I finally took my Freedom 16" melonite middy upper out today (order date 7/16/15). It will shoot brass fine, but will NOT shoot steel cased (at ALL). EVERY steel case I tried in this upper gets stuck in chamber (thus resulting in having for forcibly hammer it out with a rod). I'll not settle for a finicky AR, so have already requested a return/exchange (via CS). I suspect this problem is due to an overly tight chamber (I have multiple PSA uppers and this is the ONLY one that will not function with steel case).
I run the same set up with all my PSA uppers (this is the 4th and ALL middy's). Anderson lower receiver and RE, standard carbine buffer/spring, AIM nitride BDG bcg (exact same model in ALL of my uppers that display zero issues). Only THIS one has issues with steel cased.
Casings showing signs of excessively tight chamber (notice the scrapings/grinds/casing wear at 1/3 rear base):
Every steel case I hammered out of this barrel looks identical. IMHO, this chamber is TOO tight (out of spec).
Pic of casing where extractor cannot grab casing hard enough:
Sorry for the crappy pics... photobucket filtered the heck out of them.
I already emailed PSA for return/exchange, but wanted to post here since sometimes it's been WEEKS (if at all) that I hear back from them via email.
If a rep here can help me return/exchange this, I'd greatly appreciate it! Thank you.