Been shooting AR's for about a year now.  Dozens of range visits.  Shot approx. 5K of various manufacturer rounds, mostly this once fired tactical reloaded ammo.  Sunday range day.  Bench shooting on a 100yd range.  Ammunition used: brass cased "once fired" 55 gr fmjbt .223/5.56 "factory tactical reload".  Rounds loaded in C products aluminum bodied magazine.  Magazine was nearly empty, when "KABOOM".

The bolt was locked in the chamber alittle more than1/2 way.  You couldn't pull the charging handle back.  You can see the spent shell was still in the chamber, but the broken off part pictured, was stuck to the bolt.  The extractor was bent, as you can see in the other picture.  It took me and the RSO a couple of raps with a hammer and wood stick on the charging handle to free up the bcg and bolt from the chamber.  The chamber you can see (after I cleaned it), shows no damage.  Also, none to the upper receiver as well.

From there, we took it apart and used my cleaning rod to push out the broken spent shell case out of the chamber.  Needless to say, no more shooting that rifle.  We surmised a possible "squib load", double load.  But, if you look closely at the damaged spent shell casing, the end is pretty clean and the rest is fouled.  RSO said that the round wasn't fully chambered.  

When the firing pin made contact, about an inch of it was also fouled.  The gases went straight from the chamber, down into the magazine well and blew out the bottom of the magazine.  You should have seen my face, as I fired off that round and heard and felt something different.  Looking down, I saw the bottom of the magazine all blown out and seeing the magazine spring hanging out too!

Prior to this happening, I had an issue with it feeding, so I changed out the spring (Extra power M4/Car-15 spring) from tacticalsprings.com and also the standard buffer to a heavy Spikes Tactical ST-T2 buffer.  Could that have been too much?  I put approx. 300 rds thru my rifle with this spring setup and it worked just fine up until then.  I did notice that some rds were ejecting at approx. 4 o'clock instead of deflecting off at 2 o'clock just prior to the KABOOM.  Just wondering what the hive has to say?

There they are...

Dang, man.  Glad you're ok.

Gunshow reloads?

I doubt it was a squib, I would think if that were the case there would be more damage to the rifle, but Glad you are ok. My guess is the round wasn't fully seated, maybe because it was dirty?????

KB's suck and almost always are ammo related.

I had one about 7 years ago off some bosnian surplus, it wasn't fun but I didn't get hurt and my upper was replaced.

Contact who you got the ammo from and go from there, with it being reloads you may not have alot of recourse.

I'm willing to bet your rifle KB's due to case failure or a stuck primer caused it to fire out of battery.

10-4 Gents...thanks for all your feedback.  I clean my rifle after every range session.  I guess for the price of reloads, you can still find good ammo for slightly more.  Appreciate your comments again.

1098cya

No gunshow reloads....just online ammo I have been using alot until now.

looks like it fired out of battery...make sure you bolt/barrel does not have any cracks/hard to see damage...re-head psace just to be sure...replace your extractor...clean it all up...and go shoot it again...

if you are still worried before you shoot it take it to a gunsmith for a physical....

Could you share the name of the "Tactical Reloaded Ammunition"?  Lot numbers?

That's it!  "Tacticalammunition.com"

I believe it's the 62 gr fmjbt Lot #1327-110309-1-13

case head separation. that's the reason why i only reload my own brass and i never reload other people's brass unless i know for sure it's brand new. not a squib since there's no damage to the barrel. did the round before it fired & sounded normal? you would've had to follow that up with another round to cause a kaboom.

it can't fire out of battery either - this topic has been beaten to death. i think it was molon who posted those pics that show an out of battery firing is impossible! the firing pin is nowhere near the primer. i can't find the thread. maybe it got buried with all the fit and finish threads.

glad you're okay!

Copy that BURN....I have a replacement bolt and extractor already installed.  I was planning on tomorrow...but rain in the forecast.  I have a BCM bolt on it's way also.

Looks like it made a red warning button pop out at the mag release.
The blown out part of the shell looks to be only the unsupported part at the bolt so the bolt was probably locked in the chamber

Their home page picture is from Counterstrike: Source.


 

Thanks, still in one piece.  The round before did sound normal.  Case head separation huh?  bad brass?  Moral of this story....If you don't reload (like me)....use good factory ammo.

is it possible that the bullet seated deeper in the case, in the feeding into chamber, and caused case head rupture????  too much pressure from bullet being too deep in case????––––––glad it turned out this well, anyway.

LOL!  yeah, it's done alright!  Calibullshit law.  The "wrench" is my friend.

Wow, glad you're okay!

Really no way to tell......when I pushed out the spent shell casing with the cleaning rod, it wasn't difficult.  I mean, it wasn't "stuck" way into the chamber.

Glad your okay!  You could have been arrested for an unregistered DD!! (calibullsh*t)

Unless it's the camera, there appears to be swelling from the middle of the case to the rim. I'd say if fired out of battery.

How much cheaper are reloads? With the price of steel case, I can't imagine why you'd want to take a gamble like that.

Your absolutely right.....entirely my bad.  

Does appear doesn't it?  According to Arfcom gurus....firing out of battery is "Unpossible".

here's a similar post. look for keith_j's reply. hang around the reloading sub-forum if you guys don't know who he is. here's another which includes the pics that molon (i think) reposted here before. keith_j and molon can actually back up the info they post rather than regurgitate hearsay and speculation.

