Had a call from Hornady last week

I had sent two boxes of .308 SSTs to them to shoot, examine, etc. I thought I had some problems with "bad" cartridges during last deer season and I was wrong.

It appears that the rifle bolt must have frozen or slowed up due to cold weather. We had 138 inches of combined snow this year and one of the coldest.

My cartridges were on the Hornady's suspended last as well as many other cartridges. They called and told me that they were going back into production for the SSTs at the end of April. They would be sending me two replacement boxes of SSTs as I had sent them two.

Thus, it appears that they may be going back into production of most of the other suspended cartridges. I hope. Great company to work with!

First rate products/service from a first rate company. Not many of those these days.

Had the same FTF problem with 2 cartridges this last deer season. Cold as h3ll for Alabama. Barely dented the primers. Rounds fired after a second try, later. Think it was Winchester ammo though. Found out the lube in my bolt was getting thick in cold. I was using Breakfree CLP in my .308 Savage. Cleaned the bolt/firing pin and re-applied a really thin coat of Rem Oil. No problems since. Cost me a shot at a nice buck.

Has anyone tried stripping off ALL of the oil in bolt and trigger assemblies and just using graphite or one of the "exotic" dry lubes?

We don't do that sort of serious cold here in Queensland, but we do have some nice hunting areas that seem over-endowed with a veritable fog of ultra-fine dust. Mixed with oil, it both acts like grinding paste AND makes the important bits sluggish.

I'm in Canada and I take the oil off to the greatest amount. Just a wipe with an oiled cloth. No real lube. I have a Husky 1600 series in 30-06 that will splash oil in my eyes if there's too much. We taught in the army to remove oil and use graphite in winter...