Jump to content
Military Firearm Restoration Corner

Case Head Separation Bends Extractor?


tinkerfive

Recommended Posts

I bought a 243 in pieces and with a history.

It was in pieces because there had been a case head separation.

The shooter and reloader is no longer with us ( natural causes ), I

bought the gun from the son who had no interest. The deal came with

a box of prepped cases that had a note 'sized to length'.

The existing head space allowed for the No Go to just close.

I wonder how many length sized reloads it took in a long chamber

to cause the separation.

 

So that is the background.

 

Now I've reset the head space to min.

 

When range testing I discovered that the extractor drops the spent

casings long before they get back to the ejector.

 

Back at the workbench I pull the extractor off the bolt and looking at

it on edge the entire head assy from the collar towards the claw appears

bent outward.

 

Phew!!.......

A long way to set up to ask a question.

I have no doubt that there would be enough energy to bend it.

The thing is that it is in an enclosed space. It can only be pushed outward

until it contacts the inside of the receiver.

Could the case head separation have been the cause of it bending or would it

have to be flexed a certain distance to leave it permanently deformed?

 

I await your learned comments on the effects of force in a confined space on the

flat spring we know as the Mauser extractor.

 

Tinker

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There have been cases where the extractor was blown to pieces and or plumb off the action, well, bolt really.

 

Now, it would be interesting to have been able to ask the gent what it felt like behind the trigger of that thing knowing how much damage the seperation had done.

 

I had a customer load the wrong shell into a rifle and it blew. He said he only felt a puff of air. Not into his face but past it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tinkerfive, Try it with a new or diffrent extractor to see if it fixes the problem.

 

Thanks but, I can reshape the extractor off of the bolt.

 

My question was to if the permanent bending could happen when it could have only

been pushed out a fraction of an inch until it contacted the inside of the receiver.

 

Tinker

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Col. Townsend Whelen reported that most '03 Springfield low number "blow-ups" were caused by bad case head temper which caused case head separations. The secondary source was overly brittle metal of the receiver ring. The Springfield's weakness was bad gas evacuation in ruptured case situations, this problem was passed on to it's charming granddaughter, the Model 70.

 

The case head separation may have not only sprung the extractor head sightly sideways, but, weakened it sufficiently so that when the case head was extracted that it bent the extractor head outward. Although, more likely the extractor was bent removing the case head so that the bolt could be removed from the rifle. Do not attemp to reuse this extractor. A bent extractor is a sure sign that the spring temper is ruined, and, the extractor in seriously weakened.

 

I owned a beautifully sporterised G98(t) mauser (late war Czech production) witha side mounted Zeiss scope. I had to carry around a segmented cleaning rod to push out occassinoal stuck shell casings when the extractor slipped out of the cartridge cannelure and failed to extract it. I discovered the chamber was beautifully cut, but, tight and the extractor's foot (which rides in the beveled groove in the bolt head) was eliminated as was the bevel cut in the bolt head groove as a production expediency, along with the bolt rib and it's cut in the rear receiver.

 

I also discovered the the spring tension of the extractor was ruined. I got a new extractor but had to carefully gring off the beveled foot which rides in the bolt head groove as the bolt head groove was not beveled. My gunsmith suggested opening the chamber a bit to ease extraction and this did the trick. So I learned the hard way, once again, that if Paul Mauser designed a part - don't try to short cut it, it was done for a reason and now I know the reason why. Bill

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...