So I put together my first AR from scratch. It consists of a Daniel Defense upper with the forward assist, DD lower, DD bolt assembly, and DD charge handle. Did I mention it’s all from Daniel Defense…
The problem is that it seems to not function smoothly at all. I have not had the chance to shoot it yet, I just put it together last night. But it seems like it needs an extreme amount of force to pull the bolt back due to the charge handle dragging and the bolt itself dragging along the slides in the upper. I lubed it up a bit and it still seems to drag and grind and just funtion very poorly…again this is only doing function tests, not shooting.
I pulled the bolt back against an empty mag and it set open as it should, and I pushed the charge handle into the secure, locked position. Pushing the blot release sent to bolt slamming home as it should as well. Didn’t have any hiccups there.
I know it is not the buffer spring causing a heavy pull because I even opened the gun and pulling the chrage handle and bolt out against no spring at all gives me the same undesirable feeling of all that metal sliding and grinding.
Is this just because it is new and needs to be broken in? Will it loosen up once I do run some ammo through her? Does it need more lube? Are these common issues I’m experiencing?
Every new AR I have ever encountered feels gritty when new. Only exception would be the KAC guns. Lube it and put a few hundred rds down range. It should feel smooth after that.
The drag may be happening in the receiver extension instead of the upper. Check the leading edge of the RE adjacent to where it nestles with the buffer/spring catch within the RE threads of the lower, see if the trailing edge/body of the BCG is rubbing with that.
Just sayin’. May not be readily apparent, since you have 0 miles on the odometer. Point being that it could be dragging in any number of places, and it won’t become clear if it’s actual dragging until you have some beans down the bore. I have a lower that did that, so it sticks in my head. Thing’s fine now. MORE than fine…
Lube the dogsnot out of it and shoot it. 2 in the mag, only, at first making sure the trigger fires semi-only. Once you’ve done that 5-10 times, do whatever your firing schedule happens to be, say up to 300 rounds; wouldn’t go beyond that, yet. If the thing seizes up somewhere in the middle of all that, take appropriate actions to ensure safety of personnel and prevent outright damage to equipment, in that order.
If it doesn’t seize up, drag it home once done, give it an internal wipedown, re-lube, function check. See what may have changed.
If it functions fine and smoothes out, onthebus-offthebus sign of the cross, go forth and be fruitful.
If it doesn’t smooth out in spite of overall functioning fine, you’ll now have wear areas to look for and can go from there.
You haven’t even shot it yet and yet you are posting you have a potential problem. In addition you haven’t contacted Daniel Defense either in accordance with the site rules. So…it’s locked for now.