358 JDJ Rounds Will Not Chamber

I've made it to the point where today I dropped my first power charge and seated a 220 grain Speer Flat Point into the case. I began by seating the bullet to the bottom of the neck, as recommended. The round would not chamber. I slowly seated it deeper and deeper with no effect. The round sticks out of the chamber maybe an 1\8" to 1\4". I found I could push the round in a tad further with my finger, but then had to force extraction. I don't see rifling Mark's on the ogive, it looks like I see a slight ring mark maybe. The case mouth did seem rougher after this ordeal.

I'm at a loss. The formed cases alone seemed to fit perfectly and the action closed easily and completely. If I had to guess, I'd say seating the bullet into the case expanded the neck enough to keep it from chambering fully. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

More info: The formed cases measure .379 at the outside of the neck. The loaded round measures .385 on the outside of the neck. I'm going to try backing the seating die body out more to see if I could be crushing the case a bit. I read about that possibility, so it's worth a shot.

No good. It's not the bullet length or die, it's the neck diameter. I backed the die out and tried again. With a bullet just seated maybe 1\4", the outside neck diameter grows from .379 to .385 and appears to be just a hair too big for the chamber's neck dimensions. The bullets measure a perfect .358. Unless something else comes up, I'll email JD and see what he says.

Try taking out the inside of the sizing die and running it back through after loaded.

It was worth a shot, but that round wouldn't even consider going into the neck portion of that die. Obviously, the neck is just too tight. I just don't know if the chamber is to tight or the brass is too thick. I even trimmed the cases to a uniform 2.23" ,mainly to clean up the case mouths.

WHO CHAMBERED THE BARREL? MAYBE THE CHAMBER IN THE NECK AREA IS TOO TIGHT?

ALSO, USE A VLD INSIDE NECK CHAMFER TOOL BEFORE SEATING THE BULLET.

It is a newly SSK rechambered factory TC barrel. I chamfered inside and out. It's a mystery at this point.

I think your neck was cut too tight. I had three separate SSK barrels which had to have the neck opened up slightly and they shot fine after that. I would send it back to SSK and ask them to examine it. They have a good reputation for standing by their work. Just my two cents worth.

I believe you may be correct. I sent JD an email. I have no doubt they?ll get me fixed either way! Thanks for the info guys!

You could also use Cerrosafe to do a quick chamber cast to measure exactly what the chamber looks like.

What brand/headstamp of brass are you using? I believe all of the original measurements were set up using R-P brass. If the neck thickness of your brass is more than that of the R-P 444 Marlin brass, I would say that is the issue.

I'm using Starline. If you get a chance, could you measure the outside neck of a loaded round? If you have calipers or a micrometer, that might solve the mystery. It would also suck since a lot of people believed that Starline's production would keep us all in parent brass for a long time. Thanks.

I'd just give SSK a call in the AM.

My fired Rem. case measures .386.5 -.387, a sized case measures .378. With a .358 bullet seated it measures .381 -381.5 . So you seem to have a tight neck. I only have Rem. brass to measure.

My loaded rounds measure .380 with RP brass and Hornady 200gr SP bullets seated.

Thanks a bunch guys! Yeah, it does seem like the neck is cut too tight. No doubt the Starline brass appears a hair thicker than Rem., but Junebug?s fired cases would not fit in my chamber either. I?ll call SSK this morning and ask them about it. I sent an email Sunday night, but haven?t heard back yet. I think Doc said JD was hunting and he maybe the one who answers that email account. Thanks again for the help!

I spoke to Brian at SSK and he said their reamer is good and it is not the chamber. He suspects the Starline brass and said it works with 375 JDJ, but will NOT work with 309 JDJ. He said they haven't tried it with 358 JDJ yet, so I might be in uncharted waters. He said I could send it back, but that'll cost me $20 for postage. I'm trying to see if I can get a loaded round from someone local to me to check. If it works in one SSK cut chamber, but not mine, then I know it's the chamber. Conversely, It could show pretty quickly that Starline Brass is not going to work for JDJ cartridges below .375, which can help others save time and money by not making the mistake I made. Thanks for all the info gents!

