Sig 556 and Extraction Issues

[gnarkill]

Went to the range yesterday and ran into problems immediately. I chambered the round, not really paying much attention to it since it has never happened before, and didnt realize the round wasnt fully seated. Pulled the trigger and noticed a lot of smoke. I noticed the next few rounds werent working either. So then I switched to some high dollar hornady ammo and that seemed to work well enough. No issues there.

Then I switched back to the reloads, and checked each time. There were several times where the bolt looked fully engaged, and the round would not extract after firing, I would have to manually pull the bolt to extract it. The last straw was when a round became completely jammed after firing and I had to use some serious force to pull the charging handle back to extract it. The rounds would like the those pictured below.

I bought the reloads at a gun show from a reputable vendor, which I wont name here since I plan to contact them directly. From what I can tell it appears that several of the cases werent sized correctly, does that seem right to you guys? I am kinda bummed since this is essentially a brand new 500 rnd pack and I cant really use it.

Before this ammo I had put about 200rnds of factory ammo through it with no issues so its either the ammo I just got or the extractor is messed up, which is known to happen on these rifles..

Either way do you guys think I have hurt the rifle by these couple of rounds that have not fully seated being fired?

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[Riot]

You sure this is .223 ammo? I think you're right in your initial assessment about the brass being out of spec. Who knows, maybe the vendor just bought some bad brass?

I've suspected for a while that the ammo shortage was going to produce poor quality ammo to take up the slack for the rush. I'm suprised they're aren't more cases like this, actually.

*edit*

It looks like the end of the cassing is swollen...maybe from being fired out of battery? Can you take a picture of a bullet not fired from this same batch?

 

[gnarkill]

You sure this is .223 ammo? I think you're right in your initial assessment about the brass being out of spec. Who knows, maybe the vendor just bought some bad brass?

I've suspected for a while that the ammo shortage was going to produce poor quality ammo to take up the slack for the rush. I'm suprised they're aren't more cases like this, actually.

*edit*

It looks like the end of the cassing is swollen...maybe from being fired out of battery? Can you take a picture of a bullet not fired from this same batch?

I think I had a couple fired out of battery to be honest with you. The casing is definitely swollen, I held one of the spent casings to a regular round and it's way out of shape.

 

[Riot]

I think I had a couple fired out of battery to be honest with you. The casing is definitely swollen, I held one of the spent casings to a regular round and it's way out of shape.

FYI your gun sould never fire when it is out of battery...you may need to have a smith check the headspace of your rifle.

*edit*

<broken link removed>

 

[gnarkill]

FYI your gun sould never fire when it is out of battery...you may need to have a smith check the headspace of your rifle.

*edit*

<broken link removed>

Wow, so I read that, and then I found this, it's identical to my situation, except I was shooting reloads. Sounds like it wasnt a improperly sized case, but an overpressure situation.

<broken link removed>

Now should I take the rifle to a gunsmith, or should I call Sig and ship it back to have them inspect it?

 

[Riot]

Wow, so I read that, and then I found this, it's identical to my situation, except I was shooting reloads. Sounds like it wasnt a improperly sized case, but an overpressure situation.

<broken link removed>

Now should I take the rifle to a gunsmith, or should I call Sig and ship it back to have them inspect it?

Overpressure doesn't address the issue of it not going into battery...unless one of the other rounds damaged the chamber. If that's the case then you deffinatly need to take it to a smith.

FYI, usually overpressure is not a common occurrance. Even in factory ammo, odds are one in a million. Unless some reloader used the wrong powder, I doubt that this would especially happen to more than one bullet.

Inspect the chamber and the bore...if it was overpressure you may need a different barrel.

My money is on the headspace being off or you need to polish the chamber.