The owner of my company asked me for advice concerning his Kimber .300 WSM. It seems that he is having problems ejecting spent brass. He says that it starts out doing fine and then gets to the point of being unable to open the bolt until he waits for awhile. My first (and strongest) reaction was to ask just how hot he was getting the rifle during this time. I'm guessing that he is getting it hot enough that the brass is not contracting as quickly which is making the bolt hard to operate until it has cooled sufficiently. He said that he would watch for this and see how many repeated shots it took for this to happen.

He is not a loader so he is firing both Hornady and Federal factory ammunition. I have also requested that he bring in a few of the cases to see if there is any obvious damage or scoring of the case body just in case he might have a rough chamber (highly doubtful in a Kimber, but not impossible.)

I haven't run across this with any rifle I have worked with, and not having any experience with either the Kimber rifles or the .300 WSM I thought I would ask if anyone else either has had this problem or can think of other possibilities.

I'm wondering if the ejection problems are due to a dirty chamber? It possible that the crud it heating up the more he fires it, also could be a nick or burr in the chamber. I would look at the fired cases and see if there's any circular marks before the shoulder. I have heard at the club that some guys were swearing off nickle plate cases because of extraction problems, now I don't know if the 300wsm has nickle plated shells but just a thought.

crud in action and bolt lug slots. check for galling with mirror due to operation w/o lube. check clearance around handle/stock cutout and stock bolts/action screws for propper torque. somethings binding when hot. thats a pretty darn nice shooter to be havin a sticky bolt like that.

Thanks guys...I'm going to try and get him to let me take a look at the rifle itself as well as a few fired cases. Even a Kimber can have problems. Since he says this happens when he is sighting it in and is a little evasive about his rate of fire, I'm not ruling out the possibility that he is just shooting so fast without a cooling period that the brass is staying hot and expanded for a longer period of time either. It's an interesting problem though.

Let us know what you find.