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Posted: 8/11/2026 12:15:28 PM EDT
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I had a RF15 5.56. I was shooting Hornady Frontier 55GR HP (yes I know, but I already bought a bunch of this stuff before hearing about the issues, plus I was able to use the 55GR Frontier FMJs just fine). I was having some slight issues with this ammo, but fired about 200 rounds of it, there was a couple times some primers were popping out and falling into the action causing a failure to feed, but other than that it was fine. That was until I fired round 192, and my rifle detonated. The magazine was ejected out, and was ballooned out and obliterated, and blowing the bottom of the magazine out and the remaining ammunition all over the bench. It caused a hairline crack to form along the barrel chassis, and it blew a chunk of the bottom of the BCG downwards. The fired brass is still trapped inside. This lead to a total loss of the rifle. I reached out to Hornady to see if they could do anything about the rifle and the remaining 402 rounds of unfired ammunition, and they sent me a return label for the ammo, and tested it. They claimed when they tested it that there was nothing wrong, and it tested around 56,000 PSI. They sent me replacement ammo and told me to reach out to Radical. So reached out to Radical and submitted a warranty request and they said it sounds like an ammo overpressure event and that their warranty doesn't cover ammunition overpressure events, but that I could send it in and pay their non negotiable $85 gunsmithing fee just to look at it plus whatever it would cost to replace AND return shipping if they don't replace it under warranty, which sounds like a gamble I don't want to take. What should I do now? Should I try to put more pressure on Hornady? I checked the lot numbers on the boxes and there was no active recall for them, so I just kept shooting it, thinking the rifle didn't like it much since the FMJs shot fine. I mean, this definitely feels like it's Hornady's screw up and I don't think it's fair that I'm just SOL with a broken rifle. |
| I wouldn't be surprised if there was an issue with the Radical made rifle. The worst AR-15 I ever had came from Radical - the BCG was so poorly staked that it worked loose and stopped functioning within 200 rds. The replacement BCG they sent me was also poorly staked so I never used it. Their quality control is awful. |
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Originally Posted By nvcdl: I wouldn't be surprised if there was an issue with the Radical made rifle. The worst AR-15 I ever had came from Radical - the BCG was so poorly staked that it worked loose and stopped functioning within 200 rds. The replacement BCG they sent me was also poorly staked so I never used it. Their quality control is awful. As bad as radical is I have never heard of them causing otherwise normal ammo to blow up a rifle. The only complaints I've seen on them has been minor things like bad bolts and misfeeds. Frontier on the other hand has had many documented cases of causing catastrophic failures. |
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Originally Posted By Jake1989: As bad as radical is I have never heard of them causing otherwise normal ammo to blow up a rifle. The only complaints I've seen on them has been minor things like bad bolts and misfeeds. Frontier on the other hand has had many documented cases of causing catastrophic failures. I didn't have any issues with the chamber of my Radical ar-15 but an undersized chamber could cause an over pressure situation. |
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Couple of quick questions. Was barrel reamed 223 rem, 223 wylde, or was it reamed 5.56 nato. I bring them up, since nato ammo is loaded to 62K, while 223 ammo is loaded to 55K. So since throat is different between the these 3 barrel chamber reams, if chamber was 223 rem, then this ammo in going to create higher working pressures in that chamber, over a chamber that is 5.56 nato with it longer lead. Hence it not much of a difference, the but the longer leade does allow for slightly more blow by before the case seals off to the chamber in the Nato chamber. The Hornady Frontier 55GR HP is 5.56 NATO 55 gr HP Match™ Frontier - Ammunition, so loaded to 62K. Next, did you ever check to make sure that bullets where not embedding into rifling at loading. Hence if leade of the barrel was short chambered, then even less blow by at firing at firing, which again, raises the working pressure of the round over it normal working pressures. Last one, are you dam sure that you did not have a fail to fire, racked that round out to load another one into the chamber, but did not check to make sure that entire round with bullet was ejected, hence not leaving the bullet left into the barrel bore throat, and that next round loaded and fired, was not done so on obstructed bore. Hence pull hand guards, take a photo of the barrel od, so we can check for a barrel bulge where it may have been obstructed.  I bring this up, since from time to time, we see people blaming factory ammo that is in spec, when in fact the reason of the KB was the fail to fire of first round, that round cycled out with bullet stuck in bore/failed to make sure that bullet came out with rest of round, and the KB was operator error alone. And yes, if this did happen and reason for the KB, then manufacturer is going to tell such really quick, since barrel bore is going to be bulged where the it was obstructed when they bore scope the barrel for that kind of problem. P.S Welcome to the site!!! |
Posted By PlaymoreMinds:
'Twas not the <cough> sweet and innocent <cough> PlaymoreMinds...
