Well I have a Colt Lower and a Fredom Arms upper, both Pre-ban, the Upper is an A3 16" barrel with a free floating hand guard. the uppers set to Mil-Spec. I'm using .233 Fediral ammo.

I went to my shooting spot to do a little shooting. It first I see if things fit I cycled a round from the mag into the chamber and was going to cycle a few rounds by hand, pull the bolt back and let the unspent round eject.

The bolt will not come back? It's locked in place.

The fwd assist moved the the bolt fwd so that I can open the Lower, but I'm afrade to play with it with a hot round in the chamber.

I was hesitaint to fire the rifle with it binding up, what should I do?

go outside, preferably avay from dense populations.  If you can put the rifle on safe.  Keeping your head/body away from the muzzle, slam the butt of the rifle against the ground.  It sounds harsh, but this is what the military trains also.  Don't worry, your AR can take it.  If 2 or 3 trys doesn't free the stuck round/jammed carrier, then bring the rifle to a qualified gun smith (and don't forget to keep the muzzle pointing away from people when you tell him/her that there is a stuck live round in the chamber.

Ok Vinnie

I'll try that, what causes this to begin with?

I don't want a repeat.

Oversize round, dirty chamber, small chamber...

Read the reply at the mirror post in the "build it yourself" forum.

Shoot the round out. Slam the butt on the ground, or use a screwdriver to push the carrier rearward.

If you have the upper off the gun, just give the charging handle a good pull and try not to drop the bolt carrier.

If you slam the gun down you could damage the stock, lower receiver buffer tube threads, and the hammer could drop firing the gun. Not only is that dangerous because you could shoot yourself, but you can do serious hearing damage.

If there is something wrong with the round in the chamber or the bolt/carrier the gun could blow up from firing that round.

Don't slam it with the lower on the gun!

[b] It is not unusual for some factory ammo (and even some reloads) to go into the chamber tightly enough that you can't easily extract the loaded round.  This is NOT abnormal unless the round is so deformed that you can't push the bolt into battery, even with firm pressure on the forward assist.

As you would NEVER chamber a live round without the intent of USING IT, you should never have to try to remove a live round from the chamber anyway.  It is an unsafe practice to just chamber live rounds for the hell of it.

If the bolt closes and it goes into battery, shoot it and don't worry that it was a bit too tight to extract with the charging handle.


So you just fire it.  Then the shell usually
flies out with considerable vigor.

No big deal.  You're making a mountain out of a molehill. [/b]

CJ

Dont listen to justlooking. He is wrong. It will not hurt your gun. That is the way the military has been clearing jams for decades. Put the safety on, kneel down, one hand on the handguard, one hand on the lower. With the rifle about 10-12 inches above the ground slam the but on the ground in a way that would make the carrier to travel rearward. It will fix you right up.

Just take off any optics you might have on the gun first.


No need to subject your optics to such shock loadings if you don't have to.


Ride the charging handle with one hand while holding onto the forearm with the other, bring the butt of the rifle downwards onto the ground while riding the charging handle.   Enertia will transfer into the hand riding the charging handle and generally it will extract the stuck casing from the chamber.


OR, it will rip the rim off the casing leaving you with a stuck casing in the chamber.    But atleast you can remove the bolt carrier assembly and then use a cleaning rod to tap the casing out once the carrier assembly has been removed.

Ugly's got it right.  Grab the rifle up near the front site but on the hand guard with your left hand.  Put your right hand on the charging handle, thumb on the charging release and pull it back as you slam the butt down on the ground.

Examine the round closely after its out.  Look realy carefully at the bullet where it starts it's curve towards the point (ojive).  Look for marks left by the lands (rifling).  The shiny parts are where the round was binding up.

Edited to add for God's sake be safe.  Be on your knees so the muzzle is above you head.  Point rifle in safe direction, up and/or down range, not up over some populated area.  Make sure safety is on.

Whoa, first and foremost.


This is a live round?


Make certain that safety is engaged and maintain strict control over where the muzzle is pointed.

