.......unsupported chamber...??

Glad your alright though - i had the same thing happen to me once with a  Action Arms Galil ARM
in 5,56mm. The gas produced by the powder (+50,000 PSI) usually follows the path of least resistance - looks
like alot of it went into the mag and blew out the side - in my situation it blew the bottom of the steel 35 rd IMI mag
off and cracked the receiver - very scary indeed !!

With the 106 series - the early production rifles had issues with the feed ramps and jamming,,Arsenal corrected it after while
on production guns but a few people took to the ramp with a dremel in a sort of home fix...there was even a sort of "how too"
topic listed in the Ak section here...

Not saying this is what happened in this case but ya never know, Anything mechanical can does fail.
Is the barrel clear -? Sometimes an "Underloaded" round can also cause the same issue...
Have the rifle taken to a gunsmith and examined. Contact Arsenal and ammo manufacturer..

In my case Action Arms and Norinco (shows you how long ago that was) split the cost on a new Galil for me.
My incident was on video tape and both companies got copies via certified mail. (Both blamed each other) I am
not a sue happy person and just asked them both to "fix" the situation... the rifle that KB'd was fubared since the milled receiver
"cracked" and did not "flex"



Here is a kind of "how to" pic of what someone did to increase reliability of their early production106. If not done correctly could/would make the
chamber unsupported and only a matter of time before a KB...Drop a round into the chamber and see how much brass is exposed on the bottom..a little is fine - but not too much. A Dremel Tool can be a dangerous device. .

Unfortunately hammering the receiver probably voided any possible warranty from Federal.

Makes no difference Federal will deny any liability ,,,, they will blame Arsenal. Just be careful
when dealing with these companies - as soon as you mention the word "lawsuit" they will cut
off ANY communication with you and let their attornys handle it,. so don't paint yourself into a corner

Sorry about you experience. I owned 2 106 FR's and they are really a great company/rifle

As far as I'm concerned the issue is over. The rifle suits me and even though the fix was a little sketchy I've shot it enough to be comfortable shooting it. I appreciate your concerns but as far as Federal goes, I work for ATK who owns Federal so it'd be a conflict of interest for them so I'd get no help.

I hope I am really not the only one who is somewhat unhappy with the outcome of this.  While I am glad you were no injured and were able to repair your rifle, it is unsettling the response from Arsenal.  Even if it was fault of the ammo, they should at least be somewhat curious as to why the rifle they made reacted so poorly or good.  

This reminds me of when I was with a good friend of mine had a KB with a gen 2 9mm glock.  Either a slightly out of battery strike or highly defective ammo (it was remington green box).  Pistol handled it like a champ and gassed down through the mag instead of up or out.   The remaining 5 rounds in the mag were so jammed that we were only able to dislodge them by throwing the mag down as hard as we could into a rug once we got back to his house.  He called glock and they sent him a pre-paid fedex box and then sent him a new pistol.

Lessons learned:
-Both walther and glock claim to have some safety feature in the event of a weak casing.. it worked on the glock
-very big question if it would work on anything greater than 9mm
-glock customer service is very good
-when attempting to remove terribly stuck rounds in a magazine that got gassed down into, even a screwdriver may not work
-tossing a mag that has rounds lodged in it from a KB against a rug as hard as you can when prying them with a screwdriver does not work gets them out
-the safety of the above method for impacted live round extraction from a mag recovered from a KB'd gun is not proven

Jeez. I just bought an Arsenal today. Further, warranty starts AT TIME OF SALE on every product I have EVER owned. If your friend can prove purchase on the date he claims, they better honor that warranty if it is legitimately the manufacturer's fault/flaw that caused this. I hope for your sake, and my peace of mind, they take care of you!

Trying to not be a hijacker, but is there ANY advantage to a milled receiver, or would it have been just as trashed as this stamped one?

It seems to me a milled receiver would have been toast. The fix here was easy because the metal was easy to work with.

88 sahara,

Reread ComM4's post. He stated how his galil receiver was cracked.

The sheet steel is softer. There also is less of it. So it readily bends and can be bent back. The milled receiver has a greater tolerance of energy. If the threshold necessary to induce failure is not exceeded the milled receiver is unlikely to be damaged. But repairs are also that much more difficult.

I have seen a Valmet trunnion in a stamped receiver destroyed. This happened from using a galil magazine. The bullet struck the barrel face upon being loaded and was driven into the case. The resulting overpressure placed stresses on the trunnion which it could not tolerate. I did not witness the failure, just the results.

Remember, Valmet trunnions are beefy. Almost like they milled the whole front of a forged receiver, shaved the sides and stuck it inside a stamped. Still it failed.

DB