Ever Had A Slam Fire With Your AR-15?

[sizors]

just finished an ar pistol Anderson upper and lower, 7 1/2" Anderson barrel, bushmaster bcg and trigger group. fired 1st 10 round clip thru it using tula ammo, and it slam fired twice. going to try a bcg from my bushmaster carbon 15 any ideas will help

 

[sizors]

ok still shooting full auto (slamfire) even with a well working bcg from another ar hummmmm
could it be head spacing?

 

[rick benjamin]

Dirty burning powder, Incomplete cleaning, lubrication
Firing pin sticks forward, a slam fire is possible.
I have seen this twice at 3-gun.
Suspect the round fired when being stripped from the magpul mag.
The force destroyed the plastic mag and lightly distorted the upper receiver.

 

[sizors]

none of the above. turns out there was a short between my chair and the workbench. I neglected to install the disconecter spring. color me a dumbass.

 

[Liberty97045]

No

 

[Stomper]

Been trained on M16's and shot the sheite out of them (in various states of repair) since '85, and had multitudes of AR's after that with nary a slammer.

 

[Oathkeeper1775]

Today; writing this up to make others aware of the possibility (especially those like me who pride themselves on firearm safety).

I'm not a stranger to AR and full auto platforms (2 decades + in combat arms), but consider myself an advanced-novice to handloading.

I was confirming that my handloads would chamber in my lr.308. I've done it many times while ejecting rounds with the charging handle, after feeding the cartridges out of the magazine.

Nobody hurt, no damage, just glad I practice muzzle awareness.

What I believe happened was I loaded a single round without the magazine in place; I inserted a single cartridge in the chamber and hit the bolt release.

Firearm was on safe, primers were commercial (not military 37 or 41), only 46.1 grains of powder (not a compressed load).

Case checks out, primer was fully seated.

From what I can tell, the design with a floating firing pin depends on a certain amount of drag provided by the magazine with rounds or the dummy round on the follower.

Flying the bolt forward was enough.

 

[rick benjamin]

Confirming handloads would chamber
Remove the firing pin.

 

[ron]

No never have had a slam fire in any firearm.. I have shot
many thousands of reloads in several different ARs and M-1s. Use
mostly CCI and Winchester primers. AR, M-1 and M-1A use similar
floating firing pin. I take one extra step in reloading by using a primer
pocket uniformer with all my reloads. To prevent a "high" primer.
A slam fire can be disastrous. It can destroy a M-1 or a M-1A and
injure the shooter.

 

[Certaindeaf]

I've never had one but hear that they can happen.
I'd imagine that using soft primers, paired with oversensitizing the priming compound due to very hard seating to get them flush (I used to crush my primers absolutely flat sometimes mainly due to my not removing a crimp fully) would contribute to it happening.
And all and then some other factors lined out before would do it. lol

 

[TonyQ]

I have an Armalite M-15A4 and converted it to Gas Piston Operation. Also swapped out the buffer and buffer spring to heavier versions. Now because of doing that, I have noticed dimples on primers from Federal, Wnchester, Lake City, Fiocchi, Wolf and TulaAmmo. Have had no slam fires, but just wondering if and when it could happen, and end up with a runaway carbine. I do understand that I could swap back to the original buffer and buffer spring, but I feel there is a way to simply add a spring onto the firing pin that prevents the pin from protruding from the bolt face, but allow for it to do so with the hammer striking the pin. However, that would complicate things. Now, also shouldn't the firing pin retaining pin be putting enough retention pressure on the firing pin to prevent it from moving?

 

[fxdc]

Just a Good habit to get into, the extra STEP when handling your ammo is if going into mag or plastic ammo box the kind that stands each one up.

Run your finger over the primer you will feel the rise of it if it's high, same goes as you handle it hand loading ANY MAG .

The boxes make it easy to run your first get across a row of them. ..... me I dump mine in a ammo BAG. So I'll take the time as I load my mags (pistol or rifle) to touch the primer, and yes had a slam fire ONCE before muzzle always DOWN RANGE WHEN CHAMBERING. This happened during a practice at the range.

So yes I've caught high primers a few times at matches while I was loading mags. ( guess I got weak on the priming stroke) the finger touch method does work and has saved me from being DQ"ed and embarrassed.

Be safe