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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Wolf M193 Bad Day (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 4/25/2006 3:37:04 PM EDT
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Mods, if this should go somewhere else, please move. I just thought this was imporaant enough not to get buried. After reading the reviews for the new Wolf Performance M193 posted here, I thought I'd give it a go. I have had spotty results with Wolf ammo in the past (except in AKs and SKSs) but I thought the new brass cased stuff was supposed to be a considerable improvement. From my experience this afternoon, it appears otherwise. I took my CMMG Mod4, 14.5 in with perm. Phantom, chrome barrel and chamber to the range to test out my new batch of Wolf M193 and some new C-products mags. I first shot two 30s of Lake City green tip to ensure that everything was as it should be (and so it was) and then switched to the Wolf. First few rounds were under powered and required manual cycling of the action. Then it started cycling fine and I burned through the remainder of the mag (probably about 25 rounds). I stopped and picked up some of the brass and got a rude awakening; blown primers, and primers that looked like they were close to blowing. Here are some pics representative of what I found:   Brass (from the primers I presume) had gotten into the rifle's action and jamed the firing pin. I was done. A fellow shooter (who reloads) a couple of benches down from me looked at the fired brass and suggested I mike the base of some of the leaky ones and compare to unfired rounds to get an idea if they were overloaded. He said if on average the fired ones are more than .005 larger than the unfired ones, then this is a good indication that they were overloaded/overpressure. When I got home, curious, I did as he said with what I picked up. Base (above the channel) of fired brass averaged 0.376 and the unfired stuff was 0.373. I don't have the best calipers, but this would seem inconclusive using his criteria. To their credit, Wolf, when I called, was very concerned and is going to cut me a check for the whole 1000 round case. I guess they are glad it's not a rifle or me in the hospital that they are having to deal with. Perhaps just a bad lot, but added to the probs I have had before, this afternoon I finally took the cure. Not trying to flame Wolf at all. I know there are those that love it and I know there are those who hate it. This is just FYI. What you do with it it up to you. BTW, rounds were headstamped 2004 and the boxes are variously stamped lot numbers 44 through 47. To frost the affair, one of the new mags was bad too; an unjamable Magpul follower jammed like a bitch.  ETA: Fired Wolf Brass since I can't see shit either. ETA: I just cleaned the gun and one of the blown primers had gotten into the lower and blocked the hammer mechanism; firing pin and everything else looked fine. |
The one new mag that malf'd never got in the gun. After the problems with the ammo, the bench shooter near me started to strip some rounds from a mag to eyeball them, the follower got jammed then and as I recall when I was loading this particular mag with a LULA, it seem a little too "tight". BTW, you don't blow primers because of bad mags. Failure to feed could be a bad mag, but I didn't have any of those except for the short stroking on the first few rounds and that was definitely not the mags fault. |
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I went thru a 20 round box of Wolf brass case with the same type of problems. Here is a link to a archive thread of my blown primers issues previously with PMC ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=66&t=235071 |
My rifle runs like a raped ape on XM193 and the XM855. I think this is just some bad M193. Maybe Ammoman pulled a fast one on me since the 2004 headstamps are raising eyebrows. What was the upshot to your problem? My chamber is 5.56 Nato. |
Aluminum 30 with gen-II magpul followers. I haven't pulled the floor plate yet to see what's going on. ETA: I just disassembled the troublesome mag. I couldn't see why it wouldn't work; slide the follower in and out and all seemed good so I loaded it up with some XM855 and it loaded normal, not tight like before. I can't imagine that one of the Wolf rounds could be so out of spec as to have bound it up. I bet it works fine with the Lake City in it. |
My original problem was with another gun with a 16"RR chrome lined barrel. Headspace guaged fine with all go/no-go & field guages. Std weight buffer. The problem I have now is exactly the same with the exception of the firearm is a Bushmaster w/BM14.5" barrel suppressed, std buffer. I have no prob with WWB from walmart, Fed XM193 & Guatemala surplus When I fired the Wolf thru the can, the gun fired fine but had case problems. Without the can the gun would not cycle. I have also shoot steel case wolf & have had no problems with or without the can. I have to clean my gun & then will have the headspace check & follow up with a update. |
What I was saying When testing ammo use good mags to start with!  I didnt say the problem with wolf is your mags? thats stupid |
Appears the solution to both our problems is the same, stay away from the Wolf. I had such high hopes for their M193 too. Guess I'll have to get some of that Guat if AIM still has it. |
Rodger that. See my comments about that particular mag. I think it's fine, but I'm marking it for further eval. 
