Ensuring Reliable Bolt-Action Handloads

IT may happen that a round may fail to feed, chamber or extract properly. If any of these functions prove troublesome, the firearm and ammunition is going to be useless in the field.

While it is important that any handload be safe to fire in your hunting rifle, nothing less than absolute mechanical reliability is acceptable in your reloads. Perfect functioning - feeding from the magazine, chambering, firing, extraction and ejection are all major considerations in hunting handloads. Perfecting a load can involve many things besides accuracy, but the cause of some malfunctions is often difficult to pin down. These things must not be compromised for any other performance factor. If they are, it could result in your losing the trophy of a lifetime, or what is even worse, failure to stop a charge, which can get a hunter killed. Only rarely is the rifle itself responsible for malfunctions, more often than not it is handloaded ammunition that is at fault.

Different types of rifle actions can have problems inherent to the design. These can pertain to ammunition function and can be unique to each type of action. Most owners of lever-actions are aware that such arms have special problems, and that pressures developed by handloads must be regulated rather delicately for satisfactory functioning. Leverguns do not have the powerful