Sorry I joined the party late. My loaded rounds - with Hornady brass - measure .385. A fired case measures .386. I suggest pulling a bullet and pressing the expanded case into the chamber to see if it fits. I am guessing it is very close. If it?s less than .001 you could possibly find slightly smaller bullets for fire forming. Once fired brass may thin out enough to work in the future. You could also have newly formed brass neck turned on a trimmer tool or a lathe. My chamber was cut by SSK in 1981 and has seen a lot of action.

I assume you are not crimping. I do not crimp.

Thanks Bill. No crimping. .379 slides right in without a bullet. .384 with a bullet and it stops in the exact same place no matter where the bullet is seated. It seems it has to be the chamber neck or case neck. I don?t have a puller, but I?ll seat a slug in an empty case and pull it with pliers to see what happens.

My 358 JDJ is a rechambered factory 35 Rem TC, SSK did the work in 1995.
I took one each (444 Remington / 444 Starline) and resized them first in a 444 Marlin sizing die to square them up. For this exercise I screwed the 358 JDJ sizing die in the press so it touches the shell holder at the very top of the up stroke. That said, I have my die set so my cases receive a crush fit when chambered on the closed action.

Where are you setting up your die?

Both cases were trimmed to a length of 2.220. I used a Speer 180 grain flat point seated to the cannular grove.
Using ball micrometer, dial indicator, calipers etc. here are my numbers.

Starline 444 brass ? 358 JDJ
Neck thickness = 13.3 thousands
Neck diameter = .3801 inches
With the bullet COL = 2.779 inches
Neck diameter with bullet = .3848 inches

Remington 444 brass ? 358 JDJ
Neck thickness = 12.6 thousands
Neck diameter = .3768 inches
With the bullet COL = 2.777 inches
Neck diameter with the bullet = .3864 inches

With the Barrel OFF the action and held in my bench vise - BOTH rounds chamber freely with no resistance.

Let me know you need anything further.
D..

Thanks Buck! I appreciate all the info.

I met up with Mech8 this afternoon. He was kind enough to let me try his ammo and vis versa. His rounds, which fit his SSK barrel, will NOT fit my SSK chambered barrel. My loaded round fits his barrel just fine. I?m sending the barrel back to SSK tomorrow so they can figure it out. Mech8 and I were left with no doubt that my chamber is the culprit. Exactly what is wrong with it, we can?t t say with certainty, but it seems to be the neck. It has nothing to do with the bullet or how it?s seated and it?s not related to the case body or rim. Thanks again for the help everyone. I?ll update y?all once I know one thing for sure.

Talked to Brian today and got the answer. It's an Armor Alloy barrel. T/C plated those barrels inside and out. So, when SSK cut the chamber, it peeled/was rough in a small amount where the plating was removed during the reaming. Brian said that's unusual, but can happen. That kept my rounds from chambering fully. He is going to polish the throat to smooth that transition area down a bit. Hopefully I'll have it next week and can get to load development done. Thanks!

Interesting! Thanks for filling us in.

I knew something didn't look right down there. Glad to hear he is going to square things away for you.

I am glad the mystery is solved. Hopefully you will be on the range soon sending big lead down range.

I HAVE BEEN WAITING "FOR THE REST OF THE STORY", GLAD IT SHUD HAVE A HAPPY ENDING. WITH METAL IT DOES NOT TAKE MUCH NOT TO FIT. AT 75, AND WITH PLENTY OF REVOLVERS STILL TO PLAY WITH, IT IS PROBABLY TOO LATE FOR ME TO GET INTO A 358 JDJ BUT I HAVE LONG ADMIRED IT.

Glad it was fixable for you. Let us know how it shoots. Have took out several deer and hogs with mine.

Glad to see you got it taken care of!

