Hi,

I have a new Alexander Arms upper in 6.5G that I bought last year. I test fired it and it seemed fine. I then removed the stock flash suppressor on there and installed my own so I could pop on a suppressor. In this time, I noticed no movement. I shot it with suppressor on to confirm zero. The scope I had on it took a shit on me so I had to grab another scope later and then go back out and zero. It seemed to zero okay but the grouping wasn't as good as before but I just figured I had an off day.

I took it hunting last year and missed a couple easy shots on a deer before holding off from POI and getting a shot to drop the deer. Needless to say, I wasn't pleased that I missed such an easy shot. After the hunt it stayed in the safe because life gets in the way.

Well, I took it out a few weeks ago thinking I should get to the range to figure this out. In the mean time I'll grab the suppressor for another rifle. That whole suppressor was moving and I thought the brake wasn't torqued and was coming off. So I stopped. I tried to just use hand pressure to hold brake at base to get suppressor off. That's when I noticed... the brake wasn't moving. The entire barrel was.

So, to get to the point, how does this happen? I'm not familiar on how the barrel attaches to the upper. I think there's some sort of sleeve or index pin or something, correct? Is this from the factory broken or maybe it was a flawed part and just broke?

Either way, I have an RMA into AA to fix it. I'm just curious on how this is possible. Luckily, I did not twist it enough to damage the gas tube, not that it matters at this point.

Missing or broken barrel index pin, along with improperly torqued barrel nut.

It is a manufacturing or assembly defect.

This.

OR - WAY too much torque required to remove muzzle device, while barrel not properly held using barrel vise clamps.

Could also be a loose barrel extension. This has been observed quite a few times recently with other manufacturers.

On the latter, the original flash hider came off quite easily. I've had way worse on another gun which is why this is simple to remember. If that tiny bit of twist broke the barrel... that's some crappy material then.

I didn't take it apart, my buddy who smiths didn't want to because of the warranty, just said to ship it back since he's positive it is a manufacturer's defect. Just sucks because I waited close to a year on this thing and while it worked on last year's hunt I was hoping to use it for this year's hunt. I should have messed around with it some more last winter. Too busy playing with other guns when I did go shoot them. Ugh.

If the barrel is loose in the BE then for practical purposes you need to use the warranty.
If the BE is loose in the upper then your buddy can likely fix it, but you may be breaking your warranty.