Yesterday I took my 6920 out to put some rounds thru it. First round rang the 10-inch steel plate at 100 yards with iron sights. Second round, all I got was a click as the hammer struck the BCG. Nothing sounded or felt unusual when the round went off. When I looked, what you see in the second photo is what I saw. I didn’t take a photo at the time, so I recreated what I saw for the photo. The BCG had picked up the next round, but stopped at the position you see in the first photo
I removed the mag, and ejected the live round, but could not get the BCG to close any further than what you see in the photo. I could not get the rear pin out to tilt the upper to see if I could see anything unusual. I really do not know what I did to finally get the BCG to close other than work the charging handle several times before the BCG finally closed, and I was able to remove the pin, and tilt the upper. The only thing I saw that was unusual was that little piece you see in the first photo. It looks like part of the primer, and it was laying up against the buffer. There was nothing in the chamber or anywhere else. The gun function perfectly for the rest of my shots.
I looked for over 15 minutes to try and find the empty, but could not find it. The first photo below was taken with the piece I found up against the buffer against a live round for scale. The ammo I was using was Freedom Munitions .223. I’ve shot a lot of their .223 without issue.
Loaded too hot… Blown primer. Or a loose primer pocket. Was it Reman ammo, or new? Primer cups have a magic way of getting into the worst possible places.
A blown primer isn’t going to be enough to make any perceivable sound or feel. I don’t want to drag Freedom through the mud without my facts being straight… but arent’ they known for blowing guns to bits?
If it’s just a loose pocket, no biggie. I’d take another look for that anvil though… it could be somewhere in the BCG or FCG.
I’ve never heard anything negative about Freedom Munitions, but that doesn’t mean to say there hasn’t been any. I have no idea how many rounds of FM Reman ammo I’ve put thru my AR, but I would say it is well over ,1000 rounds. I currently have about 1,400 rounds of FM Reman .223 on hand. I’ve shot thousands of rounds of FM Ammo, both new and Reman in 9mm, .45 ACP, .38 Special and .357 Magnum and .223 with zero problems. I think you can probably get a bad round from just about any manufacture.
I’ve got the gun broke down now, and can see nothing unusual anywhere. Since it’s apart, I’ll take the BCG apart and clean, but I don’t expect to find anything inside. I fired another 30 rounds after the one that caused this malfunction after I took the upper off and checked for any more debris without issue.
Loose primer pockets are not uncommon with reloaded ammunition. I come across them often and discard them when I do. With an operation the size of FM it’s unlikely they will find them and remove them from supply. There’s no way to know how many times that brass was loaded given their exchange program. That’s why you use that ammo for training only. It’s a pain in the ass sometimes but you clear it and move ahead (like you did).
if you look at the live round in the picture you can see that the military crimp has been swaged out a little too much. they are probably using dillon 1050’s it is very easy to set the swaging rod to high, which causes slightly loose primer pockets. if you keep the speeds around 2,950ish fps with 55gn pills and common powders out of a 20 inch then blown primers on swaged brass are pretty easy to avoid.
Same thing happened to me with reloads, using fired Federal brass. I tried butt striking the ground with the collapsible stock closed, while pulling on the charging handle, but no go. Then I tried one attempt with a cleaning rod and a pile of patches over the bolt, but again no go. I decided I didn’t want to damage the cleaning rod and put the gun away to work on when I got home, and shot some other stuff.
Funny thing was, when I got home and put the butt stock on the ground while leaning the gun it up against my bench, the bolt slammed home on its own and a spent primer fell out of the mag well onto the floor. No force what so ever on placing the gun down, and the floor was carpeted! After this experience I gave away all the Federal fired brass I had, after a friend and I both experienced primer pocket issues on several occasions.
A good way to tell if it was high pressure it to get the brass with the primer blown out and look for an ejector swipe on the case head. Blown primers and head swipes go hand in hand when it’s a pressure issue.
I looked for at least a good 15 minutes for that empty before I fired any more rounds. It was in a rock pit with little to no vegetation, and I still couldn’t find it. I even looked in ridiculous places and could not find it. It’s an hour’s drive from here, so it will be a while before I get up there again. Would the ejection pattern have been so radical as to go somewhere unthinkable? Distance or direction? All the brass I fired afterwards went into a neat little area. Same place I started my search for that first round.
There is some chance that the blown primer cup was in your gun from a previous shooting session, just waiting to end up in the wrong place. So maybe the brass with missing primer is long gone.
You can only feel it when handloading your ammo. Some presses give you a feel for it. I hand prime so I can cull any loosies and put them in a separate batch to be fired and then recycled.
Never got email notification that there were more replies. I don’t hand load. I want to. I have all the equipment I need/want chosen, it’s just that I can not find any powder, so I have not purchased anything yet. However, I’m pretty sure I’ll stick to factory ammo for rifle. If and when the powder situation ever rectifies itself, I’ll start off with .357 Magnum, then .45 ACP.
What are the chances that primer cup was already in there from a previous outing?
This is one reason I’ve avoided reman ammo. I bought a 100rd bag once at a gun show from a local vendor, and the first round didn’t even fire. Tossed the whole bag aside.
Sometimes its not worth the miniature savings. I’d rather shoot Wolf/Tula which I hardly had issues with for range/training.
I’ve shot thousands of Freedom Munitions Reman ammo with zero problems. Every manufacture lets a bad round out the door once in a while. Freedom Munitions is not the same as what you probably picked up at a gun show. I would only shoot reman ammo from a well known large manufacture, which FM is. Read the links in post #12 of this thread. They are short easy reads.
Is FM the most accurate ammo out there. No. Is it good range ammo? Absolutely. If I can consistently ring a 10-inch steel plate with iron sights on my AR, I’m fine with it. This incident does nothing to dampen my satisfaction with FM ammo, nor is this thread supposed to be about the ammo manufacture. It is about what happened to the one round I had this malfunction with.
I don’t know what you were looking at, but right now, the 55 grain .223 reman I was shooting is 28 cents per round before shipping. They offer an awful lot of stuff in .223 alone at different prices, both new and reman. Not much in 5.56 right now, but it looks like 32 cents per round for new FMJ 5.56 M-193 55 gr Box of 1000 before shipping.
Second round, all I got was a click as the hammer struck the BCG. Nothing sounded or felt unusual when the round went off. When I looked, what you see in the second photo is what I saw. I didn’t take a photo at the time, so I recreated what I saw for the photo. The BCG had picked up the next round, but stopped at the position you see in the first photo
