problem with the handloads. I since got rid of that Encore. Funny thing is though, the dealer where I traded it, told me someone stole it off the rack a week later. I guess it was one of those 'jinxed' rifles.

RE: Tell me what went wrong!
 

Could it be that the primer pockets are deeper on the Win brass??

I've nerver been too excited about the T/C break open guns, always hear goofy stories like this. They won't fire, they won't shoot, hinge pin problems, chambers cut wrong. I'm not saying they are all bad, just that they have there fair share of duds.

RE: Tell me what went wrong!
 

Hmm...maybe the cases had a contaminent. Did you clean and dry the cases before using them? Trim to correct length?

RE: Tell me what went wrong!
 

I had the very same thing happen to me with a beautiful little Cascade Arms .250 Savage carbine I loaded up some ammo for using .22/250 cases necked up to shoot .257" bullets. Kind of reversing the evolutionary process. It turned out that when I sized them, I set the shoulders back ever so slightly! But it was enough to result in sufficient excessive headspace in that little rifle's precise chamber that the striker just didn't indent the primers enough to set them offin at least half of the rounds.

I had to pull the bullets, size the necks up with a 6.5mm expander button, then re-neck them in the .250 Savage die,leaving enough of a false shoulder so the strikerhit the primer hard enough. Then they fired OK.

RE: Tell me what went wrong!
 

Have you tried just neck sizing a case or two to see if they will fire.?

Just a thought...