You know, after I am done making my rounds here at AR15.com, I drop by assaultweb.net to see whats goiong on in the AR forum... Dont post or respond to a heck of a lot there, but I am blown away at this... 4 of 5 posters so far seem to reccomend USA mags. Maybe someone with some sense will chime in, but I just thought I'd let you get a peek at how the other side lives

assaultweb.net/ubb/Forum2/HTML/003440.html

Maybe I need to start thinking about hwere I spend my time...

I know I will be burned in the fires of hell for saying this, but my AR has been to 5 gunsmiths in the 6 years I have had it. The ONLY time it even remotely comes close to working is with a USA 20 round mag.  U.S. G.I. don't stand a chance.  

It still does not work very well with this mag either, but it works better.

I'm not sticking up for USA mags, thrown lots of them away for the mini-14, but if I want more than two shots before the entire bolt locks up thats what I have to use.

I have three 30 round USA mags.. They are true pieces of junk, and a tribute to callous commercialisim..I managed to get two to work after much persuading, the third is a reminder that even free, these mags are not worth it..

O916- What kind of AR do you have that does'nt function on USGI mags?

Meplat-

obershutze916 - What are the nature of the malfunctions? Fail to feed? Seems like it shouldn't be too hard to troubleshoot. I know several smiths that for some reason cannot grasp how to make an AR run.

I havent had any trouble with USA's 40 rounders for AR. 30's OTOH arent worth the bag they came in!

I've had great luck with 3 out of 4 USA mags(two 30's and a 20,the other 20 wouldn't even fit in the gun!!!!!)....
Then again with my AR180B only one of four would work.
I don't recommend them but they work fine in MY M15A2........

The point is, they may work for a while, but they are made so poorly, it isnt likely they will work for long. Crappy mag bodies, crappy springs, prone to rusting... Whats the point?

Gus, I put together 5 preban DPMS kits right before the ban.  Mine was the only one that did not work perfectly.

At first it fired in full auto only. I took it to a gun smith who said the sear was bad. (thank you Model 1) It was obviously a bad sear by looking at it.  After that it would fire only one shot but not eject.  The bolt/carrier would only move back a quarter inch.

I took it to another gun smith. This guy worked in the Stoner design team back in the 70's.  He said the fire control groups was bad.

During this time I noticed that the charging handiles were becoming bent inside the rifle. Not bad, but enough to notice.

I took it to another gun smith and don't remember whatthey said the problem was.  

As it is now, it will shoot a few rounds, sometimes a few dozen, but then the entire bolt carier will seizr about 1/2 way through its cycle.  Sometimes the chamber will be empty after I get it out, sometimes it will still have the fired case still in the chamber.

I must litterally pry the bolt carrier back about a 1/2 inch then it lossens and all is well until the next time I shoot.

For some reason the USA magazine will give me slightly more shooting time than G.I. mags.

Ammo has ranges from Malaysian, Winchester, IMI, PMP, PMC, reloads, south Afrcan surplus, Remington, and Federal Clasic.

I noticed last week that the charging handle was developing deep grooves both top and botom, mostly bottom at the point wher it begins to "T" out.  The grooves are being worn into the charging handle at some point and are only at the point where the top part of the "T" begins.  I think this is just a symptom of the problem but have no idea.

I have 15,000 rounds for the rifle thinking I will get it to work, but no luck so far.

Any ideas?

I have 4 40's that operate pretty good since I put green followers in them. FWIW
AB

Quoted: At first it fired in full auto only. I took it to a gun smith who said the sear was bad. (thank you Model 1) It was obviously a bad sear by looking at it.

Don't fix what ain't broke, silly!

obershutze916 - Is there any chance you can try a different upper on your lower? Also, you said it fired full auto only - is this a legal conversion machine gun or was that in itself its malfunction? There should be no auto sear at all unless it's a machine gun. If it's not a registered MG, and it fires more than once per pull of the trigger, you are asking for BIG legal problems. It sounds to me like your upper may have a problem if the carrier is jamming up. Is there any other abnormal wear inside the upper or on the carrier itself?

