Has anyone else ever had a piece of brass break off in the chamber and jam up not wanting to come out of the rifle? I was at my local range tonight shooting summit soft point 5.56mm ammo, and had a stoppage.
I immediately inspected the chamber and saw what appeared to be a double feed, the bolt was very hard to pull back, but I was eventually able to do so after ripping the magazine from the magazine well. I racked the bolt back several times and thought I saw an empty chamber.
I then re inserted a fresh magazine, and the bolt wouldn’t go forward all the way re jamming the weapon into a strange double feed. Finally after several attempts to clear it I saw a small piece off brass seemingly hooked onto the front side of the bolt. It fell out of the bottom of the magazine well and the rifle seemed fine thereafter, I inspected the chamber and bore and the rifle seemed fine.
I then shot two rounds through the rifle to see if it would fire, they both fed, fired, cycled the weapon and ejected just fine. I have since field stripped the rifle, inspected and cleaned the bcg, charging handle, and the chamber, and all seems fine.
I had an experience recently with a 458 Win mag where the necks of the cases were tearing off and evidently going downrange. I have seen cases break in the body leaving part of the body, the shoulder and neck in the chamber. I keep broken shell extractors in my toolbox for that. I have seen rims ripped off. Yeah, cases can break into pieces, those pieces can cause a stoppage. I have learned, when I have an unexpected stoppage to stop shooting, carefully study the problem and make a thorough effort to find and correct the cause. That is with the first failure, not after the second or third failure or after some cursory effort at jam clearance.
It happens from time to tome with 5.56, especially in M249s and brass reloaded from M249 spent cartridges. Have also seen it in 240s.
They’re the reason that torn case extractors exist.
I thought this was an odd place to break, it broke off on the body of the brass a little bit shorter then a 9mm casing and it was strange how it was stuck to the front of the bolt face dragging along the top of the chamber and impeding the movement of the bcg.
Thank you jack, I have somehow never managed to have this happen before, even though I have been using the M4/M16/AR platform for 8 years! Maybe it is just this ammo?
This sort of failure used to be pretty common with US made ammunition, say prior to 1950. Along and along the ammo companies have learned a lot and now these failures are rare to non-existent. Over the last couple of years I have seen “9mm” cases on the rifle range which on closer examination turned out to be just what you are showing here. I did not recognize the head stamps and assumed they were foreign made off brand stuff. This specific kind of failure is not particularly hazardous however such ammo may be more likely to produce dangerous splits like “j splits” which are parallel to the bore and closer to the head or through he head.
Ain’t no maybe to it. It’s the ammo. That’s a fact. Whether you continue to shoot this ammo depends a lot on how lucky you feel.
Tim, yeah I was pretty certain that the malfunction was cleared, seeing as a visual inspection of the chamber and bore looked fine but the piece of brass was tucked up in the extractor… I found that out when I sent the bolt forward making it re stuck.
I only shot those last two rounds after taking it all the way down and making sure it was intact just to diagnose the problem.
I know it is the ammo, but what I was saying was I’m not sure if it’s just that one bad round or if it is summit in general, I just use them at my local indoor range because you can only shoot soft tip there. When I am anywhere else I well reviewed FMJ ammo.
That failure is much more common than most would think. In one batch of ammo to a LE customer, one reloader had a ~10% failure rate due to use and reuse of the MG brass F2S references. Stack tolerances in other reloaded cases and it occurs as well.
Classic “broken case”. It also happens when brass is reloaded too many times, (Federal brass seems to be the worst), or loaded too hot. What is the brand of the case?
Less likely, but a possible is a head-space issue.
Yep. Case separation. Keep shooting that ammo and your likely to have another incident. Have enough incidents of that nature and the escaping gasses will etch a line in your chamber
And stick it in your range bag.
Broken shells happen for a myriad of reasons. Usually due to worn/improper brass or excessive headspace/improper chamber dimensions. Pretty much the same causes as stuck cases (which is not remarkable, as a broken shell can simply be a different result of the same root problem).
case head seperations can also be a sign of excessive head space. so everyone who thinks you can just slap any bcg into any upper and not concern your self with head space would be wrong.
Measure headspace, and this may take more than a Go/No-go set, it will certainly take some experience.
Or;
Try it with something factory-new ammo. WW, Fed, Rem. (If you can get any, these days) If it doesn’t create case separations with that, ammo is the problem, you got a dodgy batch of reloads.
If it does, headspace is the problem, and no amount of bolt-swapping will do. Swapping bolts is going to gain or lose you a few thousandths, assuming you’ve got decent parts to start with.
Case separations, with factory-new good ammo, don’t happen unless you’re tens of thousandths off-spec. No bolt will help, you’ll need a new barrel.
I am really hoping it’s the PMC. I’ve had no problems with various surplus I’ve fed it. I’m gonna pour a couple of hundred rounds of various types through it next weekend to see what happens.
