A whole bunch of failure to feeds and a few short strokes..ammo issue or rifle issue?

AR/M4 AR General Discussion
1

I aquired some crappy Russian Wolf .223 ammo for free a while back (I would never use that garbage if it wasnt free) and wanted to get rid of it. I went out yesterday with the wife and a buddy from work and his wife, and shot the AR.

When using the Wolf ammo, almost every round would not feed correctly. The bolt would partially strip the round from the mag, and then get stuck, and you have to either use the forward assist or pull the charging handle back and let go. It was like a bolt action. I have some brass cased ammo (slightly better, but still not that great) that doesnt seem to do this at all, but I havent used it in a while.

Also, with the Wolf ammo, the weapon was short stroking. It wouldnt lock back on the last round, and left the bolt closed when the mag was empty.

I had some Lake City 5.56 tracers that I shot off yesterday as well, and a few of them got stuck as well. For the most part, the whole mag I had fed no problem, but I had a few FTF’s with them. The rounds were old and maybe a little weathered, so this may be why.

Just kinda worried that something is wrong with my rifle. The magazines I was using are typical milspec GI issue magazines of various manufactures, and were all bought used, so I have no clue of their usage, but manufacture dates are anywhere from 99-06 or so.

Is this a problem with my magazines, my rifle, or does my rifle just not like Wolf ammo? Not too worried about the magazine or ammo issue, because Im going to stock up on some Magpul Pmag’s soon and I will never touch any Wolf, Brown Bear, or any other cheap russian crap ammo again, but Id like to know if this is an issue with my rifle so I can address it.

Rifle is a Stag Arms lower and a Bushmaster upper if it makes a difference.

2

I would make sure that the gas key is tight.

3

Mid or carbine length? What buffer do you have? I’m assuming the Wolf is 55g correct?

There was a thread here with this before and listed possible causes I listed above. It had weights of all the different buffers and weights and associated issues based on that.

Also as the above poster mentioned, regarding the gas key. I would also look at the gas tube as well. Port size and such.

4

You didn’t say how well lubed your rifle is, that is one easy place to start. look at the shiny spots on you bolt carrier and make sure there is lubrication. Do as was suggested, check to make sure your the gas key is tight on the bolt carrier. While you are at it inspect the front of the gas key to make sure it is round and there are no burrs on the inside. Take your bolt carrier and pull the bolt forward, now place the bolt carrier standing up on the table, with the bolt face down. The bolt carrier should stay extended. If it doesn’t your gas rings are bad. Disassemble the carrier and ensure the gaps in the 3 gas rings are staggered, look and see if the 3 gaps are the same size. One being different would possibly be a broken ring.

While you have the carrier out of the upper receiver, remove the charging handle and take a look at the gas tube it should be centered in the upper. inspect it to make sure it is not dented or out of round.

As for your magazines, look at the followers, black followers are not very good and should be replaced, inspect the springs while you looking at them. Green followers are better. The most recent issued are tan or sand colored now. Magpul or C Products make magazine overhaul kits that are good and economical.

Get some decent ammo and test fire it. Walmart has 100 round boxes of Federal available for about $40.

5

The thing with wolf or other steel cased ammo is that it does not expand in the chamber, allowing carbon to blow back into the chamber. This could cause problem with extracting wolf, as you noted, but also if you shoot brass after wolf without cleaning.

After switching to brass cased ammo, the brass does expand, just now on a highly foulded chamber, causing those rounds to sometimes to stick due to having pressed themselves on your wolf residue.

Wolf also has other problems on its own, as you witnessed due to being lightly loaded, among other things.

I’d clean the gun, lube it and shoot some different brass ammo before doing anything else.

What did your wolf and brass cases look like after ejecting?

6

What mags are you using and how long have you had them? It may be due to a weak mag spring and having a .223 chamber, which is the major culprit to stuck cases with steel case ammo. Also mixing steel with brass ammo in the same range session without a thorough cleaning.

FWIW, all of my ARs (2 Colt 6920s, 1 Sabre middy and 1 LMT MRP Middy) all having 5.56MM chambers. I’ve fired North of 23K of Wolf, 4K of Barnaul, a few K of brown bear (both being lacquered) and a few K of Silver bear, without any malfunctions attributed to the ammo (1 worn extractor and a few worn mags).

7

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I agree with Roger on the chambering and bad mags. Is the barrel stamped .223 or 5.56? Buy/borrow one good mag and try it.

Another possibility, is the chamber bright and shiny. BM may or may not have a chrome plated chamber/barrel. If not, it could be rusty, pitted, etc. which would make feeding and extractions difficult. With a bright light, inspecting the chamber should be easy to so.

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8

Someone on here said it best: (paraphrasing of course)“if your rifle won’t feed and extract steel cased ammo, then there’s a problem with your weapon.” I have fired over 10,000 rounds of Silver and Brown Bear through my mix of Daniel Defense, LMT, and Bravo Company barrels. Bear ammo is far from crap, it may not be very accurate, but it’s great for high volume practice. I would follow everyone else’s advice and check your gas key, or possibly get a new BCG. I highly recommend getting some Pmags ASAP. Odds are that the Bushmaster has a .223 chamber, and will have feeding and extraction issues.

9

Really? So why does the Hornady 55gr. steel case TAP ammo work in all of my AR’s to include my SBR?

The issue is probably his BM upper.

10

Send me a PM. I use my chamber gage to check your chamber. I have a VERY SNEAKY FEELING that your upper is not 5.56.

