Stuck cartridge

Gazz · Jun 2, 2018

A friend was shooting his new PTR (HK 91(?) clone) which is chambered in .308 or 7.62x51 and one of HIS friends loaded a magazine with one round of 7.62x54r mixed with the correct ammo. The live round is quite firmly wedged in the chamber and while I have soaked it with bore cleanter with ammonia in an attempt to break down the copper jacket some and added oil it has not budged with a steel rod down the bore and 2 pound hammer to drive it out. I have added the bore cleaner to both the bore and to exposed portion of the base of the case with no luck. If I have to, I will press out the cross pin that holds the barrel in the trunnion and then press the barrel out but that is worst case. Anybody have any ideas on how I might get this out without removing the barrel?

tdmidget · Jun 2, 2018

Is the barrel threaded for a suppressor or such? Make a cap with a thread for a grease fitting. Hand grease gun should push it out.

Gazz · Jun 2, 2018

Thought of that but what to do about the gas port in the barrel?

akajun · Jun 2, 2018

Rig up a fixture to hold the barrel straight up, put that steel rod back in the bore and put the whole thing in a hydraulic press and press it out.
Ps you’re hammer may not be working because it’s driving the bullet into the case further and it’s bouncing of the powder.

72bwhite · Jun 2, 2018

ah just use a band saw and cut it up,
operator to stupid to own it.

now the big problem is it's a live round still
that makes it trickier.

if enough is sticking out to make a puller and grab it by the head maybe.
reloading press case holder with a side hammer attached might pull it out.
or remove the barrel make a band to seal off the gas port hole and do the grease
method.
better to be exerting the force on the case then just the bullet

NRDock · Jun 2, 2018

Is there space for a small a tapered fork, like a ball joint separator to drive between the rim and the breech?

GunBum · Jun 2, 2018

Gazz said:
Thought of that but what to do about the gas port in the barrel?

Delay roller locked guns don't use gas ports.

jmm03 · Jun 2, 2018

A friend of mine had a round stuck in the chamber of his 03 in a similar situation. He made a collet that fit the rim and used a slide hammer to pop out the case. Caution while removing ,especially if you are using force on the projectile end... Jim

akajun · Jun 2, 2018

No gas port but there is a fluted chamber
Doubt a grease gun will work in this case

GGaskill · Jun 3, 2018

I would be VERY CAREFUL pounding on the bullet of a loaded cartridge. It is not unlikely that you would set off the powder and have a case flying out the back at dangerously high velocity. If you insist on proceeding with the hammer, disassemble the rifle, remove the bolt, and put the back end of the receiver in something that will contain a flying cartridge case traveling at 2000 ft/sec. It may not happen but, then again, it may.

If you are into risk taking and enough of the case body is visible, take a hand crank drill (no Dremel or electric drills) and drill a hole through the side of the case and dump the powder out. Wear personal protective gear while doing this.

Safety first.

9100 · Jun 3, 2018

Pack the receiver in dry ice and the cartridge should drop out. Look at the thermal expansions for steel and brass. If that doesn't do it, liquid nitrogen should, but I would investigate the effect on the barrel's temper first.

Bill

DDoug · Jun 3, 2018

Your post made me think of this:
Sylvester loads Black Powder Rifle - YouTube

9100 · Jun 3, 2018

My father was born in 1874 and grew up with muzzle loaders. He commented on the typical picture of a frontiersman leaning on his rifle, usually with his hands on the muzzle and leaning his chest or chin on them. No frontiersman with the brains of a goose would do that because dogs would jump up on the rifle and fire it.

Bill

CalG · Jun 3, 2018

9100 said:
Pack the receiver in dry ice and the cartridge should drop out. Look at the thermal expansions for steel and brass. If that doesn't do it, liquid nitrogen should, but I would investigate the effect on the barrel's temper first.

Bill

Extreme cold will not change a barrel "temper" in any detrimental way. cryo treatment may actually improve many performance aspects of a steel barrel.

Think about the difference between a near liquid (heat treatment) and a real solid solid.
"

tdmidget · Jun 3, 2018

Barrels are not hardened anyway. A quick 50 rounds and they would no longer be if they were. Would you want a brittle barrel?

texasgeartrain · Jun 4, 2018

I'd be kind of interested to see how he loaded a rim fire cartridge with the rest of the rounds, and not have it hang up in mag, or on other rounds. Must have really been trying, haha. Come to think of it, the 54R is longer than 308, how'd he get it in mag ?

