AR7 feeding issues.

darkminstrel · Jul 6, 2009

A while back I picked up an AR7 and just got to shoot it last week. The rifle didn't come with mags, and had sat in the previous owner's closet for 10 years or so. I ordered a couple 10 round repro mags and have had a ton of feeding problems with it. It seems like the magazine isn't sitting high enough up in the well, but on disassembly and test fitting it is in the right place at the right time.

I'm going to give the internals the cleaning of a lifetime, but I don't think this is going to help. I've only handled two of these so far, and the first one was back when I was 6 so I can't attest to any difference of form.

Is it cheap mags? Do I have to polish a 'feed ramp' into the back of the barrel?

Help!

Kaltbluter · Jul 6, 2009

I have an ar7 pistol that has similar feed problems. I put a narrow (about .06") spacer between the barrel and receiver to give the round a little more room to get into position. It didn't fix it 100%. Now instead of failing to feed every other round it stove pipes about every 5th.

I will post some pics for illustration when I get home tonight.

Kaltbluter · Jul 6, 2009

As promised, a little more info and pictures.

Here is the AR-7.

And this shows the type of malf I was having. The bullet would reliably catch on the bottom edge of the bore. I considered taking a dremel to it and making a tiny feed ramp, I still might.

These are the spacers that I made. Thicknesses are .045", .060" and .075". The .060" seems to work the best. Putting the spacer in gives the round a little more room to tilt up enough to enter the bore.

This last picture shows the spacer on the back of the barrel.

Hope this helps out a bit.

darkminstrel · Jul 6, 2009

Well I'm jealous! After doing a bit more internet research I've found that the best fixes are to cut and polish a feed ramp into the breech, as you said, as well as clean the rifle religiously, AND to remove the firing pin and polish it so that it moves more freely. All of that is said to make the rifle nearly jamless. Now there is the issue of aftermarket mags being of questionable quality, with the RamLine being the tried and true of them. But those things are upwards of $80 on gunbroker!

Kaltbluter · Jul 7, 2009

darkminstrel said:
...RamLine...those things are upwards of $80 on gunbroker!

Holy Crap!

A buy it now price of $225?!? At least no one is bidding.

I think I have two of those, maybe I should sell them and buy that <broken link removed> I've been eyeing.

darkminstrel · Jul 8, 2009

I've seen a guy on gunbroker selling 15 round mags that are 'defective' for a while. I guess he picked up a crap run of them a while back and sells them as u-fix-ums. ****, I'm still trying to get my 10 rounders to work. I'm thinking that I should just stick with the stock 8 round mags untill I work out the kinks.

luther8413 · Jul 16, 2009

On my AR-7 (Charter Arms vintage) I found I had a lot of front to back play at the bottom of the magazine. I realized if I kept the bottom of the magazine pushed toward the business end of the rifle it seemed to load fine when I manually operated the bolt. The angle of entry of the bullet was apparently off by a few degrees. I experimented by placing a tie wrap at the bottom of the magazine to act as a spacer between it and the trigger guard. It worked like a charm. I epoxied a small piece of aluminum to the trigger guard which worked well for about 200 rounds until it fell off. I've currently built up a spacer on the trigger guard using a couple of layers of epoxy. My guess is that will work. In my mind it beats tooling the barrel.