Ok guys I have a Romanian SAR2 in 5.45 that I have had for many years. Don't know how many rounds i've put through it but I've never had any problems.

I went to the range this weekend and once or twice per magazine it would not fully chamber a round/go into battery. If I worked it/racked it by hand it went in no problem.

I checked all the pins and rivets they are fine. The bolt rotates freely in the carrier and the carrier glides easy on the rails and always into battery. Hand cycling it functions perfectly.

This is the first time I used Russian mags, normally used east german. I did however, use three separate mags and the same problems.

What can be causing this problem? I'm thinking perhaps the recoil spring is weak and not pushing it all the way into battery. I've checked everything and it seems to operate as it should from my inspections. I am at a loss.

Did you try your EG mags again? Are you using different ammo now?

if it's doing that with  different mags, even in the e-geman mags that previously worked fine, recoil spring seems logical, though I never read about a recoil spring going bad, but that doesn't mean it can't happen.

what I would do, is to take the e-geman mag that you know worked before, load it up with say 10 rounds,  shoot all those, then load it again with 12 rounds shoot all those.  keep doing that until you have a fully loaded mag. if anytime you are getting the FTF, there is a good chance as the pressure from the rounds is causing the bolt carrier to drag on it and the recoil spring maybe too weak to overcome  the tension from the rounds.  


if you have another AK  swap the spring out and see what happens then.  if you don't have another AK, you can make the spring more stiffer, by putting a few spacers, ie. washers,  in to shorten the spring a bit and see what happens. if the shorten spring cures the problem you know that your spring is weak, and a easy fix by getting another spring.  good luck

No all I brought to the range was Russian. the ammo was the same, and I even tried 2 different types just to be sure.

In at least two cases, I didn't notice it hadn't returned all the way into battery and when I pulled the trigger it forced it into battery, of course it didn't fire as the hammered is what pushed it into battery and I had to hand cycle it anyway.

I had a gun that did that the first time I took it out after buying off of the EE.



It was a lubrication problem.  Next time out zero problems.

It was fairly dry.

Put some grease of those rails, then try with the Russian and the EG mags.  Recoils springs do wear out as well, but it takes a while...