Fouling stronger than '73 Extractor ???

[August]

Three day match.  Neck and neck with one of the top competitors.  Have a clean match going into the last stage.  Shoot pistols clean on the last stage.  Pick up the rifle, fire one shot, and the gun jambs -- spent case in chamber, extractor locked onto the next round in the elevator.  So, after all that work and concentration, the gun let me down.

Another way to look at it.  Very dry weather.  Many cowboys complaining of split skin on their fingers.  Pistols started getting a little bit gummy on stage three and were definitely sluggish by stage five.  After the second day, the shotgun was harder to clean than it had ever been before.  I ignored all this and put my faith in the Big Lube bullet.

Well, it appears my trust was misplaced this time.  That big grease groove has never let me down in three years of trusting it.  Now, in a big match, with everything else going well, the rifle jambs on the last stage.  I only need nine more shots for a clean match, first place, and a good ending to a long weekend.

I always clean gunz completely after each day of shooting, and did so at this match.  I never do anything to clean them during a match except to occasionally drip a little bit of Ballistol on the base pin of the revolvers if they get sluggish.

I tell you all this to ask, am I correct in concluding that fouling was my nemesis?   The extractor on that gun has never, ever fail before.  Should I have cleaned my guns earlier on the last day to prevent this.  And, if fouling is what got me, how can I just swab the chamber on a '73 without cleaning the whole barrel?

How do you guys who have come to trust the big lube bullet deal with this ?

Thanks.

[Fox Creek Kid]

Sounds like gun trouble. You're a little shy on info here as well. What caliber? EXACT load?

[August]

Sorry.  .38 special, straight wall of course.  Full up with Goex Cartridge.  No wads, just powder compressed about 1/8 ~3/16 inch.

Snakebite 158 grain, standard 50/50 lube.

[Wolfgang]

You mention very dry weather.   Would this increase fouling ?   I don't know . . but if guns were "getting sluggish" i'd think some cleaning between stages would have been in order.   

[Springfield Slim]

Nothing wrong with cleaning the whole barrel, just run a wet bore snake through it. Very dry weather is the worst as far as fouling, just not enough moisture in the air, most anything will fail. 

[Ten Wolves Fiveshooter]

Nothing wrong with cleaning the whole barrel, just run a wet bore snake through it. Very dry weather is the worst as far as fouling, just not enough moisture in the air, most anything will fail. 

   +1  What Slim said

[Mako]

August,
In my experience the bullets help primarily with bore fouling.  Chamber fouling is the result of blow back which you definitely get with .38 spl.

What brass were you using, and on the cases you were retrieving from the earlier stages and the days before did they look like they had similar amounts of blacking than what you were normally used to?  Chambers are what it is all about, and I normally clean my shotgun chambers about every 3 stages to make sure shells drop free.

One of my '66s is a .38 spl. and I always pull a bore snake through it once or twice a match to clean the chambers.  The bores I don't worry about with the Snake Bite bullets.  It doesn't foul out but I anticipate extraction issues with that longer small diameter case.

I have one '66 that fouls the chamber, it is a .44 spl '66 carbine that I have to pull a bore snake through even with the Mav Dutchman Bullets.  The chamber gets fouled out, not the bore.  I have run a chamber casting and it is a bit over size.

I have another .44 spl in a '66 rifle and it runs all day without fouling, that one has a chamber running on the low end of the SAAMI chamber spec.  I have a couple of '73s (in .44WCF of course) and they don't foul.

I asked you about what brass you used because it has bitten me in a VERY large way.  In prehistoric times when I was a very serious IPSC shooter I actually had a sponsorship and I got bullets and every once in a while brass.  I used to reserve that virgin brass for major matches and use my shot brass for practice.  That was until one match I had chambering and extraction issues galore.  After that match I got "clever" and thought I would use a cartridge gauge for every loaded round.  It still happened, it was the brass hardness that was killing me.  After talking with a bunch of other shooters they admitted they had been bitten by some of this brass as well and the only ones who seemed to have no problems were the guys who shot the same brass for practice and reserved that once or twice fired brass for competition.  I know one champion who wouldn't use any brass he hadn't used himself twice.

In the case of the high pressure autoloaders it was soft brass that was killing us, The manufacturer took care of the problem. I still have a box of 5,000 virgin .38 super cases that they didn't even want returned.  They claimed it had been processed as .38 Auto brass.  About that time I switched to .38 Super Comp brass which didn't have the rebated rim and I never looked back.  Everyone was trying 9X23 at the time until the smart ones realized the tapered case was increasing their fouling.  

So do you know what brand of case stuck in your chamber?  Unlike what we needed for autoloaders you need soft brass, I wish you could buy dead soft brass intended just for BP use.

Regards,
Mako

[August]

Thank you for your remarks.

Yes, the brass was (is) Winchester, which I use exclusively in the '73s I run in .38 special.  The piece that got stuck in the chamber (if that's what happened) was well used, as is all my .38 brass.

And, yes, I was seeing significant blowback on the cases, but usually there is a lot on the .38s and I cannot say it was more than normal.  Normal is a lot in my experience.

I've been thinking it might be the perfect storm of chamber fouling and a piece of brass that indexed at just the wrong point on the rim to cause this failure.  I can tell you, however, that the piece of brass in the chamber came out with ease once I managed to get the elevator out of the way to clear the gun.  Of course, by that time, the gun has cooled significantly.

Thanks again to all who are sharing their experience.  What I hear you saying is you have come to "clean" your guns during a match even when using the Big Lube projectiles.  I'm about ready to conclude that I must also do so with the .38.

Of course, I get no blowback with my .38 W.C.F. guns and now wish I had been using that rifle in the match.

[Fairshake]

I hate to hear that August,but as the others have said when you have dry conditions you should do both chamber and barrel cleaning. Have you ever tried the NASA Lube? I make my own lube with lanolin and jojobA OIL but NASA works quite well. The only thing better than your 38-40 is the 44-40.

[August]

I hate to hear that August,but as the others have said when you have dry conditions you should do both chamber and barrel cleaning. Have you ever tried the NASA Lube? I make my own lube with lanolin and jojobA OIL but NASA works quite well. The only thing better than your 38-40 is the 44-40.

Thanks for the suggestion.  Unfortunately, I got these bullets from a supplier and the lube is part of the mystery of this experience.

I've run that gun hard and long and hot many times without a hitch.  When I cleaned it, there was a significant buildup of fouling at the throat, lead, and chamber.  Much more so that at any time in the past.

I usually do cast and lubricate my own bullets with a formula (beeswax, crisco, lanolin, carnuba) that has served me very well.  But, with a number of matches in a row, and no time to cast, I got some BL bullets done by another fellow.

BTW, around here, we feel the 38-40 is markedly superior to the 44-40.  (just to get your juices going).

Thanks again for the suggestion and help.

You're all aces.

[Montana Slim]

August / all,

August's frustration is the foundation of all my recommendations...whether on darkside, gunsmithing, etc.
I want the firearm to go bang & perform consistently.

If my firearm/ammunition lets me down, that will likely be the cause of a missed opportunity for a clean match, whether its a monthly match or a national championship on the line. I don't mind coming up by an another person's performance or my own mental lapse.....but weapons/ammunition failure are most disappointing to me.

Slim