Traded DPMS Panther (St Cloud) for Colt 6920

9

9mmSkeeter

New member
I may have messed up here. Due to some misfeeds and jamming and not 100% consistency, I figured it was time to upgrade to a Colt which I had heard a lot about. I traded in my Panther (St Cloud, not Huntsville - I’ve heard these are collectible now?) and slapped down another $600 to pick up a stock Colt 6920. It’s a bit less smooth due to not being broken in, but it won’t load any of my reloads properly and extracting them requires mortaring. Must have a tighter chamber than the DPMS. I swear I’ve got no luck with rifles, at all. Thinking now that it has been my reloads all along and at least the DPMS would chamber them. I’ll be fixing my 1,200+ reloads soon but I think I just wasted $600 on a very unnecessary situation. Ugh. Wonder if I can get it back.
 
6

603Country

New member
I had a similar situation a few years back with a bolt gun. Had a high dollar barrel put on my 223 and could not chamber reloads. I didn’t have 1200 of them thank goodness, but I started pulling bullets, but stopped to rethink. Turns out that the new barrel had a tight neck. Factory ammo would load, but not Lapua brass reloads. Finally, rather than turn hundreds of brass cases, I had the gunsmith open up the neck a smidgion. All is good now. Should be a pretty easy fix on an AR barrel, or just get a new barrel.

On my AR, which I paid a pretty penny for, it shot to mil-spec accuracy, which was not good enough for me. The CEO of the company said mil-spec was all they guaranteed. So I sniffed around on a couple of forums and found a match grade barrel and a LaRue trigger for reasonable prices. Now that AR will really shoot tight groups. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’ll never sell it for anywhere near what I have in it. But…it does shoot great.
 
W

Willie Lowman

New member
Break it in with 500 rounds or so of factory ammo like Federal XM193.

You also my need to check/change your case resizing die.

The Colt is a solid rifle.
 
H

HiBC

New member
I suspect the DPMS was just fine and you correctly identified that you have an ammo problem with your reloads.

Its almost a rite of passage for every newbie AR owner reloader.

The issue is(not knowing how to) how you set up your seater die, over crimping,and collapsing the shoulder. This swells the diameter at the shoulder.

Measure it. Driving the oversize shoulder into the slightly tapered chamber locks it up.

Learn that your seater die belongs about the thickness of a nickel off of the shellholder at ram up.

Try this. Seater die in the press. Ram up. Back seater die 1/8 in off the shellholder,

Ram down. Place a piece of empty brass in the shellholder,

Ram up. Slowly screw the seater die down, You will feel it stop when it contacts the brass, Now look at the gap between the die and the shellholder, Remember that gap.

Now ram down..take the brass out. Ram up. Screw the die down to contact the shellholder,

Ram down,put the brass back in the shellholder.

Ram up.all the way. Ram down. Take the brass out and look at the case mouth.

There is your $ 600 Lesson. Next time,I suggest reading the die setup instructions,

Now,Good Shooting!
 
6

603Country

New member
Yup, your answer is better than mine. Rolling the shoulder may well be the problem, and more likely than a tight chamber neck on a mil-spec barrel. That shoulder issue can be corrected on loaded rounds with a Body Die.
 
9

9mmSkeeter

New member
I got my DPMS back. It chambers my new reloads from my (just purchased) small base die perfectly. I ran the same loads through the DPMS just to check, had a higher incidence of chambering. Turns out that Colt had a puckered chamber.
 
H

hodaka

New member
A Wilson cartridge gauge is a worthwhile purchase. I've found it worthwhile ti check all of my reloads. Hardly ever find a bad one but it only takes one to mess up your day.
 
H

HiBC

New member
hodaka: I agree the Wilson cartridge case tool is a good tool. I buy and use them for loading bottleneck cartridges.

But I suggest you make sure you have the right tool.

I don't know. Maybe Wilson makes a "plunk" gauge,an artificial chamber to check your reloads should chamber. It would have to check diameters.

But,Heads Up! The tool commonly described as a Wilson Case Gauge is NOT a plunk gauge. It is not designed to check your ammo for "good to go"regarding diameters..
To do the job it was designed to do,the gauge must be oversize on diameters.
Folks who do not understand the use of this tool often decide the tool is no good,it was a waste,it clutters a drawer,etc.

Its a very useful tool for setting up your sizing die relative to the rifles headspace length.

Its still a great,useful tool!

But its designed to check length,not diameter. It represents the high/low limit for cartridge case head to shoulder datum.It is useful for setting your sizing die to insure your ammo is compatible with a SAAMI headspaced chamber.It is also useful for fine tuning a desired head clearance.

You can look up "Wilson Case Gauge" or use this link to get to the L E Wilson Web page. The page will confirm what I just wrote.

https://lewilson.com/case-gage

Long Live the Combat Wombat!! (yup.I've been around that long!)
 
Last edited:
H

hodaka

New member
Well, it seems you are correct. I've used mine much like I use the EGW blocks for my handguns. I now see that it doesn't verify diameter. It seems that most of my Dillon errors are from a rolled mouth which the Wilson gauge catches.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top