New Reloads Sticking in my AR

[harley6699]

Here is a puzzle.. I have been reloading for .223/5.56 since the late 80's.. the rounds reloaded have been used in different weapons from a Mini-14 to several makes and models of the AR-15 and M-16 platforms.. I have never had a reload round stick in the chamber before it is fired.. I have had to use a nylon hammer to get the charging handle to pull the round out.. I used a cage gauge to check and recheck the rounds and a mic to check and recheck the spec from atleast three different manuals.. the rounds are of different head stamps and using the 55 gr bullet.. The weapon is a S&W MP-15 and I have completly cleaned it.. it has nothing to do with the gas system because it is not fired rounds.. this is a live round right off the press.. also just for the guys that what to call this cazy to cycle rounds.. I have a firing pin for AR's that has been ground down so it does not hit the primmer since the AR is a floating fifing pin.. that should keep folks on track.. any good ideas as to why this is happening and how to fix it.. it is only the MP-15 so it is weapon specific.. I have thought about using a lapping compound and polishing the chamber.. What do you think?

[winelover]

Exact same thing happened with my Armalite A-10 and a .308 FC headstamp case. :veryconfu Had just finished testing some cast loads then switched to J-words for a supply of empty brass. Very first round refused to chamber. Couldn't pull the charging handle and couldn't put the safety on. Had to use a hammer and a nylon dowel to clear it.

Tore the firearm down, cleaned and inspected it and the only thing I found was the charging handle had a slight bend from beating it from one side. Straightened it out, the best I could, lubed and checked the action to see if it would cycle unloaded. It did.

Couple days later, it did the same thing with the same round. This time I beat the charging handle from the opposite side, in hopes of evening out the "beating". After clearing it, I fired the rest of the magazine (mixed HS) without issue.

Back at the bench, I pulled the bullet and checked the case and found, nothing that stood out. I resized ( RCBS X-die) and reloaded, marked that shell and will try it again, in the next couple days.

Winelover

[zuke]

Different brass = different internal case capicity = a chance of a higher pressure

[GRUMPA]

This may not apply to your particular situation but it may shed some light on a possibility.

I convert brass all the time and when it comes to brass I feel I've dissected brass cases especially in 5.56/223 more than anyone.

What I see happening is the case itself and not your loads/techniques are causing you headaches. I have seen brass on the market from all over the place that has some really thick necks and bodies. They may weigh close to the same when a person weighs them but that's not the whole story, the brass is simply relocated meaning thinner bases but thicker all over the remainder of the case.

Particularly the neck thickness varies so wildly the end result(s) are going to be hit and miss. And with what seems to be more and more players in the cheap brass market folks gobble up what they can from where ever at the cheapest price.

I would suggest you separate them by head stamp, that's what I have to do and I'll give you an example on this. A company that made brass AP (Armerlite) is foreign, that same company now makes brass with a A USA head stamp. That brass is hit and miss at best as far as there process control and if I had it which I have I would get rid of it so fast it would make your head spin. That's just but 1 company and there's many more that follow the same path.

I would use domestic brass and even then get rather picky about that even. The last thing I need is folks getting in touch with me with problems from anything they got from me. It may be cheap or free or whatever but I suspect your having a variation at the neck and it's causing you problems.

[mikeym1a]

Grumpa, How would you check for this? Do you mic the neck wall thickness? Do you load a projectile, and then measure the neck diameter? If the neck walls are too thick, wouldn't you simply need to ream or turn the neck to get proper thickness? If the brass is otherwise good, I'd want to save it if possible. thanks. mikey

[GRUMPA]

When I get brass of unknown quality in the first thing I do is just check about 50 of them with my micrometers. Then I'll do the math as far as the variation of thickness and go from there. Rarely when I get brass in 5.56/223 will they be used for 5.56/223 loads but rather for my conversions.

Unless you've got oodles of time on your hands a person can either turn the necks or ream them all the same. ME???....I wouldn't be doing that unless I couldn't get any and I was kinda forced to do it. You have to remember I go through about 20-40K a month of this stuff and only ream some of my conversions and not all.

