Swampman has it to a T. I did not look back through jims earlier post, but what factory ammo manufacturers did jim shoot/ reload brass did he shoot thru it? I can only add my experience on this one. About a year ago I didn't think H&R would offer this barrel again & posted a want to buy in the classifieds on this site. I bought a 35 whelen barrel from geezer56 & he stated known problem with the barrel. He said head space was too deep by .017 & gave a solution to work with barrel of necking up brass & making a shoulder that was ahead of original shoulder. I received barrel & fitted barrel to my reciever, in honesty I wish I had this to do over, but here is where I am at. I wish I would have removed the extractor when fitting, but i didn't. I bought a box of remington factory 200 grain rounds & went to fitting. When I got the barrel it would not close on my action, so I thought that removing off the breach face would help correct this known problem with said barrel. I took material off the breach until i started hitting on the shell face. At this point I worked on the hinge pin until it locked up tight on a half thousand shim & figured failed to fire problem would be gone. Walked out back & put a factory round in & pulled the trigger & bang, thought all was well. A few months later in november when on to sight in my scope on this rig & had 2 out of 6 fail to fire. Didn't get too exicited & carried it thru rifle season here in MO. A friend borrowed it in January & said the rest of the box didn't go boom. I added the wolf spring & had started my reloading process. Here again i started to have some ftf. Took a close look at my setup. Firing pin only extruded .030, I could fire primed cases all day long, but loaded rounds sometimes fired, sometimes not. Remington brass has HUGE radii in the shoulder area & could push forward in the chamber. I picked up a 375 h&h die set & set the new step to where the action would close if I slamed it, no more problems, have yet had a fail to fire problem. Sorry to go on, but I truely believe the problem is not with the rifle, but with the brass. geezer56 bought another barrel, if he truely felt H&R was the problem, would he bought another? I am ready to shoot groups working up to 58 grains reloader 15 & barnes 225 triple shock with no pressure signs yet. The barrel may not be the issue here, but the brass shape is. Good luck jim, don't give up on it!
