.22 Rimfire case not extracting
Not really a gun, but it's a gun related problem!
I'm making a tennis ball launcher that uses .22 blanks, I've researched the law and as long as it can't be made to fire live ammunition with regular hand tools and without special knowledge it's fine (in UK), to make sure it can't be easily adapted I've made the chamber from hardenable steel and not drilled all the way through, then drilled holes in the side at the barrel end for the gasses to escape, when I'm finished working on it I'll harden it so it can't be drilled easily without annealing it, which should count as special knowledge, hardened steel welded into a barrel is part of the deactivating process so if it's good enough for them it's good enough for me!
Now on to my problem, to start with I made a quick and easy spring loaded pin to fire the blank, to make sure it would launch a tennis ball, rather than waste my time making something fancy when it's not going to work, once I get this ironed out I'm planning on making a bolt action for it, it turns out it does work, rather well! But it did show up another problem, the blank slides in easily and will drop out if you turn it upside down, but after it's been fired it's hard to get the empty case out, sometimes I can just about pull it out with my fingers, other times I need to lever it out with a screwdriver.
What would be causing this? Is it because the hole isn't smooth enough? I just drilled it, would reaming it fix the problem? I know I'd probably have to start over because the hole will be too big but that's not really a problem, I don't have a reamer either, so I'd have to buy one, but I'm not going to buy it unless I know that's the problem, I'm not a fan of wasting money! If I need a reamer does it have to be a chamber reamer or will a regular chucking reamer work?