AR-15 (I have to keep mortaring to get rounds out)

[Member 5605]

So yeah..

Nearly new Palmetto built upper, PSA lower that I assembled.




Dillon case gauge.
No evidence that the shoulder OR body is wedging in the chamber.

The round drops free from case gauge AND chamber. Case gauge is a true free I turn over and out it comes. Chamber it needs a gentle tap on the side of the upper.

Anyway, I can take bolt carrier all assembled minus firing pin, drop a round in a mag and let it go home. Upon trying to eject the unspent round it won't release.

Last night I went out for Yotes and ended up needing to use my Henry due to this issue. First round in I wanted to check for function before shooting and it wouldn't eject.

Bullet info:
Hand loads with 55gr soft points. Cases trimmed to spec, sized in a RCBS small base die. Shell holder hits base of die when sizing. Full length.

I cannot for the life of me figure out what's causing the issue.

When chamber is empty the bolt opens and closes perfectly. No problems whatsoever. Add a round and all hell breaks loose.

I've swapped BCG's from my other rifle and same issue. Same thing in other rifle as well.

Damnit..

As I've been writing this I was going different things trying to find a solution.

I cracked open a 1/2 case I had lying around for emergencies and a 5.56 round chambered and ejected fine.


I mean what the hell? It's not like this is my first rodeo...

Gun or hand load issue?
As a side note on the dies:
I can get cases stuck very easily inside this die if there is too much lube or the obvious not enough. In 250 rounds I've had 4. I re examined the die to shell holder and I could lower the die more but currently they touch and slight upward pressure is exerted and the arm doesn't max out at the top when raised against. 0 gap between. Probably -.05 or more.

Your thoughts?

Read More

 

[BillM]

Coat a round with a sharpie. All of it--including the bullet. Chamber and eject.
Look for the shiny spots. I SUSPECT you may have a barrel with a short leade.
Had one like that myself. Worked OK with most 55 gr, some 62 gr stuff I
would have to mortar the heck out of it to get it to eject.

 

[Member 5605]

Coat a round with a sharpie. All of it--including the bullet. Chamber and eject.
Look for the shiny spots. I SUSPECT you may have a barrel with a short leade.
Had one like that myself. Worked OK with most 55 gr, some 62 gr stuff I
would have to mortar the heck out of it to get it to eject.

Some scratches from magazine, and from ejecting, but nothing on the body suggest that it's sticking.

It does appear to be a matte color at the shoulder though, like it was pressed in hard there, but no real scratches there..

Bullet is fine, no marks from it contacting rifling. I'm loading to .223 lengths not 5.56, and the 5.56 emergency stash loaded and ejected fine with the longer leade.

Kiddo comes out of his bedroom and is like ... Um.. dad, why are you POUNDING on the floor?

No reason son... please ignore me I don't want to get frustrated.

 

[Gonzales]

Start by cleaning the snot out of your upper / barrel. Be sure to use a solvent. Then pick up a real gauge from Sheridan. They use a real chamber reamer to make theirs.

I have the slotted version. Maybe we could meet up at the range to check a few rounds. Assuming they check out good.

Be sure to clean the lube off of your brass after sizing / case prep. Many folks who reload on a progressive don't re-clean their brass. Some lubes can act like contact cement / glue after they build up in a tight chamber.

I assume that commercial ammo shoots just fine out of this rifle?

-Matthew

 

[rick]

If you chamber a trimmed and sized case without the bullet, does it still resist being ejected?

Are the insides of the case necks getting _generously_ lubed? If it's too dry inside the neck, the expander ball can pull the neck and shoulder back up a little on its way out of the case.

 

[Stomper]

Looks like a good scuff right there on the shoulder...

 

[Member 5605]

Be sure to clean the lube off of your brass after sizing / case prep. Many folks who reload on a progressive don't re-clean their brass. Some lubes can act like contact cement / glue after they build up in a tight chamber.

I size, then put in tumbler (ss pins), dry then reload.

I assume that commercial ammo shoots just fine out of this rifle?

I haven't shot much in the way of commercial ammo which is why I decided to start shooting .223 again (bought the rifles in December as a birthday gift)
Come to think of it, I haven't shot much of my own reloads out of it yet either. Probably 150 commercial rounds and 90 or so reloads.

This blows monkey anus because I've got like 250 rounds loaded already for this rifle and ALL of them were checked with gauge. That's part of the reason in the original post I used a commercially loaded 5.56 as reference in the gauge as well.

5.56 barrel, 1/7 416R steel.

Looks like a good scuff right there on the shoulder...

light reflection... trying to get a better photo but it's hard.

 

[Member 5605]

Upon more and MORE internet reading:

Seems this guy has the same issue as me, to an extent.
http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=6&f=42&t=402606


Addendum:
Gun(s) chamber sized and empty brass.

Second edit:
Pissed off here's why...

So the round that I was having issues chambering that I painted black.
I pulled the bullet, dumped powder, ran through the sizing die again, seated another bullet in there of same weight etc, seated bullet, chambered, ejected. Crimped bullet, chamber ejected.

Son of a liberal democrat!