Those prices are more than factory loads I am getting.

Federal XM193 s costing me 30 cents a round today while factory XM855 is only 41 cents.

You're paying too much for reloads.

edit: California. I get it. Stupid new law concerning ammo purchase. Say, why don't you guys in Cali just rent a UPS box(UPS store) in the nearest state and have it shipped there. Pick up the "package" whenever you have  the time.

Very good info not only for the AR15 but the M14 and M1 both of wich I also own

you are most likely right...bad ammo...but I am answering from a firearms problem position.

as far as a AR15 family of rifles not firing out of battery...well lets see

Debris in between the pin/bolt face and primer...

an out of spec firing pin (too long, or breaks)

an improperly head spaced weapon.....

when speaking of anything that is mechanical in nature you can not speak in absolutes...

Just saying my friend...and for learning purposes I would like to see the pic molon posted ....so if anyone else has a link handy.

JV3 already posted the links to those threads, and the pics are in there.

I did one better...Me and my better half bought a vacation home in LV.   Just have to time it right when ordering and waiting for the shipment to arrive while there.  That was a great idea though.  

"California. I get it. Stupid new law concerning ammo purchase."


That new law doesn't go into effect until 2011.  

Also, it is only SUPPOSED to prevent ordering centerfire handgun ammo over the internet.

They can fire out of battery or not locked in from more than one cause. There has already been a post where a guys fired from a piece of primer stuck to the bolt face.

I wonder what that  funny warning about not putting your cam pin in is all about.

Because the case head was damaged in a very unusual way I suspect too much pressure was used removing the military crimp. An improperly adjusted Dillon 600 can place a substantial amount of unecessary force on the case head. If the reloaders used an assembly line automated reloading machine it could have done the same thing. Properly adjusted equipment isn't optional, it's required.

If that's the case more articles may be forthcoming from other customers. If you still have their ammo I would suggest you check the resized headspace on it. If you don't have the tools a cheap gage is available from Dillon for around $15.00. That would be cheap insurance if you plan on shooting any more "store bought reloads" or "homegrown" should you decide to go that route. If the cases weren't damaged in the loading process you have ammo or a rifle that is incompatable with each other for reasons yet unknown.

Check your fired cases in the gage too. It may be you have a headspace problem with your rifle, but that is pretty rare.

What manufacture is the brass itself?
There was a bunch of LC97 floating around that had a lot of case rupture just like that a few years ago.

not according to some...

debris is a hell of a drug

you are assuming a non-broken gun/brass...etc...

+1

Thats what happen to me about 7 years ago.

A primer fused to the bolt face right at the firing pin location, rifle stripped new round from mag and then it fired out of battery.

The LC casing is too damaged to determine what number.  It very well may be LC97, but others that I checked are much more recent like 04,05, and 08.

My turn to tell you that I'm glad your OK too!  KB's take all the fun out of BRD.  Heading back to the range tomorrow with the same rifle, but with replacement bolt and extractor.   American Eagle XM193 this time around.  Stay safe.

1098cya

that would be a slam fire (primer was high) - the firing pin still had nothing to do with it going off. i've set off a few primers myself putting too much pressure on the reloading press.

question for 1098cya: did you pull the trigger and the kaboom happened? or did you pull the trigger, a bullet came out, shell ejected, bolt cycled, stripped another round and then the kaboom happened?

to me, fired out of battery means the firing pin was involved which implies the rifle is defective/broken. slam fire, over-pressure round, bad brass, etc. implies bad ammo which is far more likely. maybe i'm just looking at things with stricter definition. not trying to stir things up but maybe i'm just over-thinking it...so long as we all agree it's an ammo issue and not with the rifle

Typical overpressure round, fired in battery. The case rupture was at the extractor. If it went off out of battery the rupture would most likely be somewhere else on the case head.

If the OP were to section his brass he would find massive brass flow and expansion of the primer pocket. Again, caused by extremely high pressures.

It would look something like this:

+1... over pressure, in battery.

I had the exact same failure a few years ago with some of that Adcom trash.

A slam fire by definition is when the the inertia of the action causes a free floating firing pin to set off a round without a pull of the trigger.

Take a look at pic 2, do you not see the primer fused to the boltface?

you can set off a primer with just a bolt face (or any flat surface) without a firing pin if the primer is high enough - hence my reloading press comment. without the locking lugs completely rotated to the locked position, the firing pin can't go anywhere near the primer. the pics with the cutouts show that clearly.

I pulled the trigger and then the KABOOM.  I remember that distinctly.  I didn't get to the range today.  I doubt that my rifle is broken/defective.  Gonna go tomorrow though.  Thanks for all the feedback.

Check your upper to lower receiver fit. I noticed mine bowing out after my ADCOM kaboom. Turns out the LMT upper got whacked a bit...

Upper fits flush with lower.  Does not appear to the naked eye of any bowing.  So far, so good.  I hope your upper is still shooting good.  Mine too.
Thanks for the pics

I rebuilt my upper since the bolt carrier had some slop. Rather than squeezing it back into spec I gave the LMT to a local hometown member (he was well aware of its condition).