I got my barrel back today. My loaded rounds still won't fit into the chamber. A dummy round they sent using Rem. brass does fit. There was no note, letter, or explanation with the barrel. I can only assume they sent the Rem round to show me it was my brass, even though I was told on the phone the throat was peeling plating. Also, remember my loaded rounds fit perfectly in Mech8's SSK barrel and his Rem rounds would NOT fit my chamber. If Starline brass was the problem, why does it work fine in another SSK chamber? At least one of their past chambers is different than this new chamber and that is without question.

I don't know exactly what the deal is but to say I'm irritated is an understatement. What do they expect me to do now? Buy a bunch of Rem brass that may or may not work in the barrel? They didn't offer me a lick of guidance. I had a perfectly good shooting .35 Rem. barrel, which isn't easy to find, and blew $500 to turn it into a mystery barrel promising days or weeks of frustration.

That would be irritating.

I can't imagine the frustration. Hope you can get it sorted out.

JDK: TRY POLISHING THE SHOULDER/NECK AREA WITH STEEL WOOL.

I?m going to try Mech8?s rounds in this ?new? chamber today. If his fit, then I guess I have no choice but to switch to Rem brass and be done with it. If not, then I?ll send it back again and be up to $50 in return shipping at that point and write off using the barrel for this season.

This is not what I expected from SSK. It shouldn?t be hard to open the neck or throat or whatever until the rounds I sent fit, as they do in other SSK chambers. Maybe their focus on AR rounds has put Contender gunsmithing on the back burner? Who knows.

I called SSK and was told it was the Starline brass. When asked why Starline brass worked in other SSK chambers, I was told SSK changed to a tighter necked chamber in the past. He said Remington began to make their brass a little harder and SSK started to get reports of split necks, so they tightened up the chamber neck to prevent that from happening. So, it looks like I have to buy some Rem. brass.

I really wish I would have had the change in reamer dimensions explained to me the last time I was explaining all of this to them, since I told them my rounds were fitting in older SSK chambers. That was the most puzzling part. The good news for you guys with old SSK chambers is you should be able to use the plentiful Starline brass, which is also thicker.

JDK
I don't have a lot of my 1995 vintage 444 Remington brass left but if you would like to try a couple of samples I can mail them out. I could also include some that have been formed in my chamber. I could do the same for the 444 Star Line brass, if this would be of help.
D.

How frustrating to figure this out at this point. You think that it would be disclosed when placing the order.

Thanks for the offer Buck358. I?m ordering 100 Rem cases. If, for some reason it doesn?t work, I?ll send it back to SSK and tell them to keep until it works.

Okay sounds good.
Might try to outside neck turn a case and see if that makes a difference.. Keep us posted.
D.

A 100 ROUNDS OF BRASS, IF IT WORKS, SHOULD LAST DARN NEAR A LIFETIME.

I do lose a few to neck splits with my barrel and Rem. brass so may try a few Starline brass.

I would give Match Grade Machine a call and ask them what they would charge to open the neck slightly as it doesn't seem you have very many other good options. They opened up a tight neck SSK barrel for me a long time back.

PAMike, I?ll definitely keep that in mind as SSK didn?t seem open to anything other than reaming it to their specs. I?m going to try the Rem brass and see what happens.

On another note, I met with Mech8 and his rounds still won?t fit, but it appeared to be the seated length of his bullets as best we could tell. So, SSK tightened the necks and apparently gave it a shorter throat than past barrels. It would have been nice if someone there would have told me some of this during the multiple phone calls. I just want to get it figured out and start shooting. As Rey said, 100 cases will last me a long time once I get them to work!

