Went to the range today with a newly acquired rifle for the first time today. I bought a lightly used Larue Predatobr in 7.62 with about 250 rounds on the barrel. The previous owner swapped in a factory 16” Larue barrel to replace the 14.5” barrel the rifle originally came with. No issues reported by the previous owner. Grabbed a few boxes of ammo and went to the range. Just to get on paper I grabbed a box of reloads that I brought with me. These particular reloads were “professionally” reloaded and advertised as once fired brass. I purchased them about 15 years ago and they have served me well in my bolt guns over the year. They have been inside the house in one of my safes for all those years. So I load a single round just to make sure the bolt locks back like it should. Fire a few more rounds with no issues and then I fired off a round and immediately knew something was wrong. The bolt was back half way stuck on the magazine follower that had blown apart. Checked the casing and this is what I found. I also found another case that had cracked in 4 places around the neck of the casing. I’m trying to determine if this failure is ammo related or a head spacing issue with the rifle. I don’t currently have go/no go gauges in this caliber to check. Any idea what caused this?

250 rounds with no problem says to me an ammo problem.

The ammo behaving that way says it is loaded too hot for that rifle. And the brass may should have been annealed prior to loading, but was not.

^ this

Without HS gauges it’s hard to tell what’s going on but the above statement is definitely true.

I think you answered your own question when you put "professionally" in quotation marks.

Did you shoot any other loads than the handloads?

That’s what I’m leaning towards too. Got some go/no gauges on the way to check headspace. If headspace checks out I’ll be reaching out to the company who loaded this ammo up.

No just the reloads. After that case ruptured and blew the magazine apart I was done for the day.

LC brass takes a lot of pressure. This is overloaded 300BO. Your brass is BAD.

Redlining ammo is a stupid idea no matter what brass you use.

You are so correct. Smoking hot red line ammo is never a good idea. Now and then you can make a seemingly nutty load and get away with it (I certainly have). But you'll "pay the piper" sooner or later. As a young man I always wanted to push the envelope. Thankfully I grew up without blowing my face off.

The brass case pictured reminds me of an out of battery firing. Maybe the headspace was way off or maybe this piece of brass did not quite get resized enough. Lot's of maybes and you should measure the headspace and case size on all your remaining brass. Certainly the brass pictured was already worn out before this last loading. Once fired is a marketing term more than a provable fact with Mil spec ammo. I don't think you can be sure of anything until the loaded ammo is measured and the bullets pulled to weigh the powder. I have fired LC 5.56 brass that was ruined in the first firing.

You'll never get a solid answer until all the variables are whittled down. Thanks for the post. Let us know how it turns out.

Couple Observations. LC LR ( Long Range, similar to the old Match cases) is generally good brass and should not have been fired in a machine gun. Therefore when reloaded the first time it should not have been overly reworked. 7.62 X 51 vs .308 is different than 5.56 x 45. vs the .223 in that 7.62 is generally loaded lighter than the .308 commercial vs the other way around for 5.56 vs .223. ( not getting into throat and freebore discussions). I load both 30 cals and my bolt .308 is loaded approximately 2 grains more than the 7.62 x 51. My M1A match rifle came with a warning about .308 loads in addition to the "reload warning". I load it to service level loads. You can see the difference at the Hodgdon reloading data center.

A friend had some functioning issues with his AR10 and .308 ammo. He shot several of my service rounds with no issues and proceeded to put several more rounds into a nice small hole at 100 yards. He promptly took the rest of my ammo and announced he was confiscating them.

I once blew a case for a semi during a workup for a new powder. The resulting case looked like yours. Mine blew the magazine off the rifle too. I had to replace the extractor. My load was about 1.5 full grain below recommended warm load in an AR 15. I cant be sure but educated guess is its ammo related.

You’re better off just keeping that ammo for your other rifles that it has shot fine in and finding something that will shoot in that rifle. More than head space plays into the pressure…without knowing it’s a saami spec reamer/chamber I think it would be difficult to blame the ammo builder.

This is exactly why I have more saami reamers than custom spec ones tho. Sometimes I’ll even indicate on the barrel markings a unique freebore or reamer print.

