Ejector swipe on multiple ammo brands

[pnutty]

On 11/8/2026 at 11:46 PM, shooterrex said:

Question... you have the small firing pin but did you also change bolts to a smaller firing pin Chanel?  

 

11 hours ago, 98Z5V said:

Yes, you have to, or you have a small diameter-tipped firing pin in a standard boltface firing pin hole - too much gap around the firing pin, that way.   

It is a smaller diameter firing pin bolt with the smaller diameter pin. Checked it with my standard firing pin and the standard pin wont go into the high pressure bolt.

11 hours ago, 98Z5V said:

@pnutty, the load looks good. try one test before you change primers - shoot the same loads that pierced primers already, and take one more click out of that gas block - take one click of gas out of it, reshoot the loads that pierced, see what happens. 

If that still pierces primers in those same loads, change those loads over to the CCI 41 primers and retest a few.  A sample size that's large enough to either rule out pierced primers, or shot that it's still piercing primers with 41s in there.  

You might pick up some speed with the change to 41s, so be ready to record that info - but it's not as important as finding out if you'll pierce 41s. 

Side note - and I have not tested them yet, but will - Winchester took over the Lake City Ammunition Plant, they run it now.  They are now making their own "CCI 41 Primers" at that plant, under their own Winchester name.  I'm sitting on 5k of them, just haven't tested them yet. 

I did adjust the gas block one click when shooting but then it wasnt locking back on an empty mag while firing it single shot. 

For reshooting the loads, should I only reload the brass with ruptured primers and retest that way? I will retest with the gas block one click in and see if that makes a difference as well and report back.

[98Z5V]

16 hours ago, pnutty said:

I did adjust the gas block one click when shooting but then it wasnt locking back on an empty mag while firing it single shot. 

When you adjusted it in one click, did you pierce anymore primers?  Or, were the pierced primers before you adjusted it in one more click?  

[98Z5V]

16 hours ago, pnutty said:

For reshooting the loads, should I only reload the brass with ruptured primers and retest that way? I will retest with the gas block one click in and see if that makes a difference as well and report back.

I wouldn't worry about that brass anymore - it went through some pressure event.  Just move to the same type of brass, similarly fired (1x, 2x, whatever), and run the exact same load again. One click in, just a few of them.  Enough for a sample size, to see if it's piercing primers again, lower gas.

IF...  If you already did that in previous testing, just move to the 41s now, same exact load recipe, and see what happens.  

That brass that already pierced primers - save that stuff for just "range ammo," considering the brass.  Don't use that stuff anymore for competition brass. 

[pnutty]

19 hours ago, 98Z5V said:

When you adjusted it in one click, did you pierce anymore primers?  Or, were the pierced primers before you adjusted it in one more click?  

I only shot 3 rounds with it adjusted in one click, but didn't get any pierced primers but that could be because of the small sample size. Overall 7 out of 50 primers pierced so I guess that would be a not so common thing happening for me.

I loaded up 10 rounds same as before and 40 with the cci #41 primers and will hopefully get to test them tomorrow. I am curious how the milspec primers would increase my fps compared to my regular match primers?

[pnutty]

 

On 11/11/2026 at 2:23 AM, 98Z5V said:

I wouldn't worry about that brass anymore - it went through some pressure event.  Just move to the same type of brass, similarly fired (1x, 2x, whatever), and run the exact same load again. One click in, just a few of them.  Enough for a sample size, to see if it's piercing primers again, lower gas.

IF...  If you already did that in previous testing, just move to the 41s now, same exact load recipe, and see what happens.  

That brass that already pierced primers - save that stuff for just "range ammo," considering the brass.  Don't use that stuff anymore for competition brass. 

I got out to shoot again today, the top row with the silver primers are my standard load with 205m primers and the gold primers are cci41’s. Even with the gas block adjusted in 1 click I still had pierced primers, it was enough gas to eject the empty but not enough to pick up a new round out of the mag.

Moved onto the reloads with the #41 primers and not a single puncture! That seemed to finally solved my problem but then a new one arised, as I was picking up my brass halfway through shooting I noticed these very deep gouges from the ejectors. The chrono showed 2606 fps as my average speed with sd-11 and es-53, so I picked up a little bit of speed but nothing that should cause the case head to gouge like this.

I did one more experiment and shot 5 rounds with the gas block completely closed, and while there were light marks on the case head they weren’t pronounced at all. Would this be a timing issue again or something with the cases?
 

These were reloaded exactly the same as my previous batch except the primer change, they were also the other half of my Lapua brass so they weren’t subjected to a pressure event like the previous 50rds of brass I fired.