I'm thinking dry ice or cold wont work or an OD part, as cold shrinks, in this case you would need the cold on cartridge only. On OD side, you'd typically want heat to expand over the id part. Though the heat you need would be more than I'd recomend for this.

I like draining the powder from brass if possible, but without seeing it hard to say. With powder out I'd be a whole lot less shy about beating it out. Unless its steel case ammo, a brass case and bullet itself should be much softer than the barrel, and give way sooner. I really cant imagine the action being so strong that it wedged it in harder than you can do with a hammer the opposite way.

9100 · Jun 4, 2018

texasgunsmith said:
I'd be kind of interested to see how he loaded a rim fire cartridge with the rest of the rounds, and not have it hang up in mag, or on other rounds. Must have really been trying, haha. Come to think of it, the 54R is longer than 308, how'd he get it in mag ?

I'm thinking dry ice or cold wont work or an OD part, as cold shrinks, in this case you would need the cold on cartridge only. On OD side, you'd typically want heat to expand over the id part. Though the heat you need would be more than I'd recomend for this.

I like draining the powder from brass if possible, but without seeing it hard to say. With powder out I'd be a whole lot less shy about beating it out. Unless its steel case ammo, a brass case and bullet itself should be much softer than the barrel, and give way sooner. I really cant imagine the action being so strong that it wedged it in harder than you can do with a hammer the opposite way.

The 7.62X54R is rimmed, center fire, not rim fire.

Note that I referred to the thermal expansion of brass vs steel. When you chill a brass part in steel, the brass shrinks faster than the steel. We would get a lot of aluminum housings from locomotive axle alternators with steel bolts stuck in them. We would heat them to 400 F, expanding the aluminum more than the steel, and unscrew them.

Re liquid nitrogen, I am not that familiar with the cryo properties of steel and so erred on the side of caution. If it won't hurt anything, it would cause much more of a size change than dry ice.

Re relative hardness of a brass case and a barrel, cold drawn brass work hardens a lot more that some people realize. The reason brass cases work so well is that the pressure expands them to make a tight seal between them and the chamber, then they shrink back, releasing the case for extraction. If they were dead soft, they wouldn't work as well because they would remain the expanded size.

Bill

Gazz · Jun 4, 2018

Thanks for all the comments.
I am not so familiar with the HK type rifle and the roller lock mechanism and assumed a semi auto rifle would require some kind of gas port. I will try the grease gun approach first. I am leery of using a press and a steel rod as I have another barrel in the shop that has a brass rod stuck in it from someone else's attempt to remove a stuck bullet. The brass rod went accordion in the bore before moving the bullet and now that is firmly lodged in the bore as well.
Unfortunately, the design of the HK rifle has the actual breech end of the barrel well forward of the ejection port or magazine well - it is not easy to get to and some kind of long collet puller would need to be made to get to it - A fair amount of machine work specific to this problem. I have compared the 7.62R round with the .308 and they are nearly the same length. The bullet of the Soviet round is larger by about .002" and the case neck measures about the same. The really big difference is the case body, the Soviet round being much larger in diameter so I am guessing that this is where the major stuckage has occurred with fluted chamber helping to grip it. Maybe now I have driven the bullet into the neck and expanded that as well.
Another thought is to drill it out from muzzle using a tube with the drill inside to protect the bore. That might only be effective if it is the bullet that is stuck.
I'll let you all know the outcome which may be sending it back to PTR. The problem with that is a live round stuck in a barrel.

Cole2534 · Jun 4, 2018

Is there a safe way to de-prime the cartridge then enlarge the primer pocket to release the powder from the cartridge?

Or would a shell holder from a reloading setup grip enough of the rim to pull it free? Maybe turn a custom one that can be fitted to a slide hammer?

Scottl · Jun 4, 2018

A couple of points:

That rimmed cartridge may well be steel instead of brass if it is of Russian manufacture. In that case chilling the receiver won't work. I like the grease gun idea but not with a live round. Using the sleeve/drill idea I would drill a small hole through the bullet and introduce a light oil to kill the powder and primer. This would also prevent pushing the bullet further into the case when applying the grease.

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