16" Midlength BCM won't feed steel casing. Normal or not?

AR/M4 AR Technical Discussion
1

I did a search for this and was not able to locate anything particular helpful. Most of the threads/posts are referring to the 14.5" Mid-length which I do understand is not reliable with crappy steel cased ammo. So, yeah, sorry if it has in fact been covered! :suicide:

To give you a little background, the rifle I’m running is:

16" BFH LW Mid-length BCM Upper
BCM Complete BCG
BCM Complete Blemished Lower (from Grant) with the standard H Buffer, etc.

Everything else is BCM including charging handle, etc, etc. In short, it’s a quality BCM rifle.

I took it out for the first time and fired about 100 rounds of M193. Accurate as shit, feeds reliably. Sweet.

Next up, I put in the 62 grain Golden Bear hollow points I had a box of. The first one fired fine, but the first one fed from the mag itself would cause a failure to feed. I tried it a few times and it happened exactly the same way every time. I had to take my rifle apart and remove the BCG to get this oh-so-high-quality piece of ammo unstuck. boy, I’d hate to have to go through that in a self defense situation.

Golden Bear is obviously not great ammo. It’s supposed to be “premium” Brown Bear ammo, I believe. It’s steel cased ammo with a “brass coating” for reliable feeding. Yeah. Right. Anyway, I gave up on the Golden Bear hollow points and threw some more of the M193 in it… Surprise! It functions fine.

At this point, I’m going to purchase one box of each steel cased brands out there (Brown Bear, Silver Bear, Tula, Wolf, etc) and see how those function. Has anyone else had issues with steel cased ammo specifically in a 16" Mid-length BCM? Again, I understand crappy ammo in the 14.5" is problematic but I purchased the 16" specifically for the fact that it’s supposed to feed all kinds of ammo.

I understand I’ll be putting crappy ammo in my BMW of AR’s and everything; my main concern is that in a SHTF situation, I want to be able to fire whatever is available to me after I run through all of my NATO ammo. Beggers can’t be choosers, right?

FYI: ‘problem’ was resolved after running around 500 or so rounds of full power 5.56 through the weapon, I no longer have short stroking issues with steel cased ammo.

2

all my BCMs, DD, Spikes uppers and my ACR all eat steel with no problems

3

It’s probably the ammo but it could be a tight chamber.

4

It could be that it’s a hollow point rather then being steel cased ammo that’s making it fail. Perhaps the particular ammo might be underpowered? I doubt it though. I would try different types of steel cased ammo like you said. I don’t have a mid length AR15, so I can’t really talk about that. My Colt M4 upper never had trouble with Tula or wolf. I’ve had a Colt 20 inch match HBAR fail on steel cased Tula ammo, while the every single ar15 I fired before ran it fine. I switched the bolt to a SP-1 bolt and it ran steel cased ammo then with the HBAR. There are so many different factors that make one AR15 fail on steel cased ammo, where one will work fine.

That doesn’t really help him.

5

Try it with a carbine buffer.

When you say “failure to feed” is it a total failure to feed (as in, fails to catch the next round in the magazine) or a partial failure to feed (as in, catches the next round but the bolt stops partway with the tip of the round stuck on the feedramp or the barrel extension lugs)?

6

I was thinking that too. Perhaps I’ll try Golden Bear again in FMJ. I’ll definitely be trying other steel cased ammo, probably also in FMJ.

I did read over on arfcom (i know…) that perhaps my gun needs to be a little bit more “broken in” and loosened up before firing the steel cased reliably. Any substance to that, or just mumbo jumbo ?

It does start to feed but it gets lodged in about half way with the tip sticking out.

7

Not likely in a BCM upper.

8

It sounds like mumbo jumbo to me. I’ve had AR15’s run perfectly fine out of box with steel. With the one that didn’t run steel for me, no amount of break in would have changed the result. If worst comes to worst and your rifle won’t run other steel cased ammo, I suppose you could try a different buffer or bolt combination.

9

I wouldn’t take stock in much you read over there.
But I suspect you know this.

10

Does the ammo have a laquer coating on it? Try rubbing two rounds together to see is they slide or if they stick/grab. Also, are you running GI mags or Polymer?

If the rounds stick try running a polymer mag to see if that helps. I ran into this with some Cabela’s Herters 223 and will never buy that shit again. It fed better from a pmag and wouldn’t feed even 2 or 3 rounds with a GI mag. Buy better i mean it would fed 5 to 6 rounds before jamming.

If you want to save money and shoot a ton of ammo get a used Dillon 550b, some once-fired and processed LC 5.56 brass, some pulled bullets, powder, and primers and go to town… You wont have any feeding issues with a quality gun/build.

Sent from my Sprint EVO via Tapatalk

11

Herters is polymer coated.
Rebranded Tula.

Rubbing 2 rounds together?
This sounds like TOS type silliness.

12

He said it was brass coated. With my one AR15 that didn’t run steel ammo, magazines made no difference, but I suppose it’s possible that magazine could also a factor. To the OP, what magazines are you using?

13

I’m running strictly Pmags, currently. Again, they are steel cased rounds with supposed brass coating.

Purchased here:

http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/cb/golden-bear-223-rem-62-gr-hp-240-rds.aspx?a=743102

edit: I’m actually a bit surprised that these do typically run in a 16" Mid-length as they feel like they are very heavily coated/lacquered. Almost to the point of looking and feeling like a fake round.

14

For what it is worth, my BCM upper needed about 150 rounds before it ran Wolf without hickup. I only had 2 fail to feeds which resulted in short stroking in the first 150 rounds but has eaten about 1400 wolf since then without any problems. That was only in the three months that I was actively shooting last year though.

15

I have the exact same upper and lower.
I haven’t run anything but m193 through it.
I can tell you that when I pulled the FSB to install a FF, the gas port read .062 on my calipers.
This isn’t exactly the most accurate way to measure the port, but it told me that the gun was not likely to be overgassed.
Will it run underpowered ammo? I’m not sure, but I will try some out in the near future.

The cheapest thing you can do right now is buy a standard carbine buffer for under $10.
I assume you have the upper group well lubed?

16

Not TOS silliness at all… If it was the same stuff with a polymer coating it was causing FTF coming out of the mag and I noticed it when loading and unloading the mags as well as when rubbing or sliding two rounds together as if they are being feed out of a mag.

Sent from my Sprint EVO via Tapatalk

17

#1 Brown bear is not polymer coated.
#2 The OP was shooting Golden Bear, brass coated steel cased ammo.
#3 The issue here isn’t the coating that is on the steel case.

18

Interesting. Mine literally chokes on every single round that’s fed from the magazine. I wish it was only twice in 150 rounds at this point :jester:

Yeah, the carbine buffer is something I will be trying soon for sure. If you do shoot any poo through yours anytime soon, let me know how it runs.

If I run a carbine buffer is that going to cause any other issues or is that what I should be running in the first place?

19

OK, followups…
my suggestion for the AR in general but especially for running steel-cased ammo is to lube, like to the point of dripping, the BCG.

Next, load one round, fire, and check to see if the bolt locks to the rear. If it does, repeat ten times or so.

20

I’ve got a similar setup, standard BCM 16" midlength upper, BCM blem lower, BCM BCG, PMags. It’s got over 1000 rounds of Brown/Silver Bear through it with 0 failures.
I doubt it’s the ammunition.