Foreign brass I get rid of first chance I get and wont/refuse to use it. With the volume I do on a monthly basis I stick with known head stamps and wont venture to far off that beaten path for anything.

I only put a projectile in a case when I'm fine tuning in a new conversion. I do that on a lot of them after I've reamed them to look for problems that may pop up. But wouldn't recommend that for the average person since using other brands that don't require neck work are out there.

[Skipper]

Use a small-base resizing die.

[Larry Gibson]

I recently ran into the same thing. Make sure the shell holder bumps solidly into the X-die as caming over of the ram will not set the shoulder back enough on some cases. If that doesn't work then remove a thousandth or two from the top of the shell holder. Emery cloth on a flat surface swirling the top of the shell holder on it will do it easily. Also make sure the primers are seated completely and below the case head. A high primer can/will cause the same thing.

BTW; a SB die did not solve the issue in my case as it was one of minimal headspace not the chamber diameter along the body taper and base of the cartridge.

Larry Gibson

[harley6699]

Good Morning

I thought I would update this so far..

1. I load on a Dillon 550 for all of the rounds..

2. I prep all the brass the same.. de-prime on Lee universal Die, wet tumble w/SS pins, vib in corn cob and Nu-Finish, Full Length size with the RCBS die, I use a cage gauge to check the brass and then trim all brass to 1.75".

3. Once the brass is ready then it is just runding them thru the press. I load the rounds with a 55 gr Hornaday bullet. I check the O.A.L. of several rounds to under the 2.260" max. The rounds that I have had issues with I have checked them in a case gauge and mic the round and everything is within the spec per the Lyman 48th Edition Manual.

4. I pulled the bullets out of five good (don't stick) and bad (that stick) rounds, I have checked the wall thickness of each. Head Stamps for the good are 'LC' 72 to 77, the bad'FC 223 REM' & 'LC" 74 & 77. using a samll hole gage I mic-ed the inside and using a digital Micrometer, the good is at .021" thickness and the bad is .022" that is subtracting the inside and the ouside numbers. I also used the digital Mic to confirm the numbers.

5. After pulling the bullet I put the brass in the chamber and let the bolt slide forward and they didn't
stick..

So what do you all think about this? I will today use a magic marker and coat the brass to see where it is sticking and then update again..

Thanks guys your input has been great.

[Rattlesnake Charlie]

I run all mine through a Wilson case gauge after loading. Every now and then, one comes off the press that won't pass. I think it often is due to the case shoulder bulging during the seating and crimping operation. Use of a Lee collet crimp die almost totally fixed the problem. The few remaining, I suspect something happened during the seating evolution.

[nicholst55]

Rather than beating on (and bending) your charging handle when this happens, learn to do the 'pogo.' Hold the rifle with one hand, and the charging handle with the other. While pulling downwards with the charging handle, frimly smack the butt of the rifle on the bench top. Typically this will get the offending case/round out of the chamber.

I agree that the OP's rifle probably has minimum headspace. You can verify this with a set of Forster Match .223 Headspace Gages. The set contains 11 gages that vary in length by .001" increments.

[harley6699]

Thanks Nicholst55.. I use the "POGO" method until it doesn't work and when I say I have to use a nylon mallet it is because the other method doesn't work. most of the time that method works but I am talking about stuck cases and the only way to get them out is to use a nylone mallet.

[harley6699]

Charlie.. I use a Dillon Case Gauge before and after loading.

[Tackleberry41]

I notice you use a regular full length die vs small base. I have never had an issue with my bolt action stevens 200, but have had some issues with the 2 semi autos I have, using a full length die vs small base. Have since bought a small base die, no more issues. As someone said it may be your brass, I was buying once fired stuff when it was cheap, and you end up with all sorts of weird brass in there, some I just chuck.

I had some issues with 8mm brass formed from 270 recently, and shaving a shell holder a little fixed it.

