Bad ammo

[bushym4a1]

had a bad experience yesterday with some .223 ammo i would like to share with you all:

yesterday i went to the local gun range in Lafayette and was shooting some American Eagle .223 55gr fmj. it was the bulk stuff you buy in 200rd boxes, and inside the 200rd box is 2 100rd white boxes... anyway, shot 3 rounds and noticed my bolt didn't seat all the way forward. I gave the forward assist a good shove, no movement. so i went to clear the chamber, and upon pulling the charging handle, the bolt didn't budge. it was basically stuck in that un-seated position. so i had a live round in the chamber, can't put it on safe, and i couldn't break the weapon apart cause some of the bolt was still in the buffer tube. after some careful jerking on the charging handle back and forth, i was able to lock the bolt back. the round was not fully seated either and their was a piece of brass, about 1cmx1cm hung up in the star chamber . my speculation is the brass was jamming everything up, not allowing any movement. i could not locate the casing i had shot before to see if it was blown to bits.
the drama doesn't end here. same thing happened again, but this time, the piece of brass was visible while the round was in the chamber and it was a longer piece this time, kind of coiled up like a snail shell. i didn't have my multi tool on me so i tried using the tip of a bullet to pull the round out by the rim. with little downward pressure prying the round out, it bent the bullet and stretched the neck of the casing on the round i was using to pry it out. it was as if the projectile was not even seated securely in the neck of the brass. i eventually got the half way chambered round out with a screw driver.
All that being said, i am through shooting this crappy ammo. my weapon was mil-spec clean before the range so i don't think it was some sort of malfunction on my part. And I was shooting a POF with pmags, so i don't think it was the weapon either.

this is the SOB culprit: http://www.natchezss.com/product.cfm?contentID=productDetail&prodID=FAAEBP223B&src=BLG0205

 

[dwr461]

I read your post three times. I still can't tell exactly what happened. I have two AR15's. What's a "star chamber?"

I held a metric ruler up to the screen and hit the number one key until it was 1 cm in length. I did this b/c I work in the medical field and am continually amazed that people have no idea how long a cm is. If you had a 1 cm x 1 cm piece of brass in a "star chamber" that would be a pretty big piece of brass. It's slightly long. If you remove the serif points from the first and last "1" than it's right on the money.

Did you find any brass missing from the brass cased ammo?

11111

Dave

 

[JWG223]

I read your post three times. I still can't tell exactly what happened. I have two AR15's. What's a "star chamber?"

I held a metric ruler up to the screen and hit the number one key until it was 1 cm in length. I did this b/c I work in the medical field and am continually amazed that people have no idea how long a cm is. If you had a 1 cm x 1 cm piece of brass in a "star chamber" that would be a pretty big piece of brass. It's slightly long. If you remove the serif points from the first and last "1" than it's right on the money.

Did you find any brass missing from the brass cased ammo?

11111

Dave

2.54 of them go into an inch, or something like that IIRC. However, ACTUALLY SEEING 1 cm on my screen was an eye-opener. I always related stuff to currency, or common objects, although they now tell us that wounds are to ONLY be described by their metric measurements.

I'm not sure what OP is describing, either. Pictures! When I have a malfunction I usually set the weapon down in a safe manner and take as many pictures as I can, unless I KNOW! what occurred for fact. Later I can study the situation in the comfort of my hope, analyze the failure, and make modification if necessary, or if I don't get it, post online.

Short of that, can you take a picture of the chamber and using MS Paint create a crude rendition of the brass/it's location?

 

[bushym4a1]

http://www.gandrtactical.com/images/archive/Chamber stars/Clean chamber.JPG
that's what i was referring to as the star chamber. and it may have been smaller than 1cmx1cm... to relate it something practical, about the size of abe lincolns head on a penny! i guess about 111
and no, i couldn't find the casing that would have been responsible for leaving brass behind. there was just to much brass on the ground to sort through.
but bottom line, it happned twice within 10rds fire. no bueno!!!

