Hard to make a quality post as a new user with a 2000 character limit

Recently I bought four of the standalone Geissele CHF barrels, a 14.5 and 11.5 from EuroOptic, an 11.5 from Midway, and a 14.5 from Primary Arms. Barrels were all assembled with brand new BCM bolt carrier groups and all pass a headspace check.

Got to the range this week and had nothing but problems. Very first round through one of the 11.5 barrels, round does not fully go in to battery, give forward assist a good tap and it goes the rest of the way, round fires and does not extract, mortar the rifle to get the case to extract. Try another round, it does not go in to battery, I do not try firing again and have to mortar the rifle to get it to extract. Try the next 11.5, same results.

Try one of the 14.5 and it is even worse, I have to beat on the charging handle with a mallet to get the unfired round out. Try the next 14.5 but this time with 4 different types of ammo, Wolf Gold 55gr, Armscor M193 55gr, Magtech HPBT 69gr, Federal XM855 62gr, each round requires mortaring or a mallet to extract. I had one other newly built upper with me that has a Green Mountain barrel and BCM BCG, it chambers, fires, and extracts all four of these rounds without issue. I pull that BCG out and try it in one of the Geissele barrels with no improvement.

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Begin Part 2

Back home with everything on the bench and try to figure out what the issue is. I have previously been an 07 FFL and have training as a gunsmith/machinist at the Trinidad gunsmith school, though I do not consider myself to be either, I mention this to make the point that I have some experience chambering barrels and have some tools that most other shooters wouldn't. I check each barrel with a gauge that checks if the throat and freebore are to 5.56 chamber specs, all four barrels fail this check. I also have a special 5.56 chamber reamer that only cuts forward of the shoulder, so the neck, throat and freebore (this reamer is used to convert .223 chambers to 5.56 NATO without lengthening headspace) this reamer inserts most of the way in to the 11.5 barrels, a couple spins and a little bit of material removed and rounds are now able to enter the chamber, bolt is able to go in to battery, and they are able to be extracted with ease. The 14.5 barrels required quite a bit more than just a couple spins but after a few minutes I was able to get both barrels to where rounds could enter, go in to battery, and extract.

The takeaway from all of this is there is definitely a bad (actually not just bad but unsafe) batch of Geissele barrels out there, these barrels were either not cut to 5.56 NATO chamber dimensions or they were and chrome build up was enough to bring them out of spec, either-way, checking the chamber dimensions after chrome plating was not one of the QC steps performed on all four of my barrels.

There are a bunch of other reports on their stand alone barrels not being gtg as well

Did you check the gas port size on these.  People were reporting a .062 gas port size on a 16'' mid-length which is tiny for that configuration.

I would contact them if you have further issues, this is the first i read of chamber issues.  Hopefully they will still help if needed since you reamed them already.  They should being that they sent you non functioning parts

I'll check the gas ports tonight or tomorrow. I want to say there was lot numbers engraved on the barrels as well so I will share that info. I fully expect I ruined any chance of a replacement once I slide that reamer in but I was pissed and not thinking long run. Maybe they'll still shoot alright.

Not the first chamber issue for geissele barrels, as well as other issues . . .

There’s an ongoing thread here with the title along the lines of “Having to mortar a brand new 11.5 SD” that at least two of us have jumped into to state that we also had issues. Mine was returned to Geissele a few days ago. GACS also posted on another thread in the industry forum where someone asked about quoted turn around times being super long and he said something to the effect that their CS is slammed and they’re stepping it up to get turn around times faster. I hope that’s true and they figure out a better manufacturing and QA/QC process because I want their products to be solid as some of them are, but they clearly had a huge fuckup with barrels and chambers recently.

The last time I remember seeing a major manufacturer having so many corroborated issues was the Magpul Glock mags that I think was from their initial G26 line or something. IIRC, they made a public announcement that stated something along the lines of them fucking up and they handled it well.

G has a major problem with their barrels. Major. Problem.

@GACS even though I already tried fixing the chambers to make them work?

Geissele needs to put out a very clear statement that they sold a quantity of very bad barrels and then have all of their customers and distributors informed of that.

Probably lots of people troubleshooting with the unfortunately wrong thought that the Geissele barrel wouldn't be the culprit.

Having to Mortar brand new 11.5 URGI


geissele 16" barrel short-stroking


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Yet you still went ahead and shipped defective barrels to retailers and paying customers.  And since the defective barrels that awayteamriker received functioned correctly after he used a neck and throat reamer on them, that shows that these barrels also probably have defects in the neck and/or throat area.

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Crazy to have gotten problematic barrels from that many different sources.

So to satisfy my growing concerned curiosity here, was the replacement Super Duty 11.5 assembly that was sent as a replacement for the undersized 11.5 that I was given an RMA for to send back over a month ago that both Justin and Jason A. took care of, a properly in spec barrel with the correct chamber spec? I'm a bit worried now

I will definitely do the plunk test after being received from UPS and report back in here.

