Thread: Rifle stuffed???

Hey all, I managed to get a cartridge jammed in the action of my rifle, unable to extract it I took it to the gunsmith. They said they could remove the jam, gave them a call and they have removed the jam but broke my extractor and now saying the barrel is damaged near the chamber so will need to be cut back and re barreled. What would u do? I'm no expert but sounds like they've cocked it right up to me and stuffed it way worse than it was when I took it in, what would you do if in my shoes?


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that sucks bro youd think thatd be bread and butter for a smith aye. ask another gunsmith what they think. then claim it on insurance - say it was a sako 85 even if it wasnt haha

No contents insurance, just medical unfortunately! He said it was the worst jam he'd seen but you'd think you'd either be able to do it without fucking the rifle or call me first and say hey mate it's beyond me unless I run the risk of damaging the rifle...


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yea you'd think getting it out but wrecking your bolt and barrel was a poor way of fixing it. what type of rifle was it bro? borrow one off me if u need one urgent.then get insurance monday and claim it tuesday. and feel no guilt for the insurance man coz he's a rich snakey man.

If the barrel damage is attributable to the removal attempt, and there was no warning given by the gunsmith, that repair should be on them. Perhaps they had a steel rod down the bore and were hammering it...

If the damage was directly caused by the round being fired and jamming in the first place, it's on you.

I think you need to go have a close look at the rifle and a cordial chat with them.

I agree with ishoot10s. If possible take it to another smith. They will be able to tell if the damage was caused by removing the stuck case or not. (Honestly sounds suss to me and I reckon they damaged the barrel trying to remove the case) The only damage to a barrel I can think of, that can be caused on firing, is a bulge or scoring from foreign objects being blasted into the barrel wall by either ignition or the projectile.
I reckon drills and rods were used, which is perfectly fine if you are careful and patient.

Have seen a jammed case break a small chip off the front of a Rem 700 bolt, Remington replaced it. It would help if you let us know what rifle you have - if its a Remington style extractor, or sako, M16 etc they can be easily broken in a shitty situation. And repaired reasonably easy as well. If it was a Mauser/Ruger/controlled feed type extractor, they can be replaced. As for damage to the barrel, that should not have happened with a competent gunsmith, but as they said, set your barrel back and recut the chamber. So dont despair, all is not lost, your rifle is recoverable, just gonna take time and a little bit of capital expenditure. And the gunsmith, competent or not, probably tried his best to remedy a situation not of his making. We have some excellent gunsmiths here in NZ, but we also have some dodgy ones as well - pick your gunsmith wisely.

What caused the stuck case in the first place ? Hot load / bad projectile / damaged case ?

I think it largely depends on who you took it to. There are a couple of very good, dedicated gunsmiths around Welly. Scott Trail (SSR) in Featherston and Mitch Maxberry in Normandale (he is a pretty strange guy and you have to put up with his rants, but does good work on Remingtons and target rifles). Some of the "smiths" attached to retail shops are shocking to put it mildly...

Nah this is a 112yr old falling block so less than ideal unfortunately. What caused the jam was an incorrectly sized case probably. Just a bit concerning on the $ front, no doubt he tried his best, kinda if u took your car in with a cracked cylinder and you ended up with a punctured radiator and a smashed windscreen and end up having to fork out for the lot.


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maybe someone on here has a recommendation for a gunsmith that specializes in antique rifles.

good luck, hope hope you get it back to a functioning state soon.

It was a modern rebuild, so old action (now with broken extractor) and brand new barrel which I had put 6 rounds thru (and now needs cutting/re barreling) need to have a good chat to them and see what the way forwards is


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I think I saw that rifle, that round was stuck all right, was it the one with live round that was stuck?

If ur mates with or work at a gun shop then very well could be mate


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Interesting thread.

The customer brought the rifle, a Martini Action 303 into our shop.

He must have realised that the round was hard to chamber and my quess is that it got stuck part way in, and then could extract so applied some large amount of force to finally close the action. In that process the extractor was broken. He tried to fire the case but something was also wrong by this stage with firing pin.

It was obvious that he had tried to push the round out, with some force , including jamming a Lee Loader Decapping rod down the barrel and fully compressing the bullet down onto the powder.

needless to say it is a potentially dangerous action to push a live round out of the barrel. The gunsmith here tried with varying amounts of force, all done quite carefully.

In the end we filled the barrel with oil, to try and make the powder inert and hopefully maybe breakdown what ever was seizing it, and left it for a couple of days.

It was still impossible to shift it by pushing it. As it is a martini action 303 you cannot unscrew the barrel (extractors siting under rim) without completely destroying the extractors, and neither can you get a direct approach to the case, you have to angle down into the chamber .

The final approach was to carefully drill a hole in the case to one side of the primer (remember theres still a chance this was live) , thread the hole and screw in bolt that enables you to get some purchase on the case. With him using leverage to pull, and me tapping a rod from the other end we managed to extract the case.

There were score marks for most of the body of the case, showing that the body had stiuck solid for almost the entire length, owner admitted that the rounds had been fired in another 303 and then neck sized only.

In drilling the hole in the case, the drill bit had touched the inside of the chamber, thus the chamber is wrecked.

However he brought to us a rifle in a very dangerous condition, it was a classic example of "äll care but no responsibility" as we were trying to fix somebody elses stuff up (language here toned down!).

I can only suggest tho all that have posted various comments that before you jump to conclusions that you know the facts.

I can only suggest tho all that have posted various comments that before you jump to conclusions that you know the facts.

Facts??!! That's some crazy talk right there Wayne