Specs: Wilson 20" varmint barrel, ff handguard, only about 150 rounds through it. Rilfe has functioned flawlessly to this point. Rifle was not dirty, and this was about the 15th round fired today. Ammo used today was handloaded (by me) Winchester cases, Federal BR primers, 60gr. V-Max bullets over 27.5 grs. of H335 powder. Cases were thrice fired.
At the range today, my AR-15 (varmint upper with round free float handguard) failed to fire when the hammer dropped, and I could not open the bolt using the charging handle. The live round was stuck in the chamber. I have had rims ripped off cases before, but never had a live round stuck like this. I (carefully) boxed up the rifle and brought it home to work on it. Once home, I put the rifle in the vise and tried to extract the live round by tugging on the charging handle, but no luck. I was a little nervous because of the live round, but I also knew the hammer had already fallen so it was unlikely it would fire again until the bolt carrier came backwards to cock the trigger again. Anyway, I removed the firing pin as a precaution, then I removed the freefloat handguard and lockring and tried to remove the barrel, but the round was still stuck and the barrel t would not come off the upper reciever. I then put the barrel in a barrel vise and used a block of wood and hammer to drive the reciever, bolt and all, off the barrel. The extractor finally gave way and slipped off the rim of the unfired case, leaving the live round still in the barrel chamber. The case still has a partial rim. Now that the barrel was free, I tried needle-nose pliers to remove the stuck case, but no dice. The case rim is buggered a little, but I cannot get a good bite with the pliers because of the lugs in the chamber.
This problem would be a no-brainer if the round was fired.
Anybody have any ideas on how I can get the stuck, live round out of the chamber/barrel now that the barrel is completely off the rifle??????