300-221 problems with ejection

[grey2112]

300-221 problems with ejection

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Wondered if some of you might be able to help. I have a 16" .300-221 upper, pistol length gas tube, 3-way gas block (High, Low, and Off). My handload 125 grain supersonic ammo, which works fine in my 8" .300-221 (same specs other than barrel length) is doing the following:

1 - It loads fine into battery, and I can hand-clear it - so the chamber/barrel isn't too tight

2 - It fires just fine.

3 - 90% of the time, though, it will not eject the spent case. It is stuck and I have to tap it out with a rod. The rim is slightly mangled from where the extractor tried to grab it and obviously yanked off some brass when it wouldn't budge.

4 - It doesn't try to strip and load a new cartridge, though.


So, I assume this is a gas problem? Perhaps over-gassed - i.e. too much gas is getting into the system and before the bolt has a chance to work and pull out the spent case it causes the brass to expand and gets stuck in the chamber?

I've tried it with all three settings - the High setting (which slightly restricts gas) does what is described above, the Low setting (which opens it up totally) really tears off a bit of rim, and of course doesn't eject, and the Off setting doesn't work the bolt at all, doesn't hurt the brass, but is very tough to tap out the brass.

I'm thinking that maybe a JP adjustable (screw) gas block might do the trick since I can adjust it a lot more than the 3 settings I have right now. Could it be the pistol length gas tube is too short? Could it be gas block alignment, though that wouldn't make much sense if I'm overgassed.

Or could it be something else? Buffer, buffer spring, etc.?