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Hakim case bulging - is this normal?

3K views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  balsamic 
#1 ·
Hello all,

Finally got the chance to take the Hakim I bought in February to the range on Saturday. It's a blast. REALLY easy to get working up and dump whole mags of 8mm like nothing.

First thing to do was get the gas adjustment dialed in. Started with the valve at the 9:00 position and fired a round, which I had to manually eject and seemed to 'stick' in the chamber, requiring moderate force on the action cover to get it to eject. After a few rounds, valve was between 8 and 7:00 positions and rifle was cycling nicely.

About 10 rounds in, I was looking at my spent brass and I noticed a 'ring' around all of my fired cases about 1/8" up from the rim. When I ran my fingers over it, I felt an unmistakeable outward bulge in the brass at the ring. Took the best pics I could, with unfired round for comparison:



I did also notice that once I insert a a snap cap or an unfired round into the chamber manually, I can wiggle it around maybe .5mm or .3mm, indicating a fairly loose chamber. It seems that on firing the case is expanding to fill that loose chamber, all except for the very end near the rim where it is being held by the bolt. This is probably what is causing it to stick considerably in the chamber when trying to eject. This stickiness cannot be too bad though, as there was no rim damage to cases in 100+rounds fired.

Barrel is in great shape, shiny with sharp rifling, so I don't think it is a wear issue.

I do not notice any tactile bulging when I examine cases from my fn 49 or garand.

My question: Is this normal for a Hakim? Was it intentionally make with a loose chamber to promote reliable feeding in sandy/dusty environments?

The last thing I want is a case rupture and a kaboom.
 
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#2 ·
Dont know if its normal for a Hakim.
Do know that if you don't reload it probably will not matter.
Distortion on the fired cases looks pretty uniform so it does not appear, to me, that the chamber is egg shaped.
See if you can tell where the extractor is grabbing the case, compare all the empties with that mark in the same orientation.
Check to see if the distortion is always on one side or all the way around.
Also compare a fired case to an unfired one, see if the shoulder has moved forward.
That might imply a generous chamber for the reason you mentioned.

Now, if you do reload, neck size only and, even then, case life will probably be short.
 
#3 · (Edited)
I finally dug my Hakim out of the back of the safe today and was able to do some experimenting on it.

When I inserted an unfired 1950 FN surplus 8mm round (it was handy at the time) into the chamber, I was able to wiggle the back end of the case around in the chamber rather easily with my finger.

To get an idea of how much 'slop; was actually in there, I then wrapped a piece of Scotch tape (some of the foggy stuff that 'disappears' when it is smoothed out) around the body of the case just ahead of the cannelure. The piece of tape was cut to be just short of overlapping where the ends met on the case body.

This wrapped case also fully entered the chamber. There was still a bit of 'slop' when the case head was wiggled back and forth, but I figure (it's hard to measure precisely) the amount of movement was only about 20% or so of the amount of movement I had with the bare case.

I don't know offhand how a fired case coming out of my chamber would look, but I have never had any issues with this rifle in the past, using surplus OR using reloads.



If you get similar results when you do a similar test on your rifle, I figure you should be good to go.
 
#7 ·
I finally dug my Hakim out of the back of the safe today and was able to do some experimenting on it.

When I inserted an unfired 1950 FN surplus 8mm round (it was handy at the time) into the chamber, I was able to wiggle the back end of the case around in the chamber rather easily with my finger.

To get an idea of how much 'slop; was actually in there, I then wrapped a piece of Scotch tape (some of the foggy stuff that 'disappears' when it is smoothed out) around the body of the case just ahead of the cannelure. The piece of tape was cut to be just short of overlapping where the ends met on the case body.

This wrapped case also fully entered the chamber. There was still a bit of 'slop' when the case head was wiggled back and forth, but I figure (it's hard to measure precisely) the amount of movement was only about 20% or so of the amount of movement I had with the bare case.

I don't know offhand how a fired case coming out of my chamber would look, but I have never had any issues with this rifle in the past, using surplus OR using reloads.



If you get similar results when you do a similar test on your rifle, I figure you should be good to go.
Hi Ronbo,

I'm coming back to this a bit late; thanks for taking the time to do that little experiment. I finally got the chance to do it with my Hakim, now that we have some of that tape lying around after Christmas. Results are similar to what you got with one piece of tape wrapped around a 8mm snap cap - much less movement but still some. Then I wrapped a 2nd piece of tape around the first and the case BARELY fit into the chamber and was very snug once in.

I also suspect stray black cat may be right, that someone tried to polish this chamber to improve extraction. The hakim is definitely a different beast than all my other milsurps in that cases seem to stick snugly in it after firing even with the gas all the way off. I have heard that this is doubly true with steel-cased ammo like the romainian and it may have caused someone to try and mess with the chamber when they just should have fed it brass cased ammo.

My long term plan with this rifle is to replace the barrel with a NOS one as that would get rid of the import mark, so hopefully at some point I'll get to see what an original chamber looks like and compare mine to it.
 
#4 · (Edited)
I do not notice any tactile bulging when I examine cases from my fn 49 or garand.
My question: Is this normal for a Hakim? Was it intentionally make with a loose chamber to promote reliable feeding in sandy/dusty environments?
To some degree, it's always there. The FN 49 & Garand simply have tighter chamber head dimensions.
Unless one is extremely obsessed w/ reloaded case life, fired case head swelling is nothing to fret - especially w/ that Berdan-primed Egyptian surplus seen above.
This is perfectly normal behavior for most any military bolt action or autoloader: by design, a generous chamber promotes positive feeding/extraction under the worst conditions.
 
#5 ·
I've only fired Egyptian ammo in my Hakim but the dent in the side had put off any idea of reloading until I read up on the Ljungman and the deflector cushion. I just looked at a fired case I saved and though I can see through color variation the start of the thin wall, there is NO noticeable case swell like yours. Unlike bolt action that twist out the case, the Hakim and Ljungman straight pull the case. Dirty cases or pitted chambers cause more sticking. I suspect someone may have sanded and polished your chamber to be that loose.
3752938
 
#6 ·
I've only fired Egyptian ammo in my Hakim but the dent in the side had put off any idea of reloading until I read up on the Ljungman and the deflector cushion. I just looked at a fired case I saved and though I can see through color variation the start of the thin wall, there is NO noticeable case swell like yours. Unlike bolt action that twist out the case, the Hakim and Ljungman straight pull the case. Dirty cases or pitted chambers cause more sticking. I suspect someone may have sanded and polished your chamber to be that loose.
The ding in the case body is no real biggie. It will iron out (and a new one created) when you fire a reloaded round from the rifle.

I resolved that particular problem by taping a split piece of gum rubber tubing around the wire 'hoop' welded on the receiver cover. That hoop is there to hold a leather 'bump cushion', which was the Egyptian's solution to the problem. No more dings.

Another plus to the piece of gum rubber tubing is it sort-of converts that hoop into an operating handle and you don't need to use the pads on the rear of the receiver cover to operate the rifle anymore.
 
#8 ·
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