<---skips away in frilly skirts to Candyland, leaving gutters and snorkels FAR behind.
'Twas not the <cough> sweet and innocent <cough> PlaymoreMinds...
<---skips away in frilly skirts to Candyland, leaving gutters and snorkels FAR behind.
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Pretty much most stuff was covered in the post above. When you hear about a KB most times it seems like there was some type of trouble happening before it happened. I tried hollow point ammunition in an AR years back and while it might work for many I had regular failures of it feeding where the tip caught on the barrel extension or below it and hung up. |
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| I highly doubt there was a squib. There were no signs of it and the prior cartridge fired fine. The barrel is stamped 5.56 NATO. I haven't really done much disassembly of the rifle other than separating the upper and lower because I wanted to keep things intact in case Radical would've taken it in for warranty. |
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In your first couple of sentences in your first post you state that you were having some issues with the ammunition, what were those issues? You then go onto state that you were popping some primers, which this is a sign of possible over pressure. Do you have any of the casings with the popped primers, and if so can you post a few pics of them, as this may show signs of over pressure or deformities that may help indicate what was going on? When you experienced the popped primers, what was the procedure you used when clearing out the blown primers? When you were shooting, did you drop and/or then pick up any ammunition from the ground that may have been dropped or left by someone else? So when you obtained the rifle, did you give it a thorough cleaning, to include using a chamber brush? If you did clean the rifle, to include the barrel. can you explain your process that you used? A thorough cleaning, to include the chamber, will make sure that there are not packing or preserving agents/oils left that would cause issues, especially if there is any in the chamber which can cause issues with the ammunition casings not being able to expand properly. Next can you give any details of when you were loading or shooting, where you had any issues of getting the gun to manually cycle when loading, or getting magazines seated & locked into the receiver? As for a squib, light load, or contaminated gunpowder where only the primer goes off, as mentioned above the action can cycle and leave the bullet behind somewhere in the barrel, then when you fire the next round the live round will impact the obstructing bullet that was left behind, then cause the catastrophic issue you possibly had. When this happens, usually you can find a bulge on the outside of the barrel, but sometimes it may only look like a small ring in the parkerized finish, and I have consulted on a quite a few that the only sign was a mark in rifling inside the barrel where you could see where the 2 bullets impacted and deformed things. So hopefully you can help answer a few of the questions, as this may help us help you to figure out the issue. CY6 Greg Sullivan "Sully" WeaponsArmorer SLR15 Rifles Defensive Edge Training (763) 712-0123 |
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The ammo was having some issues when I was firing it. Usually the most common issue was the popped primers, they would jam up the bolt and cause the rifle not to go into battery fully, causing me to have to remove the magazine and manually eject the next cartridge so I could remove the primer, which usually just involved tipping the rifle sideways and it would fall out. Ocassionally the cartridge wouldn't want to eject out of the chamber so I'd have to mortar the rifle. Sometimes I'd have failure to feed issues. I didn't use any ammunition I found off the ground. I completely disassembled the rifle and gave all the necessary parts a cleaning and lubing, as well as the bore. I also did this again after I started having issues with this specific ammo, and it made no noticeable difference. I do have several of the empty brass that had popped primers, as I save all my brass, but I can't provide pictures right now because I'm away from home for weeks at a time. Will try and provide some photos as soon as possible. |
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Originally Posted By ABuchler: The ammo was having some issues when I was firing it. Usually the most common issue was the popped primers, they would jam up the bolt and cause the rifle not to go into battery fully, causing me to have to remove the magazine and manually eject the next cartridge so I could remove the primer, which usually just involved tipping the rifle sideways and it would fall out. Ocassionally the cartridge wouldn't want to eject out of the chamber so I'd have to mortar the rifle. Sometimes I'd have failure to feed issues. I didn't use any ammunition I found off the ground. I completely disassembled the rifle and gave all the necessary parts a cleaning and lubing, as well as the bore. I also did this again after I started having issues with this specific ammo, and it made no noticeable difference. I do have several of the empty brass that had popped primers, as I save all my brass, but I can't provide pictures right now because I'm away from home for weeks at a time. Will try and provide some photos as soon as possible. Any update on this issue? Are you ditching the Hornady ammo or planning on going to a 5.56 NATO chamber barrel? |
