Ring around case head

[Ohio357MagFan]

Ohio and Archer,

I gotcha, yeah it's definately the ejector I'm talking about and wow it pushes with a lot of spring force! I believe now that is the reason why I never see any flat primers with my R92. When I took the rifle apart I discovered the ejector on the bottom of the bolt pushes the back of the cartridge with a LOT of force so that will naturally always be pushing back on the bolt. And yes my firearm flings the cases with a LOT of force, way too much actually.

[GasGuzzler]

FWIW my old style .357 flung empties about 10' high and 4' right when operated aggressively before I installed a custom trimmed spring I found at work.

I could rack the lever, set the gun on its butt, and then catch the brass.

[Ohio357MagFan]

Idaho, Archer and Ohio,

Ok I have come to the conclusion that you all are absolutely right, the only way to fix my rifle is to screw in the barrel a turn or two. I studied the rifle closer and you all are right. I have shot thousands of rounds over almost 5 years in the rifle, it must have loosened it up and set the bolt back. I just made a new post in the DIY gunsmithing section asking about screwing the barrel in.

Thanks for your help.
Matt

[Archer]

So how many firings are you getting before the case shows the bright ring and or fails with a puncture or separated case head OR the groove on the inside of the case.

In addition to the possibility of increased headspace I might be concerned that the chamber might be a little loose at the rear? IF that was the case and your full length dies iron it back to spec or a bit on the tight side then it might be possible that the brass in that area is getting flexed / bent out and back rather than stretched due to headspace length changes. In that event I'm not certain you'd get a groove although you probably would eventually fatigue the brass.

IF your failure warnings are only on brass that's been reloaded 3-4 or more times and loaded stiff I might not worry much about it although I generally expect to get a lot more loads out of my straight walled brass than that.

IF on the other hand you are failing brass after a shot or two and not heavy loaded I'd be a lot more concerned.

I posted some thoughts in your gunsmithing thread as well.

[Ohio357MagFan]

Archer, I have shot thousands of rounds in that rifle and I do get that slight bulge on all the rounds no matter how many times. I looked at everything closer and I have a theory as to what exactly is going on. The extractor pulls on the top cartridge while the ejector pushes on the bottom of the cartridge. The little ring ridge is only really pronounced on one side. Think about how a cartridge would be inside a chamber if one side of the rim is pulled and the other side pushed- that makes the slide ridge or bulge or ring on one side make perfect sense!!!!! I've gotten a good 5-6 loads out of the brass. Only actual problem was that picture I posted where it showed the head about to separate, I saw the line forming where it was going to crack in half. The thing that concerns me is nobody else says their rifle is able to close the bolt to the point the lever touches the stock.

[Idaho Spud]

Ohio 357,

As I intimated in my first post, you could have a wallowed out chamber at the breech end, for what ever reason. And there are several. Since you've had these bulges in the brass since the beginning it's highly likely this condition has existed since day one. I don't believe it has anything to do with your extractor doing what you believe it's doing. So, instead of guessing, take your gun to a qualified 'smith and find out the problem. Continuing to shoot your gun could/will weaken the brass at the bulge area as you re-size the bulges out time after time. Not good. Sometimes we have to recognize the facts, however unpleasant, and do the correct thing. And please...not looking to offend you, just trying to help. But your gun does seem to have issues.

[Ohio357MagFan]

Gentlemen,

Got an update for everybody. I went to a gunshop/Indoor range yesterday and shot some rounds and made observations. Here are my observations I'd like to share.....

• I compared my firearm with a bran new Rossi 92 357 in the shop. It did the same thing with the slop in the lever, mine is just way more pronounced and feels smoother and looser. The shop owner looked my rifle over and thought there is nothing wrong, he said he would expect the bran new one he has to feel just like mine after thousands of rounds.

