Recently received my 22 Nosler upper

[Stalker]

So I picked up one of the uppers from Midway while they were on sale. Last night the brass showed up from Midsouth and I thought I would sit down to look things over. The upper comes with 3 pcs of Nosler brass and an inspection card. I was surprised at what I found, not sure how concerned I should be.

In the first picture you can see the left cartridge really leaning to the right. The center cartridge stands up straight, and the right leans slightly.

Flipping them over you can see why they wouldn't sit flat

Next I removed the bolt from the rifle and was somewhat surprised how dirty it was with only having fired 3 shots? In the lower right of the bolt face you can see a piece of brass, which when removed was smashed paper thin.

So, giving the benefit of the doubt, I'm guessing there was something on the face of the bolt and the case with the most damage was the first fired, the case with no damage was third? Is anyone else surprised that they would stamp it accepted and ship it?

I thought before I did anything with the upper I would see what input I get here. All things considered, and reading about the accuracy woes here, I thought about wrapping it up and sending it back to Midway. I'm all for giving it a shot, but I'm not wild about dumping another $300 on an aftermarket barrel to make a new upper shoot right either. Let me know what you think.

 

[GLShooter]

Welcome to soft brass that is fired in a severely over gassed gun. That is what you are seeing in the markings on the base and the rims being non-square. That brass on the bolt fave is part of the head sheared off when it rotates after having a chunk pushed up on firing.

Te pockets may stay tight but the rims and bases will keep the brass from long life unless you cut back on the bra s AND size tyo very close to chamber size. My chamber is about 0.008-0.009 taller than new brass and will contribute somewhat.You need an adjustable to decrease the gas flow and slow the opening down.

If I saw that in a chamber/loading I was familiar with and this appeared as I worked a load up I would stop immediately at a level below the charge causing it. One can go in and round the edges of the ejector and smooth the ends, horns, on the extractor and cut down on some of the damage but with soft under-chamber sized brass we see this frequently even at low pressure levels.

Note the primers are not overly flattened and look like a decent "factory" load in most rounds. The ones I loaded up per Nosler were looked about like that and I know the 55,000 level was not even close on these based on my similar cartridges that I have been tested. Ritch build mine with an adjustable block, Joe Bobs BTW, and I turned it way down to slow the ejection and slightly under gassed the gun and I know this helped but the mid-level H335 loading per Nosler did cause some rim bending and head damage.

I will be shooting that brass on Friday barring life not getting in the way and the sizing is much closer to chamber size so I will get a good idea. I have the same same loads set up in 22X6.8 cases made up with old SSA brass and soem top end 556 loads for comparison with the same bullets so it will be a real shoot-athon. The Labradar will be bulging with data..LOL

Greg

 

[204 AR]

Dang that does look like a mess with the beat up brass and greasy bolt. Overgassed is definitely the word like Greg said above. You need to make that gas block adjustable or replace it with an adjustable. I run suppressed so mine is adjusted to nearly shut it off completely and you will still get some of those ejector swipes but not that bad, at least with 8208 and 50 grainers. Do the tricks Greg said and it will help. Definitely take the ejector pin out and bevel the edges pretty good.

FWIW I built mine myself and it's sub moa with 50 vmax but it's not on a level with a top quality barrel. I don't think you can expect it to be for the money they cost. And from reading on here most aren't even shooting as good as mine, so it's definitely a crap shoot. OTOH I've had barrels that were a lot more expensive shoot no better and sometimes worse. Only one way to find out what you have there. For speeds I'm pushing the 50's to 3420 fps. For many on here that wouldn't do it for them, as for me I'm satisfied from the short barrel.