Do not believe what is printed on the barrel or receiver. It doesn’t mean squat with certain companies. Short answer is I am fairly certain that it is your rifle.

11

You miss my point; I do agree, a well spec’d AR should run all sorts of ammo. However, it is best for J. Q. Public to start with the cheapest and easiest solutions first, if for nothing else to help troubleshoot the problem without excess costs incurred. It may be a bad thing, but I’m assuming the guy can tel if his carrier key is obviously loose/not staked or not.:slight_smile:

12

My carbine length BM had a problem locking back on an empty mag with an H-buffer. When I put the carbine buffer back in it went through the ammo without a single hick-up. I did run into a problem after about 350-400 rounds with one stuck case and one double feed.

Cleaned the rifle and just as a test put the H-Buffer back in. Put 200 rounds in one day through it without a single problem. Looks like cleaning was the key. Always had plenty of lube but as others have said, with the case not expanding there is a lot more crap in there to foul sh*t up.

I never checked the chamber to see if its a true 5.56, the bbl says “5.56 1:9” but as IG said, it could be a lie being Bushmaster. I upgraded the extractor with the BCM upgrade kit and staked the carrier key as well.

My guess based on my VERY limited experience is that is your rifle and not the ammo. Any rifle should be able to eat up Wolf be it a tier 1 gun or not, in the case of BM. Not sure why so many people hate it or think their rifle is better than “that”, its a good cheap round for practice, just have to clean the gun more often.

13

I am having FTFeed(FTD?) issues with Silver Bear HP 62gr with my DDM4v5. It gets pinched between the chamber and the mag. forward assist does nothing. This happens when I chamber a round so it is not a short stroking issue. No FTE issues either. Brass is fine, no problems. I tried 3 different mags, pmags and lancer mag and they all did the same. Bolt will lock back after last shot also with both brass and steel. thanks for any info.

14

Because then you have to have a larger than necessary gas port, and when you shoot brass case 5.56 that means you get a gun that is working harder than it needs to, more recoil, and faster parts wear.

The AR was not designed to work with cheap Russian ammo. Im not sure where we got to this point where shooting it is some sort of benchmark to a quality gun. The AR was designed to work with US mil-spec ammo. When I was AD we trained with British brown box ammo quite a few times but you’re not allowed to use it in combat load outs because its known to cause reliability issues.

Are issue Colt and FN guns “junk” because they don’t run less than optimal ammo reliably all the time?

With that said Id prefer a gas port tuned to run mil-spec ammo first, and if I can run steel case like Hornady training then so be it. I wouldn’t fault the gun if it would not run that ammo. It wasnt designed to work with that sort of weak steel case ammo in the first place. What I get out that is when I shoot real 5.56 pressure ammo Im not getting extra recoil as a result.

Another thing to contend with is gas port erosion. If you start off with a large enough gas port to reliably run really weak ammo as the round count starts going up that gas port is growing, and allowing even more gas through the action of the gun. That means at 5k, 10k, 15k rounds you going to be really over gassing the gun with 556 pressure ammo.

If all you ever shoot is weak steel case ammo then that might work for you but I wouldn’t consider it a bench mark of a quality gun. It just means your needs are different than “mil spec” or a gun that is properly tuned to run on mil-spec type ammo.

15

Check the feed ramp area to see if there is a lip or burr that could be catching on the open tip of the bullet. Some HP ammo can be sketchy in AR’s because the size of the opening causes the bullet to get hung up in the feed ramp area. This can be made worse depending on the specific geometry of your gun or if there was a mistake in machining that only appears when using HP ammo.

It works fine with FMJ ammo?

16

I have not tried FMJ steel ammo yet, brass HP and FMJ is fine. I have not tried soft point either. The bullet is getting stuck between the top of the chamber and the mag. I dont think the feedramp is an issue since when it is jammed, the bullet does not even touch the feedramp when pinched.

17

How old is your BM? I am not sure if they have gotten the message yet, but they are usually tight. Find someone who has a chamber reamer and have them ream it. I am almost positive something will come out.

18

GLP, The range that I go to usually has a bunch of AR junkies on Thurs. mornings (rapid fire day) and a lot of them use Wolf. It appears that 99% of the time, these guys are having a contest to see who can shoot the most ammo in an hour’s time. Once in a while, I talk to someone who has an issue with Wolf ammo, and they always seem to have a weapon that is “hopped up” or “mixed” I guess is the word. Not that I am against that, because to get a fast car to go faster, you have to hop it up ( hey, I was young once too). As it turns out, the more you hop up a car, the better you want the fuel to be so that you get the most performance out of your work. I am new to the AR world, but I believe it is the same with guns. If I have the best, I only want to give it the best. I have never used Wolf and would not want to risk using it with what I have read about it. I have a stock BM and it seems to function better as I shoot it more, but I have used only good factory ammo (Fed. 55gr fmj) Personally, I don’t care if it will shoot the crappy ammo or not. My Vette will probably run on 87 octane, but I am not going to find out. Give it the good stuff. This is merely some old man to young man wisedom.

19

Steel cases definitely do expand. You can drop a fired steel case into a headspace guage and check for yourself.

I’ve tried reloading steel cases for the experimentation of it. And those suckers are a pain to squeeze back down with my die set where it resizes brass cases into spec.

20

Steel case ammo does work and using it for training isn’t a bad choice. But, you have to have a weapon that runs. If you have tight out of spec chambers or some other shenanigans going on, you should get it fixed or buy some other ammo.