Am I Missing Something?

[Dill45]

Hey guys,

So I'm at a complete loss here on what's going on.  I'm reloading for the S&W 500 (revolver) using 440gr LFN gas checked bullets.  So the recommended starting load from Hodgdon for Lil'Gun is 30gr's and max load is 35gr's which have 40.2k PSI and 50.5k PSI respectively.  (Both below the SAAMI MAP of 60K) I load up 3 batches of 5 rounds.  The first being 30gr's of Lil'Gun, the next being 32.5gr's of Lil'gun and the last being 33.5gr's of Lil'Gun.  All of these loads using Hornady brass and loaded to the designated COL.

I shoot the first group of 5 (One at a time to make sure they slide out of the cylinder easy).  All go off with out a problem, all come out of the cylinder perfectly.  Accuracy isn't that great, so I decide to move to the next batch.  Shoot the first one, and go to push it out of the cylinder; extraction is pretty sticky and the lip of the case has the bullets lube all over it and some inside the cylinder it self (towards the forcing cone).  I continue with the rest of them.  Of the 5, 3 were pretty sticky, 1 was kind of sticky and the last one just fell out of the cylinder.  The last one also showed no lube from the bullet any were.  The primers all seemed fine, they weren't terribly flat, and weren't cratered or blown out.  Accuracy was better, but still not great.

I decided to go head and shoot the last batch.  They shot better than the first or second group, but were just as sticky as the second group to get out.  All the shells had the bullet lube at the lip and in the cylinder.  They weren't any harder to get out of the cylinder and didn't show any primer issues.

I'm now sitting here wondering what is going on.  The load listed is supposed to be quite a bit under max, yet the shells are pretty hard to remove.
I had also loaded up some of the same bullets (and brass/primers) using H110.  The two loads I had were 34grs of H110 and 36grs of H110.  Both shot flawlessly and had no sticky extraction.  Also noticeably missing was the lube around the top of the shell.
Finally I shot two more batches using a 440gr LFN bullet with a plain base from a different company.  The lube used on this bullet was noticeably harder than the previous bullets.  The first batch was loaded with 30grs of Lil'Gun and the second with 32.5 grs of Lil'Gun.  Both shot fine and didn't have any problems with extraction.

Now I've had sticky extraction before like this, except it's with Hornady FTX factory ammo.  Those shells can only be shot one at a time because they get stuck in there pretty tight.  I've loaded up the same bullet (Hornady 300gr FTX), using Hornady load data, trimmed to the Hornady specified length and seated to the Hornady specified depth, in front of some really hot loads and had no problems extracting what so ever.

So I guess my question is, there something about GC'ed bullets I'm missing?  Or could it be a head spacing issue with the revolver?  Is it possibly the lubricant used on the bullets?  Is it that I'm crimping them?  Any help would be awesome!

Thanks,
Dillon

[securitysix]

Well, I'm going to go with some pure speculation here.

Since several of the rounds that stuck also showed evidence of bullet lube being left behind, especially around the case mouth, what if:

1)  The bullet lube scraped off during seating and was on the case when you put it in the chamber
2)  Firing the round pushed the case mouth outward causing either:
     a)  The bullet to not release correctly, resulting in excessive pressure leading to sticky extraction, or
     b)  The bullet lube to compress and/or melt, causing the case to stick in the chamber only at the case mouth, thus causing difficult extraction

Like I said, pure speculation.

[Dezynco]

Sounds like to me that the first couple of rounds you fired were loaded light enough that the case didn't expand completely.  This will cause the lube and gas to flow backward a bit into the cylinder.  This in turn sort of smuts up the cylinder, causing the next round to be a little sticky upon extraction.  This is a problem you'll run into with loads that are on the light side like plinking loads.  In other words, your first few rounds didn't form a good "seal" in the chamber wall, allowing the chamber become dirty.

Give the gun a good cleaning and see what happens.  I don't think you have a real problem if you have loaded your cartridges within tolerances.

[Catfish]

  Do you have a good crimp on you ammo? Load the full cylinder and fire your gun to see if any of the bullets are pulling. You only have to fire 1 round to check, but a couple would not hurt.