• I shot a variety of factory 357 mag, factory 38 special, and my handloads at different power levels. The ridge and little bump on the case is GONE when the loads were lightened up a little. One of my common loads is a speer jacketed 158 grain with mag primer and 16.5 grains W296. I noticed that at a lighter 15 grain charge of 296 the cases were totally smooth, no issues. Also, all the 38 special loads had no ring or ridge on the case, those are all totally smooth. ALL of the factory 357 magnum loads produced the ring/ridge on the cases, and I shot 3 different full power factory loads consisting of Federal American Eagle 158 JSP, Speer 125 gr Gold Dot JHP and also Blazer Brass 158 gr JHP (the "Blazer Brass" 357 ammo is loaded a lot hotter then the regular aluminum cased 357 Blazer ammo).

• I love my Rossi rifle, from now on I'm just going to load it with lighter loads.

• I also tried firing some loads with the lever squeezed hard and relaxed grip on lever. Made absolutely no difference. I measured the dimensions on all the cases fired both ways. All same length and looked the same either way.

• One more thing I'd like to say from my observations yesterday and generally overall of 25 years of hand-loading experience. In the 357 magnum, Winchester 296/H110 seems to produce the best velocity at the lowest pressures. I get pressure signs a lot faster with 2400/std primer. I noticed it's also pretty clean burning. it's good stuff. I'm liking 296 more and more. I'm actually still working on the same jug of 296 that I purchased back in 1994, it's in a cardboard can with metal lid. I really like the 158 grain jacketed loading with mag primer and 15 gr 296. I had been loading 16.5 gr with a 158 for years but the 15 gr still thumps just fine. The manuals have changed over the years quite a lot, my Speer manual from 1987 has 15 gr 296/H110 as a STARTING load for a 158 gr jacketed and close to 18 gr as max. Now the new Speer manual starts at like 13.5 and 15.5 as max. Weird. Anyways, 15 gr with a 158 is my new go to load. No pressure signs whatsoever!!!

[Ohio3Wheels]

I'm with you on the Win296/H11o wagon. I've used both over the years but since I've had the 45 Colt '92 I've burned the better part of a pound and a half in those loadings alone. Both for the Rossi and the BH.

Also nice to hear that backing off a touch seems to have solved you problem.

Make smoke,

[Archer]

I haven't loaded that much .357 but I've loaded thousands of .44 Mag running them through a Colt, a Smith and a Winchester. My Rossi 92s are relatively recent and I haven't put a huge number of rounds though them yet. I'd not really want to back off my magnum loadings but I'm not running at redline max in any event.

Sometimes loads will vary because of the primer used in them.
Others may vary because of the amount of the bullet inside the case may be different even with the same weight.
More recently I think there's been better testing equipment available and as a result the pressure readings may be more accurate directly read rather than inferred from the amount a slug of lead or copper is crushed.

[Ohio357MagFan]

In the 357 magnum section of my old Speer manual from 1987 it says the max loads are "slightly under 46,000 CUP pressure" I think about 20 years ago they officially changed the 357 magnum from 46,000 CUP to 35,000 PSI. I know that you can't possibly correlate CUP to PSI, but it's obvious that the 46,000 CUP loads are WAY higher pressure then today's standards. With the 158 gr speer bullets were talking 17.8 grains max of H110/296 (15.5 now) and those loads were doing high 1800s FPS out of the 357 rifle load secion, 15.8 gr 2400 W mag primer (14.8 now with STD primer, 13.8 mag primer), and 13 gr blue dot (10.7 now). Now I do think very strong action 357's like the Rugers and big N framed Smith and Wessons and Thompson Center single shots could handle those old 46,000 CUP loads ok. It would be interesting to see PSI data on those old loads.

One more thing I gotta say about 296/H110, I've observed the extreme spreads of velocity were always very low when I've run it over the chronograph. I've never seen tight velocity spreads with any load with 2400 powder

I think too many people worry about that whole thing about H110/296 being loaded in such a narrow range. The old manual from 1987 had that warning about not reducing H110/296 more then 10 percent. The starting loads of H110/296 were about the same as the max loads today. Same warnings are present today about not reducing more then 10 percent, but the max loads are way lower. When I did this recent research and development I started as low as 13.5 with a 158 gr, and they all shot just fine, no squibs and no delay in ignition. No hangfires