I hope the new brass resolves the issue. All the brass I have been using for the last 15 years on my 309JDJ, 338JDJ#2 & 375 JDJ has been R-P. If the R-P brass works for you, I would like to see if the Starline brass would fit in any of my barrels after being loaded. I would like to try a few pieces of the Starline and if it works, I would purchase from you if you wanted to do something like that.
I have a 6.5JDJ barrel I'm dealing with right now that after firing some rounds, I can't get them into the dies, to resize. The brass just past the rim after being fired is about .004 to large to fit into my old RCBS dies. So I just ordered a new set of Hornady from SSK and the brass won't size in it. After lubing fired brass, I can run the brass into either die about 1/8" at a time for about 15 strokes to get the brass sized to .421, which is what all chamber drawing show it to be. I have pulled many case rims off trying to size. I have gotten pretty good at removing stuck cases from the dies. This is on an older barrel I picked up a few years back and have just dealt with it. I found another 6.5JDJ barrel, RCBS dies and some brass on a site this summer and purchased it for a great price. All fired brass will work on either set of my dies with one stroke. This is when I decided after doing considerable measuring on brass, new, sized, fired that the barrel is letting the brass expand to much about 1/4" from the rim. I just sent the barrel, new dies, some fired brass from this old barrel and then some brass fired from my new barrel to SSK a few days back. I figured, what the heck. It's just laying on my work bench, taking up space. I wrote a 4 page letter with all of my findings and will be waiting to see what happens. I have been loading for my jdj rounds for 20 years and other wildcat stuff longer. This has been a venture to say the least. Will see what SSK has to say. I like all of my JDJ rounds and this is not bashing them in any way. Just want to know what they think it might be.

Good luck with your barrel and loading.

Mike

Success! I finally have loaded rounds that fit my chamber. The RP brass worked. I seated my bullet using the dummy round from SSK and it fits perfectly. I loaded some testing rounds and hope to shoot them tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

As a side note, SSK said Blackhiils Shooter Supply has tons of RP 444 Marlin brass. I called and they do, BUT they don?t sell retail. So, it can be tricky to find readily available Rem. brass.

Mike, that?s weird. Please let us know what SSK says.

I have successfully loaded, chambered, and fired 358 JDJ rounds in my barrel! RP brass works perfectly and I shot some work-up loads yesterday. I worked up to one of the non-maximum loads SSK sent me using the Speer 220 FP and AA2520. It should give me somewhere between 2200-2300 FPS, but I have no chronograph, so I'm just going by SSK's numbers.

From the starting load to the load I wanted, I saw zero change in the primer and every round unlocked easily and dropped right out of the chamber. All of the rounds, which was 3 to 4 of each powder charge, shot into an inch or less at 25 yards with me using a pretty poor rest and a sloppy 2.5" circle I drew with a marker as a target. I am going to get to work loading more rounds and dialing them in now!

A word on recoil. This round has it in spades! The brake keeps the muzzle down and drives the gun back. It isn't intolerable by any means for anyone not recoil sensitive, but it gets your attention. I realized that I cannot use my support hand to wrap around my strong hand in usual fashion. The darned trigger guard drives right into my left index finger with gusto. That happens to be a really bad arthritic finger

On the hard recoiling calibers, as you have found out you never put the fingers of the off hand under the trigger guard spur. You put the first two fingers of the support hand on the outside of the spur or you get Contender Knuckle. Mine is magna ported and raises more than with a brake,and they do come back hard. I limit the number of shots at a setting with any hard recoiling gun as fatigue sets in quickly and bad habits follow. Shoot a group lay it down shoot something lighter then come back. I shoot 180 gr Speer in mine and they work well.

Glad to hear you got it fixed!

Glad you got your 358 working. For offhand shooting I cradle the front of the trigger guard in my off hand

I loaded up some more rounds and sighted it in today. Using a pretty solid rest, this load shoots three rounds into 1.5? at 100 yards, with two rounds Touching. I?m pretty satisfied with those groups.

I have tweaked my grip and have it as comfortable as possible. The weak hand index and middle finger on the lever works great. I just cradle the action with that hand. If I try to stiff arm my strong hand, it makes the pain worse in my palm, so I just relax a little and let the gun come back. It?s going to come back anyway! At the shot, the gun slides back from my support hand a few inches and my arm absorbs a lot of the recoil as it moves. It still smacks my palm pretty bad, but there is no free ride. 220 grains at 2200+ FPS in a pistol as light as a Contender is going to make things move.

