I had this happen to me thrice in the past few range sessions.
I would finish a string of fire and come time to clear the chamber I would find the charging handle impossible to pull back.
First time it happened I checked to see if the bolt was fully seated and simply fired off the chambered round. Bullet impact same as previous rounds, shot sounded and felt the same, empty shell extracted and ejected normally.
Second and 3rd time it happened I persisted in trying to clear the chamber and had to resort to lightly mortaring the rifle on the deck to eject the chambered round.
Rifle and action operate normally before and after this happens. No FTFs, FTEs.
It has occurred about once per range session of about a hundred to 150 rounds per session.
Rifle including barrel is cleaned after every range session or two max.
Ammo is a mix of 55gr reloads and surplus M193. Have not been able to isolate it to any particular ammo.
Rifle has a 12.5" White Oak 1:7 twist stainless steel barrel with Wylde chamber, Spikes Tactical BCG with hard chromed bolt, standard carbine spring, and 9mm buffer.
Last time it happened I was running suppressed, not sure if I had the suppressor on the first two times it happened.
Your ammo or chamber is out of spec. Ammo that’s not headspaced down correctly will do this… OR… in spec ammo will do this if the headspace on the gun is incorrect. (too “short”).
Rifle has a a Colt M16 lower, Colt LPK, KNS pins, Magpul BAD lever, standard carbine spring and 9mm buffer, Spikes upper receiver, Spikes full auto BCG with hard chromed bolt, BCM Gunfighter model 3 CH., and WOA 12.5" 1:7 barrel with Wylde chamber.
Hmm, would it be possible for headspace to be off so much that the bullet starts to engage the rifling?
The marks seemed a bit excessive to me, there were definitely more marks than a normally chambered and ejected round but did not really look to well into it.
Nope. The lands of the rifling won’t touch the ogive of the bullet. A 55 grain bullets bearing surface is all inthe case neck and can’t engage the rifling enough to jam up that tight. If this were going on, your case mouths would be getting jammed into the rifling not the bullet. Also… if this were possible, you’d likely pull the bullet out of the casemouth since you’re mortaring the gun to get the round out.
You’d be surpised at how little a resizing die can be out of adjustment and still stick the round into your chamber. A reloading headspace guage will tell you if the ammo is jookie. The guage is basically a chamber with min/max on headspace and case length. A handy tool even if you don’t reload.
You cleaned the bore, but is your chamber clean? Most of us overlook the chamber when cleaning ARs. I’ve had this happen to me before on my service M4 and also personal ARs. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, as long as the rifle is functioning normally otherwise. When a round gets slammed into a tight chamber with a little carbon and grime in the mix, sometimes it just needs a little extra help extracting to clear.
I see. Thanks for clearing that up markm, that’s a practical co-relation of headspace and effect on operation of the AR platform I had not known about previously. With this in mind I believe my problem is probably ammo - related, as in running into the occasional slightly out-of-spec round.
Yes, that’s a 9mm AR buffer. I did not have any H-buffers on-hand at the time I assembled the lower and just used this. They are about equivalent to an H3 in weight IIRC. Have not swapped it out since it runs OK.
Yup, I clean out the chamber when cleaning the bore.
But your experience seems applicable to me, I believe the times it happened I was running suppressed, and at least once there was some full auto bursts involved. I get a lot of gas blowback suppressed and I remember the problem cartridges were pretty gunked up with carbon from the blowback. I now believe a bit of extra fouling combined with the occasional slightly out of spec round probably caused it to be a bit harder to manually extract than usual. Gun runs perfectly fine, no malfs.
Thanks all for the insight, I welcome any more you all might have on this.
I would drop a good sample of your ammo into a case gauge and see if some of the cases are too long at the shoulder, or too fat at the web. Could be a case of needing a small base die to work in that chamber or just a sizer die that’s not screwed down enough.
Measuring your fired and unfired cases just above the web might tell you something also.
Every time I start processing a batch of brass, a few get dropped into a case gauge. I caught myself running fired brass through a die I have backed out some (to just reform the necks on brand new factory brass), just today.
Good point on the case gauge. I dont reload for 5.56 so I never thought to get one. Now I have an excuse and will be getting one and run my ammo through it. Thanks guys!!
A buddy of mine has a WO match barrel. I’m pretty sure he said something about sticky case problems with his reloads when he first got it.
FWIW, I have some factory TAP .223 ammo that run fine in my 18" Noveske SS barrel, but can be sticky when ejecting a live round. I found a few that ran slightly oversize in my case gauge. I used one of those as my guide when setting up my sizer die. Even flush with the top of the gauge works 100% in my barrels. I size to just below that level.
