PSA 18" stainless barreled upper.  Anderson lower with PSA lower build kit - but with an A1 butt stock vs. the carbine butt stock.  3X12 Bushnell with a big old 56mm objective lens and red dot for low light conditions.  

Ammo was some 55 grain reloads (Hornady FMJ over 25 grains of TAC powder.  This ammo shot well, worked well in my 16" mid length carbine but would not function reliably in my 20" rifle last winter on a cold day.  I'd been shooting it up here and there to get rid of it and just saving the remaining TAC for the 30.06 were it worked fine (M1 Garand).  I figured it would be fine for sighting in at least.

Well, the rifle started off ejecting, but failing to load the next round.  I've only seen one other rifle we've built do this and it eventually came around after we swapped out bolts with another rifle (that bolt seemed to rub/drag in one upper receiver, but not in the other one) so I figured, yeah, been here.  Then it hit me this was the same ammo that didn't function well in my 20" rifle.  This 18" gun has a rifle length gas system so I thought that was it.

I changed to some 62 grain FMJ that was a little on the hot side in some of my carbines.  That load uses IMR4198 and I don't load it anymore, but it works in everything.  Well, not this rifle, again I got into ejecting the empty but not picking the next round up from the magazine.  I could pull the bolt back with the charging handle and get it to feed though.  When the last round fired, it failed to lock the bolt back.  I used the charging handle to pull the bolt back while actually looking in the ejection port and could see the bolt would not pull far enough to the rear to lock back.  Uh oh, problem.

I'd only seen this one time before.  I'd ordered a carbine buffer tube, spring, buffer and stock and the vendor shipped me a rifle spring instead of a carbine spring.  The rifle spring is longer than a carbine spring, a new carbine spring fixed that issue.

This was different.  I'd decided to try a fixed stock on this one and I really don't care for the length of an A2 stock (and most aftermarket stocks are the same length as the A2 stock it seems, unless you buy an adjustable stock that costs 1/2 what this rifle cost me) so I'd ordered a surplus A1 stock from Charley's Surplus.  I ordered a rifle buffer tube, spring and buffer from Stag, as most other vendors seemed to have one part, but not all the parts (you know how that works).

When the parts came in I put the buffer tube on the lower, the A1 stock on it, the spring and buffer in the tube and waited for my chance to go to the range.

Well, the range issues are listed above and this morning I decided to take a look at the new rifle (I had cleaned 3 pistols and another rifle last night and waited till this morning to clean/inspect the problem rifle).  It appears the screw supplied with the A2 buffer tube/spring/buffer is too long when used to attach an A1 butt stock to the tube.  I'm going to have to take about 8 threads off it to keep it from protruding through the back of the buffer tube and interfering with the buffer.

Now I know either a) an A1 stock uses a shorter screw than an A2 stock, or somehow I got an extra long screw from the vendor.

Oh, the new tube, spring, buffer came with a spacer (for the A2 stock) and the screw.

Hadn't hear of this happening before and I try to read the trouble shooting threads hoping that if something similar happens to me I might remember the cause/fix someone else wrote about.

Have I got it wrong?  Are the A1 and A2 screws the same?  Is there another fix (quicker than just ordering another screw, if I can find one.

The rifle showed some promise (group size) and I'd like to get it fixed and get back to the range, so I figured between the dremel (cutting the screw shorter) and the tap and die set (fixing the threads after shortening) would be the quickest way to turn it around.

I cut the bolt off and cleaned up the threads at the cut and it's fine now.

I just had never seen the bolt specifically for the A1 stock.  

Another learning opportunity.

Might save someone else some problems some time.

Yeah, I wanted the slightly shorter A1 stock rather than a carbine stock.

When I could find a length on an aftermarket stock they seemed to be the same length as the A2 stocks (the standard today I suppose).

When I ordered the tube, buffer and spring it came with a spacer and screw.  I set the spacer aside (knowing it was for the longer A2 stock) but used the longer A2 screw (not realizing it was longer/would be a problem.)

Now I'm ready to head to the range again.  Need to check out the rifle more and some new reloads (those 100% copper 55 grain boat tails and CFE powder).