At Woodbury ODNR range zeroing my LMT MWS at 200 yards. Using Hornady Match 308 WIN 168 grain A-Max. The LMT MWS has an SSA-E trigger and I installed the 18" stainless barrel. The rifle was purchased in April 2013. Fired five rounds, removed magazine, loaded 5 rounds into magazine, inserted magazine. Released charging handle and fired 4 rounds. 5th round did not fire. Tried to pull back charging handle to clear weapon and couldn’t. Kept muzzle pointed down range an bumped the stock against the shooting bench. Tried several more times and finally got the charging handle to move. Removed live round. Ended session for the LMT MWS. No worries, zeroed my Remington 700 AAC (Timney trigger, McMillan stock and APA DBM with WC muzzle brake). Accurate 20".
Stopped to talk to a gunsmith on the way home and he asked that I bring the rifle in to him latter this week. Got home and searched this forum and found a lot of good information. Decided to remove the Bolt carrier but it was stuck again. Hit stock on floor and heard click - now I am able to remove the charging handle and bolt carrier group. As I removed them a piece of brass colored material fell on the carpet - yep, blown primer on round 4. Bolt carrier cycles as it should. Would never have thought it would be a blown primer using the Hornady Match ammunition.
Thank you members of M4Carbine for all the good information in your posts.
Ammunition is Hornady Match 168 grain A-Max, not Superformance. 10 rounds from the same box, 2 fired rounds with empty primer pockets and a mangled primer on its way to Hornady for testing. Replaced 18" barrel with 16" and plan to take to the range on Wednesday and test the ammunition. I’ve fired a few 100 rounds of the A-Max through the 16" and do not expect problems. We will see.
Yes. LMT MWS 18" SS barrel. Spoke to one representative from LMT and they said it is the ammunition. Told me to take the rifle out and try different ammunition to see if the problem continues - I don’t like this approach since I had a stuck BCG with a live round chambered that was difficult to clear. They also made a comment about the Wilson Combat muzzle brake possibly contributing to the problem. After I get the results from Hornady and test rounds from the same Lot# in the 16" barrel, I will have a more definitive answer as to whether the barrel is suspect. I also wrote an e-mail to LMT about the directions I received from them and they have asked me to call and discuss it further - tomorrow I will.
I fired 70 rounds from the same Lot# through the 16" barrel without problems. Barrel returned to LMT 6 Apr 15, they provided for shipping. Waiting for the results.
I had something similar with my BCG. When releasing the BCG it would slam home and go into battery. However, when I tried to pull it back with the charging handle it was very difficult to pull back. When I removed the BCG from the weapon and tried to push the bolt into the BC by hand it was very difficult. Also very difficult to pull it back out. I called LMT and explained what was happening and they told me to send my BCG back to them. Once they reviewed the BCG they came to the conclusion that the channel the bolt fit into was out of spec and a bit too tight. They ended up replacing the bolt carrier.
Received replacement barrel from LMT today. New barrel is .003" longer in the throat and they hope this will resolve the issue. Won’t get to the range until next Wednesday, then; hopefully, I’ll find the new barrel solves the problem.