I have a 10.3" that will chamber and fire 5.56 but not .223.  I can't get a turn around time estimate out of Geisselle which, to some extent I understand, but it's still frustrating.  I'm thinking I'm going to go back to Noveske and JP Rifle barrels.  No issues with them.

Totally forgot to report back in this thread about that plunk test

My new to me barrel passed the plunk test. Round that was tested was a Federal AE .223 55 FMJ.

I posted this in another thread that got locked:

I have an update on my 14.5 urgi upper receiver group. I bought it new during a Memorial Day sale, when I took it to the range it functioned fine, was properly gassed, but it ran out of windage when I attempted to zero the backup iron sights. I noticed that it took a lot of windage on my Vortex razor 1-6 to get it properly zeroed. Accuracy seemed a little disappointing, but the inability to zero the upper was my biggest concern.

It took about a month, but I got upper back on 8/08/22. Just came back from my range at home, I am very pleased. The Geissele Tech who was emailing me explained that they replaced the barrel, test-fired, backup irons were only two clicks off of completely centered windage at 100 yards after the fix. He said they also shot some very good groups at 100 yards using 77 grain ammo.  

I confirmed both today. Accuracy with IMI m193 was pretty typical, none of my rifles shoot less than 2 MOA 5-10 shot groups with that stuff.  However, both 5 round groups I shot with 77 SMK hand loads (23.3 grains of IMR 8208) were close to 1 moa, including one that had four shots into 0.5".  Ejection was perfect, very small pile of brass at approximately 3:30

I feel like Geissele went above and beyond because they actually replaced the entire upper receiver group, including the bolt carrier assembly, charging handle,  everything.  The new mk16 rail is a nicer color brown, the other one was a little more gold. I'm not sure if it was just quicker for them to replace the entire upper, but I was happily surprised they did it.  I looked at the new barrel with a borescope, it's noticeably nicer than my other chrome-lines barrels

I know Geissele is getting shit on a lot, I own a lot of their triggers and some other things, this is the first issue I've ever had with any of their products.  They fixed it, I am happy. Just my two cents on the whole thing

I just received a complete upper yesterday from one of your dealers. Is there a recommendation on how to check if mine is GTG? my headspace gauges check out but I don't think that is the issue here? Is it dangerous to fire?

Pull the BCG and CH then do a plunk test. If it passes, shoot it.

I did the plunk test. Not sure how scientific this test is but I got the same results as my other AR's so I went out and zeroed my iron sights and ACOG at 25 meters and 100 meters. I was using lake city XM855. I had no issues and very tight groups (Sub MOA). This may be my most accurate rifle (I don't have any high accuracy bench guns) My brass was ejecting at 4-5 o'clock both suppressed and unsuppressed. I ordered some PMC 55gr .223 and will see if I have any issues with a lower pressure. All that to say I am happy with the purchase so far. If I wanted to get picky, and I think this is ridiculous to even complain about, but the alignment of the barrel and the rail is off by 1/32. Meaning, when I measure the distance from the barrel to the end of the rail it is 1/32 closer on the right side. I measured two of my other AR's and they were off by about 1/16 so I think this is more than acceptable on a 14.5 inch barrel and rail. I suspect that the rail is to blame but is probably within tolerance by any reasonable standard. Guess I got a good one.

Buy once cry thrice

So your barrel magically transforms 3 MOA ammunition into sub-MOA ammunition?




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Well now we can't take anything you say seriously..

This is relevant to my interests. I have an 11.5” on the way from Primary Arms.  $270 didn’t seem like a bad price at all for a CHF CL barrel from a top tier mfg.

Other CHF barrels go for AT LEAST that much right now and pretty much everything else is dried up except for Colt and barrels sourced from BA as the OEM.

Now I’m nervous.

What firearm was used in that test and under what conditions?
Attached File

I wouldn't recommend it. Please explain though.

See your image posted above.

Machine rested, bolt-action heavy test-barrels used during US military lot-acceptance testing.
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Well, three rounds per group is probably not sufficient to claim sub MOA. Just wanted to post my experience with an upper that seemed at risk for the Geissele barrel issues reported in this thread. US military lot acceptance test would have been much more extensive than my 18 rounds from the same box fired in three shot groups. I never saw this kind of grouping with m855 out of my army issued M4. Not even at 25 meters.

We’re you making scope adjustments between those 3-shot groups or something?

Attached File

Super Precision?

Yes.

Many rifles and ammo can shoot a 3 round "sub MOA" groups, but these groups are not statistically significant enough to be considered reliable.  I typically shoot 5 round groups to get a sense of accuracy, but 10 rounds are better.  I've shot .5" groups in the first 3 rounds, only to have the group open up to 2"-3"+ in 5-10 round groups.  No rifle on the planet will consistently shoot M855 sub MOA, the ammo simply isn't accurate/consistent enough to yield those repeatable results over time.