https://thegreatmodel8.net/

Had an experience today not sure what to make of it. Took my restored 1908 model 8 to a friends place to shoot a few rounds today. He owns some land and has an area set up for shooting. Some may recall i had my rifle restored and had some problems with the shop I mentioned earlier.
I took one box of 35 Cal Federal brand ammunition with me. I also had a 357 pistol I wanted to fire if time allowed.
Everything went great! Wish I had a place in my "back yard" to shoot. Anyway I fired about ten rounds out of my 20 round box. Really pleased with this rifle. I forgot to bring a stripper clip so I loaded by hand. Three in the magazine and one in the chamber. The restored 8 went through the new rounds like a hot knife through butter, fired, ejected spent brass and up loaded new rounds with no issues.
By the way the rifle does sort of make a ker-plucnk sound as the reciever moves around.
My friend doesn't own a model 8 but he does have a marlin that fires 35 cal. The 336(?) I think. Anyway, hes started hand loading his own ammo for it. He offered to let me fire a few rounds of his hand loaded ammo.
I took five of his cartridges and loaded three rounds in my gun. The first two rounds fired okay and cycled through with the brass ejecting all right but when the last round went in the chamber the reciever wouldn't close. There was about a 1/8 inch gap visible. I had to fight like heck to pull the bolt back to eject the cartridge. When I tried the other two rounds, again the reciever wouldn't close on the round in the chamber, and the last round, while it fit and fired, wouldn't eject. Once more i had to fight the bolt back on the reciever to eject the spent brass.
That kinda shook me up, thinking i had some kind of problem with my "8". So I ran four more of my own new 35 cal federal brand ammo through the gun. It worked perfectly, fired, ejected the spent brass and chambered a new round, no problem.
So at this point, am I correct in thinking there was something wrong with his handloaded ammo? or is my model 8 just touchy? To my untrained eye the ammo looked the same as my new in the box 35 cal rounds. Perhaps Marlin 35 cal is different somehow? First time experience for me. Don't want to go through that again. Any body with thoughts ?

My rule for handloads has always been:

If I didn't load it, I ain't going to shoot it.

Chances are that the handloads were not fully resized and there for would not chamber in your rifle. It is very possible your friend has his resizing die set so that the base of the case is not being fully pushed into the die. This may not cause a problem with his lever gun but will with your auto loader. The reason for the hard extraction is once driven into the chamber by the moving bolt it will be hard to get them unstuck. As your rifle cycles factory sepc ammo ok the problem is with the hand loads. It only takes a few thousands of an inch to make a difference. This would not be visible to the naked eye.

Your friend might also have only resized the necks of the cases which means they could only chamber in the same gun they had been fired out of last. Whatever the case, stick to factory or hand loads you do yourself for your particular gun. I load .30 Remington for my 8's and it works perfectly but I full length size the cases and load minimum charges. I also polish the brass so my loads are slick and won't over stress the old rifle.

Many thanks for the advice. Really like this rifle, plan on sticking with "stock" ammo.
Thanks again.