[seaboltm]

When resizing once fired military cases I generally resize them twice. It seems that thick military brass can sometime spring back after initial sizing to its oversize. This seems particularly true in cases fired from machine guns. Of course it could be my imagination . . . I had some 7.62 reloads all in LC that would not chamber in my AR-10 but functioned without fail in my M1A.

[StratsMan]

A friend of mine recently bought a new, factory-built AR-15 with a 5.56 chamber. He also has had numerous problems with ammo failing to chamber correctly. (bolt won't close the last 1/8 inch or so...) Took it to a gunsmith last week. 'Smith works a lot of the local PD's weapons, pistol and rifle. 'Smith said he has never seen so many rifles AND ammo being delivered that is so far out of spec...

To the OP's issue: 'Smith ran some brand new dummies (painted cases) into the problem rifle, then checked the marks on the paint. They all had jamming marks at the neck, indicating the neck was not cut to spec. Perhaps the reamers are being run beyond their sharpening interval to speed up production, or... ??? IMHO, a few turns with a finishing reamer is never a bad thing... more than a few and you should have a Go / No-Go gauge handy to check your chamber. See if you pull any steel out of the chamber (assuming it's not a chromed barrel)... As I recall, the outside diameter of the LOADED cartridge neck should be .253", and the chamber diameter at the neck is .255"... should be enough room if ammo and chamber are at spec....

[harley6699]

Tackleberry.. I have heard that using a Small Base Die might help the issue I am having.. I have one on order and should be here on Thursday.. I will post the results.

[AABEN]

My friend load about 300 rd and about all stuck. All I did was take my Lee die apart and ran them. They all worked after that. So I guess he shore stroked then when he resided them. A month later he sold me his target AR and all the brass primers and a 1000 52 gr bullets. I told him that all he needed to do was make sure that he ran then all the way. He said he would never had a AR again.

[harley6699]

AABEN.. it looks like his loss and you gain.. I have resized them all using the standard RCBS FL Sizer and the die is set to where it just touches the shell holder.. I think the SBD will help in this area.. Thanks for your suggestion and input.

[zuke]

AABEN.. it looks like his loss and you gain.. I have resized them all using the standard RCBS FL Sizer and the die is set to where it just touches the shell holder.. I think the SBD will help in this area.. Thanks for your suggestion and input.

Did you read the instruction's that came with the die's?
LEE instruction's say to let the die touch the shell holder and then another 1/2 turn to be sure of complete sizing

[giericd]

if a bunch of rounds were made in the same way-same press, dies the same.... some are fine and some stick the problem is the rounds not the dies. if the dies were the problem then all of the rounds would be doing the same thing. I went through this problem with my bushmaster; mixed brass, 55gr sierra sptizerbt. COL was at 2.260" and i had several stick real bad! Once i had found the powder charge with that bullet that my rifle liked and several stuck rounds later i stasted to play with COL to tighten up the groups. When sizing full length i now give the handle a little extra push at the bottom of the stroke, I dont think i had the shell plate touching the bottom of the die with those rounds so i think that is the problem. I also noticed that all the rounds that fell in to acceptable COL but were short of my prefered 2.258" all fired fine with no stuck rounds. fired 2 more at 2.260" and the both got stuck. Very seldom is it that i find the min or max recomended for anything works the best. I've got my .223/5.56 reloading down to exactly where I want it to be, 100% reliable rounds that dont get stuck, all ways fire, and print clover leafs. Make up a few rounds with a charge that is in the middle of min/max and then try a few at 2.255" COL for test purposes and see if that takes care of the problem. I honestly think the problem with mine was caused from not going all the way down and giving that bump at the bottom when resizing, I turned my die down untill it just touched the shell plate then gave it another 1/4 turn and locked it down and since doing that and giving it that little extra on the down stroke i can say 300+rds later not a single one has gotten stuck. backing off max COL couldnt hurt either

[Blammer]

I would try FL resizing the case again and try that, also look for a bent rim from the extractor pulling it out.

A little bend in the rim will really jam it up good, ask me how I know this.... :)