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Looking at those pics - you had dangerous pressure signs. Not only from blown primers - but you have SERIOUS ejector flow. That is an overpressure situation. Since your gun seems to run fine on other ammo.... I am hesistant to blame the gun.... especially since this new ammo reputation is spotty. What ever you do - DONT fire any more of that ammo. Given your ejector flow, you are dangerously close to a K'boom situation. I will state it again - I think Prvi Partizan has a burn rate issue with the poweder they chose, it appears too fast, and they loaded it hot to get up to the M193 spec velocity. If they address this issue, it could become good ammo. If they dont.... it will cost them. None of mine had pressure signs like you got..... I would have stopped after a couple rounds that came out like that. |
Thanks for the expert eyeballs FALARAK. I've never seen this before so I wouldn't know what I was looking at. I've not seen anything like this with other ammo in this rifle. The XM855 fired brass from my first two mags (as a control if you will) looked great. The Wolf is going back to them MOST RIKI-TIK.
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I just recieved 1000 rounds yesterday from sportsmansguide via big brown truck.. All cases are marked 2005 ammo looks good, I will run some this weekend thru my 20inch and one of my 16inch rifles. Wondering if 2005 headstamped M193 will have the same problems? I hope not but we will see.. Have a nice day.. 
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I'm new to reloading as well but I would never fire a load that left that kind of ejector flow in the case head. That SCREAMS over-pressure. I see very light marks on most Fed XM193, but just a faint outline not a defined and visably raised dimple in the brass. It's only going to take a slightly weak case to get a KB and it is certainly over working and stressing the parts. I'd not put that in my gun again if I were this guy. |
Where'd you get yours from? Perhaps I just won the shitty ammo lottery and yours will be OK. Mine was Goldilocks ammo, too cold, too hot, but none just right. Good luck and let us know how it goes. 
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Exhibited high pressure signs: - Popped (i.e., missing) primers - Flattened primers - Cratered firing pin indentions (a raised ring around the dent) - Brass flow into the ejector channel - Brass flow around the extractor - Marked brass from difficult extraction I'm going to have to agree that we have a pressure problem here. However, this ammo is obviously not fresh-of-the-loading-machines, so we are likely to see this problem corrected once this ammo is imported regularly. Wolf is actually pretty good about taking user feedback back to the various factories that manufacture the ammo they import and working to correct the problems. Hopefully, they'll work this out too. Folks, thanks for the reviews and pics. Keep the great info coming. -Troy |
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mine are marked 2004 also and I did not have any blown primers but all shots had ejector flow marks. I called Wolf and they want that ammo back, and will send me other ammo in different cals I requested. The lady said that a LOT of 2004 was coming back with this problem. they made good with me so I am happy. |
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Another observation from the pics I didn't see mentioned... All fired rounds shown with primers remaining have a DIMPLE in the middle of the firing pin indentation meaning that at some time BEFORE the rounds shown were fired, the firing pin was BLASTED by one or more PIERCED PRIMERS, causing a small crater in the firing pin tip. It could have been caused by the rounds with missing primers... or it could have been preexisting. Either way, REPLACE the firing pin! Rmpl  |
Mine to! looks like a 5 more than a 6 Ive shoot alot of this ammo and FOUND IT TO BE VERY ACCURATE compared to XM193/Q3131 and not a single problem? I order 1000rds and have just a little left I wonder if 04 and 05 have the same powder and charge |
That reminds me, I have one of those I need to replace too. |
I was foolishly hoping that Wolf had made a significant improvement with the M193 and that it would be superior to AE223. If this stuff is being sold to NATO, the S will HTF. As I said before, I have finally taken the cure for the Wolf bug. Ordered some Guat from AIM to replace the "hand grenade" Wolf. With my luck the rounds will be black. Ordered a couple extra battle packs of the SA 308 while I was at it. Now that is some good shit. |
I sent them the pics posted here. Sabrina asked if I had the origional banded box the stuff was shipped in but I didn't. Seems the lot number may be on that box as opposed to the blue ink stamped numbers on the 20 rd. cartridge boxes. BTW, they care because this stuff is a lawsuit waiting to happen. |
[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Wolf M193 Bad Day (Page 1 of 2)
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