Not really sure I follow what you’re saying but I’m definitely no expert when it comes to reloading. Let’s just say the headspace checks out on this particular rifle. Why would this reloaded ammo be safe to shoot in one rifle but not another? All my rifles are essentially “off the shelf” nothing custom so to speak and surely these manufacturers follow some sort of spec. I’m just genuinely curious, not trying to be smart.

Maybe I am having some reading comprehension issues

I was under the impression you’ve shot this ammo in another rifle and it was fine. If you haven’t, ignore that last post. If you have, my point is it might not be the ammo makers fault. More than headspace effects pressure.

No you are absolutely correct. I have used those reloads in a bolt gun and never had an issue. I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that they function in one rifle and not another. The reloads weren’t loaded for a specific rifle, they were just .308 Win reloads with Hornady A-max projectiles. I could totally understand if these were loaded up for a specific rifle though.

It would not. Please do not continue to shoot these rounds.

15 year old gun show reloads from some dude with a room temperature IQ should not be considered safe to fire in any gun.

People are thinking themselves in knots to justify continuing to shoot this ammo, or how it might be the gun. I would bet everything on this guy not fully cleaning out his powder measure between caliber changes, or not QCing the brass used, or having the wrong projectile sneak into the batch, or any number of other things. The fact that 99% shot great doesn't make that 1% failure any less catastrophic or dangerous, and I think you should really consider the relative value of saving a few cents on ammo versus the cost of a LaRue upper.

You have now seen how ammunition for a semi-automatic rifle can be an entirely different process to develop than for a bolt action rifle. A gas port part way down the barrel, gas returning to the bolt, bolt being forced back all dictates the ammo has to be tuned to the rifle. I've got a DPMS LR-308. I performed a specific load development for it, using an appropriate powder, and staying within the confines of published data from the powder manufacturer. I began to see pressure signs well before I was at a published maximum load, so I stopped adding powder.

In contrast, I can, and have loaded powder well above published maximum for a bolt action rifle.

Nope, case pic was 19gr (should have been 17) of H110 and bulge is the space between bolt and chamber. AR is fine but had to pry the bolt open. Shot lots of Amax from my AR10, no problem. Had a case head separation in 40sw, bad brass (FC stamped, a known problem). Once fired looks more like range PU - unknown history. Same with LGS brass - unknown history.

JG and I are on the same page with this.

To be more clear…do not under any circumstance shoot those rounds in the rifle those cases above came from! They are way too hot for that rifle.

Shoot them in your bolt gun you’ve shot them in before and don’t worry about it.

Just a quick update. The go/no-go gauges showed up. Removed the barrel and BCG from the rifle. Disassembled the bolt removing the extractor and ejector. Cleaned everything up and checked the headspace. The bolt closed on the “go” gauge but would not close on the “no-go” and “field gauge”. I also checked for any abnormal wear on the bolt lugs and also on the lugs of the barrel extension. I’m going to chalk this one up as an ammo related issue. I understand the concept of loading up different rounds for specific rigs and how they may or may not work in a different rifle. These reloads were not advertised as bolt gun specific. While I know these are not factory off the shelf rounds that are supposed to work in everything , it doesn’t make sense why a reloading company would load something up that’s potentially too hot to work in some rifles unless they are specifically advertised as such.

Tough spot to be in…if I was the ammo maker, I’d blame it on a tight LaRue chamber. Unless I knew for certain I loaded that stuff hot…then I’d tell you not to shoot it in that rifle.

Out of curiosity, what do you want or expect the ammo maker to do?

Youre missing the point here - they didn't intentionally load something that would blow up your AR
They made a mistake because they are like every other fly by night reloading company that doesn't QC their stuff appropriately, and it just happened to be in your AR.

Dollars to donuts this would have blown up your bolt gun too. This kind of massive overpressure is not a function of gun design at all.

Stop shooting these reloads, and consider if your eyes are worth saving a few cents per round

Very opinionated thread, lots of reasons it could happen. I just for chits and giggles, would like to disassemble that ammo and try to see what it was made of and internal brass condition. Happenings like this is why the insurance for my 07 so darn high.

A lot of ignorance in this thread too, I’ve got an 07 too. This is precisely why I won’t load for folks I don’t know and try to stay saami or bigger chambers.

I 100% disagree with Hicks, which is alright…we’re both allowed an opine.