Gus, the gun was NOT supposed to be class III.  The sear I got from Model 1 was bad.  I had that fixed in a hurry.  I knew it was not legal.  You should have seen the look on the gunsmiths face when I told him it was shooting full auto. He was afraid to even work on it.

I will look at the inside of the upper tomorrow morning and get back to you, but I haven't noticed any in my cleaning. It has only fired about 100 rounds since the full auto incident, and that only lasted 2 mags.  The bolt carrier shows no wear at all.  Just the huge gouges on the charging handle.

I will look in the morining and let you know what I see.

Torf, I know, it was tempting...for about 10 minutes......... until I realized what kind of trouble I would be in if I got caught.

I won't ask what you eventually did with the "bad" sear, but I would have certainly kept it hidden for a rainy day.

OK, I think when you say "sear" you are talking about the disconnector. It's a "sear" also, but not an "auto sear" as in machine gun.

Your charging handle getting torn up is kinda weird. Look carefully at the gas key while you're checking it out.

The origional gun smith that fixed the rifle only showed me the bad part. I did not ask for it back, didn't think about it at the time. I was just thinking that it was good that I had my gun back and it wouldn't cost me 20 years in jail!

Gus, I am not real familiar with the parts of the bolt carrier.  What is the gas key?
Sorry, I am more of an AK guy. (sorry, has to say it)
Thanks.

The gas key bolts to the top of the carrier, and slips over the gas tube when the bolt is closed. It also rides in the groove on the underside of the charging handle, which is why I mentioned it, thinking it may be what's chewing up the handle.

Gus, I know what part you are talking about. Thanks.
Will get back to you.

Gus, I looked at the gas key.  It shows no wear but the right side of it back where the two allen screws are there is a little wear.  Not much though, not enough to even notice unless I was looking for it.  

There is a small amount of wear inside the upper.  It is on the left side where the square block on the outside is. It is on the forward edge of the inside of where this block is.  Don't know if this can be anything as it is on the oposite side of the wear described on the gas key. Only other wear is slight and only where you would expect for where the bolt carrier would move back and forth.

J3, instaling the trigger group was the easy part. I really wasn't looking for bad parts.  I was more concerned with properly building other parts. Besides, at the time I didn't know enough about what a full auto sear and a semi-auto sear looked like to look for a difference.

Since you are so darn perfect you tell me what is wrong with the rifle based on my desciption instead of playing "smarter than thou"

(I really shouldn't post at 3:30am before work, its too easy to get pissed off)

BTW, going out og town 'till Saturday night, I Will pick this up again then.

I have only had this gun for 6 years since I built it for my father.  He bought a Colt Sporter right afterwards and gave it back to me a few years later as a college graduation gift.  He had never fired it so he didn't know it didn't work.

Sorfry aqbout myy spellllling. You do better at 3:30am without having time to go back over it.

They were DPMS kits, but I installed parts that worked best in combination with eachother as I went.  By time I got to the last one it was a little rough on fit and finnish (with idea that I would just polish the parts or what ever it took to make tham work well).  By that time I didn't feal like messing with it and was tired of the project since I obvisously am not an expert on this rifle. So I just bought a new fire control group.
And since you  are obviously the grand dragon of your local Mensa chapter, you did realize the sarcasm in the comment about Model 1, But since you are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO perceptive, and pointed out all the other flaws, how about the fact that Model 1 didn't exist under that name at that F***ing time.

I will also point out that I bought stripped uppers, and I bought the sights from Sherluck. I lost a spring or two here and there and bought new ones from some guy at a local gun show.  Don't know his name but he had long hair a beer gut and wore a tiger stripped boonie hat and glasses.  Is that detailed enough. Sorry I can't remember more about the guy, it has been a while.

Is that good enough for you or do you want character wintesses and recipts as well. Are you going to try to assist as others have or just sit ther and there troll some more?

I am obvisously not an expert on this rifle and most likely made a mistake in the building of this one in my flawed effort to make them all "perfect". What I would appreciciate is some help, not waisting everyones time with the damn Spanish Inquisition.

J3, thank you for deleting your last post.