 

[dwr461]

I agree with you JWG223 and recommend never using the forward assist on an AR15. It's a politician's type solution to a problem. If by the third round on a clean AR15 you can't get it to chamber. STOP! Forcing the bolt closed could be making a nice explosive device for you.


I have a Paratool for work. It has a metric/english ruler engraved into it. I would pull it out and hold it up to a wound to get a better idea. I did this after a discussion with an ER Doc where I was mistaken in the length of a cm. I hate to do things wrong and imprecision annoys me. So I took steps to correct it.
Dave

 

[dwr461]

Wow, that's still a pretty big piece of metal.

Those star shaped metal projections are the locking lugs for the bolt. Now what was the deal with the coiled up piece of metal?

Dave

 

[bushym4a1]

i used to forward assist only once to seat the bolt forward. its a habit from having the army's m4 malfunction acronym SPORTS instilled on me: Slap, Pull, Observe, Release, Tap (forward assist), Shoot. granted i had to skip the pull, observe, release step since. also, i blame the army on my use of the "starchamber" term!
anyways, i can't figure out were these pieces of brass were coming from as i couldn't find the previously fired brass. i should have taken pictures, as it is difficult to really paint you a picture of what happned. but ill elaborate furthur:

the first time it happned, as stated, the bolt wasn't seated all the way and i couldnt pull the chraging handle back nor could i move the bolt forward. upon finally working the charging handle rearward, the round ejected and there was a small piece of brass was stuck between the locking lugs and the chamber. it shoock free once the round was out
the second time, same scenario but once i got the bolt locked rearword i could see a coiled up piece of brass, this time in between the 2 locking lugs wedging the unseated round stuck. i tryed my hardest to find that coiled piece but it fell to the ground and was never located.

i still have like 70rds of this stuff. as much as i would like to further elaborate by shooting some more of it and repeating the malfunction, i can't bring myself to delibretly cause malfunctions.
later that evening, i shot some steelcased monarchs... no problems whats so ever

 

[dwr461]

Hmm, yeah I remember that SPORTS thing now that you say it. We might've called it a star chamber. It was Pa Nat Guard in the 1980's. I don't remember anymore. That's unimportant anyway. Different terms for the same part of the rifle. No big deal. I know enough to operate an AR15 and assemble a kit to build one. However we have some people on here that are armorers for the AR15. I hope now that the problem is a little more clear they'll weigh in on the subject.

For future reference always try to find the brass that the foreign metal come from where possible. It makes figuring out what happened much easier. If there's a problem with the rifle steel cased ammo might hide it b/c it's a lot harder to get a chunk off of than brass in the weapon. (i.e. steel versus steel / brass versus steel) However I'm not expert enough to make a guess on what happened.


Good luck. I'm glad you didn't get hurt.

Dave

 

[SGT_Kramer]

for it to peal the brass like that to create a coil it would have been pulled against a sharp steal area. hmm I'd check the lips real well on the mag to make sure don't have a burr or something that could drag across the round to create that type of brass shaving. that ammo is pretty decent stuff for target shooting usally but to get a bad batch would not be a surprise. you could try to take some empty cases and run them through to try and get it to recreate the senerio to find out for sure it you have a area draging aross the round at some point. I would really need to inspect the chamer area and the magazine to rule out problems.

 

[SpeedRacer]

Bad ammo won't just "shed" brass like that. I agree with SGT, something was scraping the casing. Check your mags, chamber and locking lugs for any burrs. If you don't find anything, next time out bring multiple mags and types of ammo to verify before you start blaming the ammo.

 

[bushym4a1]

ill try more ammo i suppose. like i said, i was using pmags, but maybe a locking lug or chamber is out of wack... I really hope not though. the day prior (friday) i shot same the same ammo, but from individual boxes of 20, Not the 200rd stuff, and it shot fine. zero problems!