Pressure Signs, Now...?? What Changed ?

[marshall]

From the looks of your pictures I would say no pressure problem is present. There are no witness marks on the head from the bolt face. The edges of your primers are smooth and round. They did not flatten and fill the primer pocket. The wall just above the head doesn't have obvious bulging, hard to see from here.

The firing pin strike does appear to be a touch shallow. Kodiakrain may be onto something with his crud between the firing pin and bolt comment. I've seen rust in a friends bolt that prevented the firing pin from traveling full forward. That resulted in a gap around the firing pin and primer flow looking like a crater. I've also seen firing pin holes that were for some reason enlarged and caused flow back into the bolt face around the firing pin causing craters.

There is a guy that installs bushings in the bolt face and turns the firing pin to an exact fit. This would cure the gap if your firing pin hole is to large for your pin.

http://www.gretanrifles.com/services/viewEntry.jsf

[Murphy]

I see no pressure signs at all with those cases. A pressure sign would be that little groove around the primer where it meats the brass cup, being filled in with the expanded primer cup. You're at least 5Kpsi from that mark with those primers. Some primers have softer cups and expand and fill this groove at normal pressures. (Federal with some calibers) When that expands and fills the groove, then that is about maximum (60, 000 psi) Then with excess pressure, the primer will top hat, make a brim around it that you can see when it is punched out. Those top hat primers are about 65,000 psi or so depending on several things.

If those are 215 primers from a SAKO rifle I'd say your pressure is 55, 000 psi or less. Fire away, be happy.