Although I’ve been handloading shotshells, pistol and rifle for about 18 years, I hadn’t done ammo for the “black rifles” till recently. Initially I was frustrated by the expander function of my RCBS small base sizer die: so I finally got a Redding with the carbide expander ball. Boy, did that make my life easier.
My next frustration was with the bullets I am using, Hornady 60 gr. HPs. I was occasionally getting cartridges firmly jammed in the action such that it was extremely difficult to pull back the CH to get them out. This happened in both of my ARs, an ST middie & a Stag Mdl. 1. At the time I was using an OAL of 2.255; so I changed the OAL to 2.240, and surprise, no more jamming issues (best guess is at the longer length the cartridges were sometimes jammed in the rifiling).
Thought I’d share my experiences with the group with the hope that someone else who is frustrated might also find light at the end of the tunnel. WB
Check your brass length (may need trimming) and shoulder height on the brass you resize. You can examine factory ammo brass shot through your gun (it fire forms closely to the dimensions of your chamber) and make sure the shoulder on your reloads isn’t taller than on the fired brass.
I set up my sizing die per Hornady instructions but it sized to the
Max of the specification and my chamber was at the
Min. Of the spec. For shoulder height. It still shot , but I could barely eject unfired rounds . The bolt carrier momentum could cram the round in, but it wedged in tight and was hard to remove until fired. Hornady makes a great headspace tool to measure fired brass and newly resized brass to check this. I learned to reload on 223 on a progressive and talk about a frustrating learning curve! Hope this helps somebody else.
Thanks for the replies, guys. Both uppers are stated to have 5.56 chambered barrels (Spikes and Stag). I trim my cases to 1.750. Not sure about the case shoulder issue; but if the problem doesn’t occur anymore, I’m not going to worry about it. WB
It’s unlikely your bullets are reaching the rifling - load up a dummy (no primer) at 2.270" or even longer, and chamber. See if there are rifling indentations on the bullet- not likely even at longer length with a 5.56 chamber.
More than likely your sizing die is not set properly and/or not sizing enough for some reason - this can be compounded if you are using mixed brass. A chamber check gauge will tell you what’s happening. Check a large sample and also anything that has stuck.
Failure to trim excessively long brass could also be a possible.
I am FL sizing all of my brass and then trimming to 1.750. Since I switched to a cartridge oal of 2.240, the problem hasn’t occurred. So I think I’m gtg now. Thanks for all of the advice. WB
I hope you are right but I don’t see how OAL could affect it. In a true 5.56 chamber, your bullets won’t be anywhere near the rifling even at max magazine length OAL. Let us know if it happens again. Just for curiousity’s sake, were the extraction problems on removing unfired rounds, or rounds you have fired?
I think it was a problem with your sizing. I made a batch of 75gr rounds using Hornady brass. I must have messed something up because 3-4 of 40 of them required me to motar the rifle to remove the rounds. THe didnt chamber all the way so they could be fired, but I couldnt physically pull the charging handle back.
Example: I’m processing a large batch of brand new LC brass right now, including running it through a sizer die / expander ball to true up the case necks. Using the die set up for my IMI brass, the LC was being excessively sized. Fortunately I have a spare sizer die - it’s now sitting in it’s own pew in my turret press.
I bought RCBS Micrometer Headspace Tool to measure my chamber when I had some unloading (live round) problem with my Rainier Ultramatch. I found out that the chamber was quite tight, and in fact records at -.001 with the gage. It required me to overcam the F/L die to about 1/8 turn more after it hits the ram. Problem went away.
It’s really not that unusual and can possibly be accounted for by the differences in case thickness, or hardness or relative spring back of different brands of cases. It’s relatively small, but was easy to see in this case.
I try to size just enough to give me 100% reliability, but no more.
Lube is Hornady One Shot. I like it over the Dillon lube because it does not dent the shoulders if I lay it on fairly thick (which I do).
The sizers are both RCBS (not carbide); the temporary setting on the #2 sizer is not quite touching the ram. I’ll have to adjust it down after the factory new LC cases have been fired.
WB