I have no clue what the problem is, was but it looks to me like I have quite a bit of time that I'm going to be spending pulling 250+ bullets, primers and dumping powder today so I can resize every mother LOVING one of those brass again.

After I dropped the resized one back in the case gauge length the brass sat further into the gauge. At the "minimum" now and not the "maximum"

 

[Gonzales]

Though not recommended, you can fix slight issues in loaded rounds.

I purchased a bunch of reman 300 AAC blackout from a respected (semi local) commercial reloader that was all out of spec. I may have a go at correcting the issue before pulling them all down.

What ever you do, you need to fix the sizing issue.
let me know if you want to meet up.

-Matthew

 

[Member 5605]

Ok, I'll give this a little go here before I do anything drastic, though I'm thinking all may need pulled and resized.

Honestly I don't know if these were sized when I had the sizer die 1/16" off the base.

If I can't I'll see if we can meet up. I have to plan things like a week in advance due to transportation and such.

I'll keep this posted/updated with what I find a little later.

 

[rick benjamin]

Dyjital;

"The round drops free from case gauge AND chamber
When inserted into the Chamber it needs a gentle tap on the side of the upper
Bolt carrier assembled minus firing pin, drop a round in a mag and let it go home.
Upon trying to extract, the unspent round won't release"

Your barrel chamber is smaller than your dillon gauge.

Please tell us what markings are on the barrel

 

[Member 5605]

Dyjital;

"The round drops free from case gauge AND chamber
When inserted into the Chamber it needs a gentle tap on the side of the upper
Bolt carrier assembled minus firing pin, drop a round in a mag and let it go home.
Upon trying to extract, the unspent round won't release"

Your barrel chamber is smaller than your dillon gauge.

Please tell us what markings are on the barrel

5.56 NATO 1/7 PSA

 

[BillM]

You might be experiencing what is called "tolerance stack". Everything manufactured has a tolerance.
An amount plus/minus from nominal where it's still "OK".
So---Max sizing die, max case gauge, minimum chamber, minimum headspace. Everything checks out
OK individually---but when you add up all the plus and minus you end up T-I-G-H-T. Frustrating!!

 

[Member 5605]

That is probably it then @BillM.

So during my break from here I took apart some rounds that failed to chamber and resized, reloaded the pills on top. Some would chamber and eject, others wouldn't.

I have to have that issue. I mean short of getting a different die set and trying again.

I mean if I'm going to have these issues on these rifles with reloaded ammo there is no sense in reloading for these anymore. The time spent and frustration is beyond the cost savings.

If I had an armorers wrench handy I would take the barrel off and do a mold of the inside. But I'm not going to do that at this point.

 

[rick benjamin]

Do you have a fired case that came from that chamber?
Partly slide the fired case into the chamber, then hit the bolt release
When pulling the charging handle, does the fired case extract?
Compare the fired and reloaded case.
Your cartridge picture reveals a couple somethings

The top yellow line: don't know what that is.
Yellow line at the neck: Looks like when you resized, you set the shoulder back a bit.
Also looks like the bullet and neck are a bit distorted.

 

[rick benjamin]

Some measuring tools I use
Vernier caliper (here's a home depot product)
Micrometer (from home depot)

 

[Member 5605]

Thanks @rick benjamin for catching that.

Line on body:
Caused by my Lee deburring tool. I've since gotten rid of it. It would scratch the sides of the cases when I was using it.

Neck:
As to that I'm not sure. Probably a distortion in the lack of photography skills.


Since I don't quit easily I gave it one more college try and her are the results:

1. Pulled 10 bullets that didn't look right in the case gauge (like maybe they were too long by a hair)
2. Dumped powder into container
3. Set the die down another 1/4 turn (total of 1/2 turn according to RCBS instructions)
4. Removed decapper and re-ran 10 pieces of brass through the now lowered sizing die
5. Put bullets back in using same settings as before
6. Same crimp, same seat length
7. Loaded 10 into magazine.
8. Cycled all of them (manually) with no issues.
9. All 10 of the cases I redid fall at the MINIMUM headspace length and not the maximum.

So would you say the issue is resolved now?

I'm not so sure. I'll run another batch of 10 here shortly and see if I get the same results. If so it appears that the brass was tougher than the dies and press (in a manner of speaking). Required more bubblegum behind the lever. Even with them having been resized before I could still tell that I was making them move when working the press. There sure was some resistance.

Calipers show .005" (+/-.00075") that they were setback after second resizing. (1.775" vs 1.7695"

 

[rick benjamin]

Just to remind you, Matt Gonzales or Me can meet at your reloading bench.
I'm impressed you removed the firing pin.

 

[Member 5605]

Hopefully final update:

I just loaded another 13 rounds. Put them in gun and they cycled. Except for when the cam pin got twisted because the firing pin wasn't in there. Reloaded magazine, swapped to other rifle and they all cycled out fine. Actually my left index finger is a little red now from the constant pulling back I've done and having to mortar the gun so many times this morning.

So I'll say the issue now stands as:

RESOLVED

 

[BillM]

If you do decide that the chamber on that barrel is just a touch too tight, help isn't far away.
Rob at Shepherd Custom Arms in Brownsville opened mine up a bit--now it eats anything
I feed it, and spits the empties out nicely!