Have yet to have a live round get stuck.   Have had a couple of fired rounds become stuck though.

Hi All

Thanks for the replys, the but slap fixed it in one whack (not even a hard one).

Yes the round was live, some one mentioned it's not a good idea to do what I did. I would agree 99% of the time.

To restate  Iwas at my shotting spot, safe back drop out door area. The upper is new and never been fired, I wanted to cycle a few rounds to make sure the whole system worked together.... and it didn't, at that time I was afrade to fire the rife, being new (both the rife and me) I figured I'd ask first. As always safty on, and not being real familar with the internal working I did not want to mess with the hot gun.

As for the cause, I'm still not 100% sure, the round's factory but old, it did have a dent on top of it, deformed?

After the jam was cleared I tried to reload (to actualy shoot this time!) but the rifle will not put a round to battery, it skips off the top of the buller in the mag. I looked at that bullet and it's got a big dent in it also, from the bolt scraping the top of it.

I ran out of daylight at that point, so I'll test some other mags later, this might have been the culprit.

One thing I saw was a dirty forward assist, the forward assist can get stuck forward always engaging the little notches preventing you from pulling it back.

Happened to me at first, I CLPed the forwards assist and it's never happened since.

Might want to check that as well being that it wasn't a fired round and you used the forward assist to put it in.

Hope that offers some help to someone.

If I’m reading you correctly, it sounds like the dent in the round deformed it enough to cause it to get jammed in the chamber.

Part of the problem is that AR’s have very little manual extraction power (unlike, say, bolt guns).  It’s real easy to get a damaged round stuck like that.

You should never try to chamber a defective round.

In a self-defense situation, you may find yourself chambering a round but not ultimately firing it.  For that reason, IMHO, you should make sure you’re able to extract unfired rounds without major problems.

199 is probably right but just as one more  thought:  What about short headspace?  Is this a factory assembled upper?  Was headspace checked out?  I once jammed a round in the chamber when I screwed up the headspace setting on a sizing die.  BTW, I eventually removed the round by inserting a screwdriver between the carrier and the forward edge of the ejection port.



I've been at a several matches where a cease fire was called for safety reasons or target malfunction.  All competitors must unload and show clear while the range masters rectified whatever the situation was.  

You guys sure like reading into stuff.

What kind of mag are you using?

I believe your thinking of some sort of sword legend where if one pulls his sword it must draw blood.  In the real world there are a number of occasions where one would need to eject a live round.

Hi again all.

More info if I missed it before:

The round was not damaged when I loded the gun (or at least I did not notice anything), when I got it out it had a dent in it, I honestly don't know if it was like that or did that when I loded it. The second round had a long dent/scrap on it after the bolt missed it and scrached the top of it.

I stopped messing with the rifle then and went home.

The Mag is an old (10+ year old) Colt 20 round mag, at least the bottom is stamped colt.

The upper is factory built, and I was told it's Mil-spec.

I did wipe it down and run a bore-snake thrue it before putting it on the lower.

I have two Colt mags that do the same thing, with the same ammo. But when I try with a 30 round "Kay" mag (has a circle with what looks like a K and an ay after it) with diffrent ammo it works just fine. I think this is a mag/ammo combination issue.

Try the trouble shooting forum.  I remember reading a similar problem.  The scrathes are normal, but the denting means something is off I just forget what.  Something with the mag catch perhaps.  Where's Troy when ya need him?  

had a simliar problem with a rifle.  the bolt was dragging across the top of the mag, not chambering the round, and leaving a big dent in the round itself.

it was the mag.  An SA80 imperial defense made in england.

are you using a USGI mag?

Skag, I honestly don't know if it's a GI Mag, there old Colt mags, posibly old military mags, I got the gun from my Uncle and he got the mags from a friend so no history on them.

If they are real Colt's they would be USGI.  Are they alluminum or steel?  (Use a magnet if you have a doubt)  Could be just the age of the mag/feed lips not feeding the round corectly.  I just read the part about you using a 30 rounder without any problems.