I’ve always believed my rifle to be reliable, but today I was re-zeroing with Wolf Gold and got two failures to extract in 40 rounds. The rifle is a 16" Centurion mid-length with BRT 0.076" insert, A5H2 and mil-spec rifle spring. Both times, the empty case was only halfway out of the barrel extension and the fresh round jammed next to it.
What’s troubles me is that the BCG is relatively new, with less than 300 rounds through it, and I put a BCM extractor spring with black insert in it not long ago. Is this early fatigue of the extractor spring or something else? I expected the BCG to go at least 5k rounds before spring replacement. Is that unrealistic?
Below are photos of three extractors, the middle one is the one giving me trouble. The left one is from a Sharps Relia-bolt and the right one is from a Colt LE6920, both with under 200 rounds.
If there’s nothing obvious with the extractor or spring, all I can do is replace with another BCM extractor spring and black insert. Without identifying the cause of failure, it’ll take some $$ of ammo to restore my confidence.
Come on, guys. The BCM extractor spring is a known and proven quantity. I’ll have to take a closer look at the chamber but the rifle only has about 500 rounds since the last thorough cleaning. In hindsight, I should’ve saved my empty brass but I was in a hurry to get my zeros on two rifles during a lunch break.
This rifle hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned since we had our first born mid-last year. I run a bore snake through it after each range trip and lightly lube it before a session. I did shoot 40 rounds of steel cased ammo last month just for kicks, but the rifle is tuned to run on PMC Bronze at minimum.
Again, my concern is I didn’t expect the rifle to malfunction even if slightly dirty.
The problem you’re describing is caused by a weak extractor spring or weak ejection. More often, the cause is a weak extractor spring.
If your chamber is dirty enough to cause the problems you’re having, you have a weak extractor spring. I’ve seen people have problems with BCM extractor springs. Try one of your other bolts. If the other bolts are working well in their ARs, I bet they’ll work well in your problem child.
Thanks for walking me through your logic. I see what you’re saying and I think I’m just going to swap to a new extractor spring/insert without cleaning the chamber to see if the problem goes away. If it runs, then it was most likely an early extractor spring failure. If it still malfunctions then I will suspect the extractor and start working through that.
Lacquered cases have ZERO to do with anything. Steel cased ammo, whether lacquer or polymer coated, simply allows more carbon blow-by into the chamber during firing because it doesn’t expand like brass cased stuff. So when you switch back to brass cased ammo, it can sometimes get stuck when it expands due to the carbon residue allowed into the chamber by the steel cased ammo. It’s happened to me, and @MistWolf is correct in that a stronger spring usually corrects it. But so does a chamber cleaning.
Alright, I replaced the extractor spring/insert and lubed up the BCG without cleaning anything and put everything back together. I’ll see if the malfunction comes back in a couple hundred rounds. If not, I’ll put back the old spring and the FTEs should come back.
The left spring is a brand new one before installation. The middle one is the suspect spring that’s taken a set after installation and under 300 rounds fired. The right one is the stock spring/o-ring (no insert) that came in the C4 BCG.
Here’s what the chamber looks like. There was a loose piece of brass shaving that I was able to blow out with my mouth. I don’t think that had anything to do with the FTEs because the last rounds fired in my shooting session didn’t malfunction.
Shot 120 rounds after replacing old BCM extractor spring with new BCM extractor spring and didn’t have the failures. I’ll keep a round count and move on.
Your bolt face might be too big or the extractor recess cut in bolt isn’t deep enough or the extractor hinge pin hole is drilled too far out of bolt body an extractor no matter how good or not the extractor might be, it might not be able to get in position for the claw fully envelop the rim. Try this, with BCG removed from rifle use good fired case, roll case in bolt mouth by having rim under extractor then roll case in to be inline with bolt compressing the ejector spring then when case is fully in bolt face push and wriggle case directly away from extractor and look how much of claw is enveloping the rim should lose hardly any engagement when you push case away from extractor inside bolt face. When the case is in bolt face it shouldn’t have hardly any slop for it to move away from the extractor and the extractor should be fully enveloped on rim to point the recess on extractor itself for the very outer edge of the rim is what stopping extractor from going further onto the rim. The angle of inside the claw should be flat with the rim or on aggressive side where it the very edge of tip width of the claw is touching inner of rim and as you go into back inner claw it depart pressure or contact from rim slightly. It should not be opposite of aggressive engagement where it’s sloped on rim that tip isnt touching the inner rim and as you go along to backside into the inner back of claw it starts to contact outer edge area of case rim. Will make illustration if requested.