I?m ready to hunt now. It is likely I?ll not shoot anything larger than a doe this deer season and I?m curious how the big Speer slug will behave. Maybe later on I?ll get a shot at a hog. Take care.

JDK, glad you got your SSK barrel up and running. Sounds like you should have a great deer/elk or what ever hammer. The 358JDJ is one I never got around to purchasing. Tried to get a couple on sites but it didn't work out. I'm happy with my .375JDJ shooting 220 & 235 grain flat nose bullets.

On another note we spoke about. I got my 6.5JDJ Contender barrel back from SSK. No notes, nothing. I sent some brass that had been shot from this barrel and it looked to be sized. SO, I call them. Talked to the guy that got my barrel. He said that over time, making barrels that some reamers cut different. He didn't see that .002 larger chamber was an issue. BS!. I asked him how he sized the cases. He said that my dies, I had sent had a little rust in them. BS! I had cleaned them with steel wool before sending them due to expecting them to say that. He said he ran the cases through the dies with NO problem.
Now I'm starting see the writing on the wall. I asked him what about the Brand New Hornady Custom dies I had just purchased from him for $100.00. What am I supposed to do with them. I got a load of crap but they finally agreed to take them back.
I took the barrel out, without scope or sites and fired 10 rounds to get some fired brass to try in the "Cleaned UP Dies". Not a one of them would size, without doing the 1/8" steps running them into the die just as they had before. BS! I even tried sizing with one stroke and pulled the case rim off in the shell holder twice before my brain said this was no good. I was about ready to cut the barrel up and take my loss. I had a little light come on, dim but it did come on in my head.
I called Hornady and talked with the guys that makes the JDJ dies. He said he was sorry and that the only solution he could come up with is he could make me a custom sizing die, for $150.00 for my fired cases so I could use the "CUSTOM" barrel. Now we are getting somewhere! Right?
I'm waiting on the refund after sending the new, unused dies back to SSK. I have fired 10 more rounds and have them boxed up to send to Hornady to send them to Hornady for a custom Sizing die that will be zipped tied to this barrel forever so that whoever would get it after me, could shoot and load for it and have fun!
I'm a little upset with this issue but I got the barrel second or third hand, who knows how many owned it and couldn't load for it. If it had been new, I would have gotten a full refund and went on my way. If this barrel didn't shoot lights out for me at any distance, after killing many deer, some hogs and varmints it would be sold for some of the guys that are stubbing the barrels and making a new caliber barrel, or a tent stake.
I'm rambling now but you asked to hear what happened with this barrel. There is the story. Just waiting on my Custom Die now.
Mike

I hated to hear that Mike. I am big on customer service and that just seems a bit lacking at SSK now. I know you said your barrel shoots great, but I wonder if there is something it could be opened up to that is more standard? Otherwise, you will be the only kid on the block with a Contender chambered for the 6.5 Mike!

Mike.....hard to keep up with what all is going on here, but i will say this.......
i had a set of hornady 6tcu dies that would stick cases no matter what lube i tried. Sent die to Hornady and they determined the size die was ?rough? and sent me another that works. Just wondering if that size die is the whole problem???

Long time ago, so I may forget some specifics. Prob tried 4 or 5 different lubes and developed a preference on ?slickness?. Lol

Kyode, thanks for the info. I thought about that. I have two sets of 6.5JDJ dies. One I bought 15 years back, Hornady, and a set of RCBS that came with the barrel I have now in 6.5JDJ. I tried both of these on the dies and they wouldn't work. I'm going to send the set I can use to them and let them check the dimensions and see if you might be right. Never can tell. The two sets I have will size the fired brass from the barrel I'm shooting now.
On the lube, I have tried RCBS, Sinclair, Hornady dry spray and another by Lyman.
All with the same results.

JDK- I asked Hornady and SSK and they both said with the Contender barrel, there is nothing they can rechamber to clean up the barrel like it is.

Mike