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Originally Posted By smoothy8500: Any update on this issue? Are you ditching the Hornady ammo or planning on going to a 5.56 NATO chamber barrel? Originally Posted By smoothy8500: Originally Posted By ABuchler: The ammo was having some issues when I was firing it. Usually the most common issue was the popped primers, they would jam up the bolt and cause the rifle not to go into battery fully, causing me to have to remove the magazine and manually eject the next cartridge so I could remove the primer, which usually just involved tipping the rifle sideways and it would fall out. Ocassionally the cartridge wouldn't want to eject out of the chamber so I'd have to mortar the rifle. Sometimes I'd have failure to feed issues. I didn't use any ammunition I found off the ground. I completely disassembled the rifle and gave all the necessary parts a cleaning and lubing, as well as the bore. I also did this again after I started having issues with this specific ammo, and it made no noticeable difference. I do have several of the empty brass that had popped primers, as I save all my brass, but I can't provide pictures right now because I'm away from home for weeks at a time. Will try and provide some photos as soon as possible. Any update on this issue? Are you ditching the Hornady ammo or planning on going to a 5.56 NATO chamber barrel? Originally Posted By ABuchler: The barrel is stamped 5.56 NATO. |
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Originally Posted By 308223: Maybe the barrel was stamped 5.56 NATO but was instead a .223 rem chamber. Then it should be a mfg. Problem and they could warranty it. Still believe that the problem was operator error of obstructed barrel, so until we hear back if the barrel was obstructed bulge by obstruction, then even hard to go down the rabbit hole of if barrel was reamed correctly for the 5.56 nato ammo run through it. But will point out, that the rig was giving signs of problems long before the KB event, since even opt was stating blown problems before hand with the nato ammo, and where he should have switch to 223 rem ammo, or should have had the barrel checked to make sure it was reamed 5.56 nato to begin with. |
Posted By PlaymoreMinds:
'Twas not the <cough> sweet and innocent <cough> PlaymoreMinds...
<---skips away in frilly skirts to Candyland, leaving gutters and snorkels FAR behind.
'Twas not the <cough> sweet and innocent <cough> PlaymoreMinds...
<---skips away in frilly skirts to Candyland, leaving gutters and snorkels FAR behind.
| Google Hornady Frontier and you'll find countless anecdotes on here and elsewhere of rifles failing catastrophically. How Hornady (and Lake City who loads it) hasn't been sued into oblivion is beyond me. That shit almost took out a factory Diemaco 6921 that otherwise had zero issues with well over 3500 rounds of other ammo types. Hornady asked for a sample of the ammo, I sent them pieces of the destroyed extractor and bolt with extruded brass in the firing pin channel and the case with the back/side of it blown out and they basically told me to pound sand, didn't replace the ammo, didn't replace the parts, no refund. Fuck them. |
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Problem is no the Nato loaded ammo, but it run in guns that do not have true NATO chambers to begin with. I bring this up, since way back machine, Bushmaster was clambering on the cross wall tight side of 223 rem to try to make the barrels more accurate, and all is did was cause reliability problems with 223 ammo as the rigs start to foul up from normal use to the point that some departments stop buying them. Also, same problem can happen with True 62K Nato ammo and Wylde chambers as well. Simply put, when your blowing primers, or the spent primers are flat flowing all the way to the edge of the case primer cup when brass is policed, then you have problems with the rig, and that is when you either need to step down to 55K 223 rem ammo, or have the chamber checked to make sure its reamed to true 5.56 nato in both cross wall and throat sections. As for rifle in question, if barrel was marked 5.56 nato, then was having problems with factory 62K NATO ammo, then problem falls back on the manufacturer of the rig; so long as KB was not caused by operator error induced obstructed barrel. |
Posted By PlaymoreMinds:
'Twas not the <cough> sweet and innocent <cough> PlaymoreMinds...
<---skips away in frilly skirts to Candyland, leaving gutters and snorkels FAR behind.
'Twas not the <cough> sweet and innocent <cough> PlaymoreMinds...
<---skips away in frilly skirts to Candyland, leaving gutters and snorkels FAR behind.
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