Had my first AUG malfunction; 99% sure it was ammunition-related.
Bolt-over-base jam bent the round almost 90 deg. below the shoulder.
Was using bulk-pack Federal .223 Remington from Walmart, factory AUG mag.
I noticed that the ejection pattern was between 1-3 o'clock with the Fed .223 loads.
NATO-pressure ammo typically ejects 4-5 o'clock in the same gun.
I'm suspecting an under-loaded round didn't have enough ass to fully cycle the action.
I've read in other threads that the Federal .223 is notoriously low-powered.
Does anybody set the gas system to "adverse" when shooting .223-spec loads?
The long-term fix will be using 5.56 NATO ammo, but I have a few more .223 boxes to get rid of.
Just wanted to make sure I'm not going to damage anything running a few 100 rounds on adverse.

I may be the statistical outlier, but my A3 will run wolf on the normal setting.



Is your rifle new? My rifle had wickedly stout recoil springs when new. I locked it open for like 2 weeks and it did the trick.

Pretty low-mileage, only about 300rds through it so far.
I'm still curious if it's OK to run on adverse for another 2-300rds though.
Or should I just load up a few 42-rd mags with M855 to fully break-in?
Would love to hear from the old hands; when do you/should you use "adverse" setting?

I use to own an MSAR that had no issues running wolf on standard gas, my brand NIB Steyr Aug M1 ran wolf and tula no problem right outside the box.

ETA: The Steyr Aug is a very hardy machine. You won't hurt it by running gas on the adverse setting. Wear will increase, but it's an extremely solid rifle - you won't hurt it

I had some problems using Tula ammo. Used adverse position and that help with that weak ammo to run.

This.

My new nato jammed up like op's and its been sitting.
I need to try that thanks

My A3 only runs on Nato ammo in the adverse setting.  (Estimate 300-500rds of South African M193 and Federal M855)
Exact bolt over round jam, if not held tight into shoulder.
Standard setting its a single shot, no ejection of fired case.

Any tips or should I call Steyr?

i get this kind of jam if use US made AUG mags (they have a clear square around the round count number) in my A1.  Austrian mags and pmags run 100%

I had failure to lock open on a empty mag with Tula. Switching the gas to adverse fixed it.

Zero problems with hotter ammo on standard setting.

AJ

never really had to run adverse on my Aug but I mostly run suppressed these days.  However, had to run my FS2000 on adverse for some 223 loads.

I had Tula Ammo get a case stuck and tear off the rim which has been fairly normal when shooting new guns where the chamber isn't very slick. Any place for carbon to grab will cause steel case to possibly stick. A little light polishing will eliminate this issue, instead I've just switched to strictly brass cased ammo. I may try it again after shooting the gun a good deal more.

Not the same rifle, but the same design: my MSAR STG-E4 will reliably shoot steel cased .223 on the normal setting. I'd imagine you just had a fluke malfunction. Every rifle in the world can have them.

Update:
I put another ~160 rounds of Federal .223 through the AUG with gas set to "adverse".  It functioned 100%.  Once I get rid of this .223 Rem stuff, I'll stick to 5.56mm-pressure loads.