Thank you. I thought I was going to have to start knocking someones head here for a minute.

The charging handle doesn't actually bear on the gas key; it rides on he shelf at the front of the bolt carrier.

Sound like there may be many problems here. Is the barrel headspaced and indexed properly? Is the chamber cut to the correct dimensions?

Most likely culprit (and mind you, I am fresh out of the Colt Armorer's course with little practical experience, yet) is that your gas tube is bent or not in proper position. To check this, remove your handguards and inspect where the gas tube goes through the bbl nut. Does the gas tube touch the nut? If it does then you have a no-go because the gas tube should free float. Cycle the action and watch for and flex or sound as the gas tube comes into contact with the carrier. If you get any, then the tube is incorrect and is not free floated. You can bend it by hand into proper position (don't use too much force, though). Did you assemble the key onto the carrier yourself, or did it come factory staked? If it isn't staked, and you didn't get it on tight enough, it could be leaking gas. Colt says if you replace these to use red loc-tite and not worry about restaking.

Sounds like gas system problems. Work with the gas tube, key and rings. If any of those are damaged, replace them (and not real expensive,either), especially if the have any noticable damage. At least that's my unscientific opinion.

As it is now, it will shoot a few rounds, sometimes a few dozen, but then the entire bolt carier will seizr about 1/2 way through its cycle. Sometimes the chamber will be empty after I get it out, sometimes it will still have the fired case still in the chamber. I must literally pry the bolt carrier back about a 1/2 inch then it lossens and all is well until the next time I shoot.

The fact that the carrier is binding up badly enough that it needs to be pried back, whereupon it frees up, points to a misalignment problem. Testing the rifle with a different, known good, upper would help determine where the alignment problem is. Does the carrier tend to bind in this spot when manually cycling it? If not, there may be excessive clearance between the carrier and the upper receiver, allowing it to cant a little when it cycles after firing a round. Another possibility is misalignment between the carrier and the buffer tube.

I noticed last week that the charging handle was developing deep grooves both top and botom, mostly bottom at the point wher it begins to "T" out. The grooves are being worn into the charging handle at some point and are only at the point where the top part of the "T" begins. I think this is just a symptom of the problem but have no idea.

This is why I asked about wear marks on the gas key. True, the charging handle rides the grooves in the upper receiver, but the gas key rides inside the hollow area of the underside of the charging handle when the carrier cycles back after firing a round. This is not the case when manually cycling since the carrier is being moved by the charging handle pulling it back so the carrier does not move in relation to the charging handle. Also keep in mind that the gas key is steel while the charging handle is aluminum. If there is any contact at all "at speed", the handle will show the wear very quickly.

This is an interesting problem. It is tough to diagnose without having the rifle in person, but we can work through it. There are plenty of very sharp AR mechanics here!!!

Back to the USA mags issue...I have three USA mags and I just haven't bothered to toss them in the trash can yet for some odd reason.

One of them actually tied its follower spring in a knot!   REALLY!

Pieces of junk.

All 20 of my USGI 30's work perfectly, though.  In all three of my AR's.

CJ

Thanks guys, I wont hijack this thread anymore.  I have a feeling it might be a mix of what both of you are saying.  It never seizes while manually working the action, but I do think it is a misalignment problem combined with a possible gas problem.  As I think about it now, I have had to dial my sights all the way to the right to get them to be on target. Until the misalignment issue was brought up I had forgot about that.

I had taken the bolt out and placed it in a Colt sporter that worked. It did work then, so I will look into what you guys have said and if I have any more problems I will post in the troubleshooting section.

Thanks again.

For not posting much over there you are a vet member and 687 posts......Must be someone else.

Anyway USA mags rule!!!! As long as there are in your weapon and not mine.

Quoted: Quoted: At first it fired in full auto only. I took it to a gun smith who said the sear was bad. (thank you Model 1) It was obviously a bad sear by looking at it.   Don't fix what ain't broke, silly!

U R going straight to BJT Hell for that one!

73easting, almost all of my posts have been in the AK forum.  At least I don't have to worry about that gun working.

(Thats just a light hearted jab, I'm not trying to start a flame fest)