My suspicion is the Monarch ammunition, and possibly magazines.  Start with a thorough cleaning of everything, using a good solvent, chamber brush for the chamber, etc.  Once cleaned, lubricate the bolt carrier assembly on the rails and the 7 bolt lugs, so they are wet and glissening like a glazed donut, using a quality lubricant like Slip2000 "EWL" Extreme Weapons Lube.  Then retry shooting the rifles using a quality american made ammunition in both .223 and 5.56, just to see if it functions better and if the rifles prefer the 5.56 over the .223.  Also try some other magazines from a reputable supplier, I like USGI magazines from Center Industries, Okay or NHMTG, and you could also try some polymer magazines like the Magpul Pmags or TangoDown ARC magazines.

CY6
Greg Sullivan "Sully"
SLR15 Rifles
TheDefensiveEdge.com
(763) 712-0123

So may things wrong.

The rifle should be cleaned (including scrubbing the chamber with a chamber brush and CLP by hand) ,  and  the upper receiver bearing surfaces lubed with a fresh coat of CLP before the rifle is every shot (and during cleanings between outings as well).  

Hence CLP had a cleaning agent in it, so it works not only to begin with to remove the assembly grease and debris, but as a great lube as well since it will break down any fouling before it has the chance to collect and choke the rifle out.

Next, once you have done the above, the rifle will need to be broken in with full power brass case ammo.   The reason for this is that the inner surfaces are still new/rough from the new parkerizing/anodizing coatings, and these need to semi polish out through live fire of the parts working against them self.  And, Cue in the CLP with it cleaning agent, since it will make sure that as these surfaces mate in to created a powderized fouling, end up with the fouling flushed away as well.


So on that note, large can of BreakfreeCLP to give the rifle a good cleaning to flush away all the Grease and not cleaning lubes that where used (including scrubbing the chamber with a Chamber brush and CLP by hand) and once all the fouled CLP has been wiped away, then a fresh coat of CLP on the bearing surfaces next.  As for ammo, Win White box, 233 brass case 55gr is a perfect ammo to use for the first 100 rounds to allow the rifle to break in/self polish out.  It"s not going to lay down any bench rest type groups, but is has enough power and reliable enough to use as break-in ammo.

As for the only other solvent to use on the rifle besides CLP, and that is something to clean the actual bore of the barrel.  Here, the trick it to use something that will not have an adverse effect with the CLP (Hoppes cleaning solvent leaves behind a resudue that the CLP turns into a worse sticky mess) and something like Sweets copper solvent is used to clean the bore instead.

So cleaning and lubing of the rifle breaks down like this,

The barrel bore is first cleaned with Sweets, since it will not take a lot of scrubbing to remove the copper from the barrel.  Clean/dry  patches are pushed down the barrel from the chamber to the muzzle until the bore is dry, then CLP is used with a chamber brush by hand to clean the fouling out of the chamber and barrel extension void, then a quick shot of fresh CLP shot into the chamber, Q tips used to clean the barrel extension void area, then the fouling from the chamber is pushed down the barrel and out of chamber with dry patches next.  The reason that you clean the bore, then chamber next, is Sweets leave behind not protective coating in the bore, and when you go to push all the fouled CLP out of the chamber through the bore, even with the chamber apprearing to be bone dry, there is still enough CLP remnants in both for short term storage to prevent rusting.

As for the rest of the rifle, including the buffer, the buffer spring, and even the inside of the receiver extension, CLP only.  Here, just think of this cleaning as just changing the oil in the rig.   As for the B/C, if you pull it down to a cleaning level, give the parts a quick coat of CLP before you start to clean the barrel, buy the time you come back to clean them, the fouling will wipe off isntead.


As for lubing the bearing areas of the  upper receiver, it's very, very simple to do.  The buffer and spring get a light coat of CLP before they are installed, then with the B/C reassembled and it having a light coat of CLP inside and out, it put back into the upper receiver, the rifle dry cycled a few times to migrate the CLP from it to the upper receiver surface ,and now the rifle has been lubed and ready to go.

Lastly, the wet part of CLP is mostly the cleaning agent (very small part of the wet is a rust protection coating that works even when the lubed parts look dry), while the Dry part of CLP (Teflon suspended in it), is the lube part of CLP.  So the how theory that CLP dies to fast and is not lubing the rifle, is nonsense.

On the extractor, could be a extractor out of spec, or could be that he has a extra tension extractor spring in play, and added a O ring/defender around the extractor spring, with the extractor having way too much tension instead.  Also with the bolt in hand to check for an unnneded O ring, hook a round on the extractor to cam the ejector in a few times to make sure it not biding in it bolt face channel.  The ejector should be under a lot of spring tension, but it should not bind in it channel as it being pushed in via the spent case off the extractor, or bind as it springing back out to it normal at rest postion.



As for the first thing at the range, load only a single round into a mag, insert the mag, charge the round and fire it, with the empty mag still in the mag well.  If the rifle is stroking correctly to begin with, then the bolt will lock back on the bolt catch (catch in front of the bolt face, and not just under the carrier instead).

If the bolt will not lock back, then gas or wedging/binding problem isntead.

If the bolt does lock back, then a couple of round in the mag to see if they will self cycle  and fire or not.  If they will not, then as stated, double check for a O ring that was installed on the extractor spring that needs to be removed, and the mag catch assembly end of threaded section has been threaded into the mag catch button to be flush with the face of the button as well.

As for ammo, too weed out problems with bad reloads (cases not fully resized,  the case shoulder buldged by too much bullet crimp, or other problems with it), make sure that us is using USA brass case factory ammo (win white box 55 gr ammo is fine).

Yep, remove the added O ring around the extractor spring, reinstall the extractor without it,  and see if this corrects the feed lock up problems.

As for the small insert inside the spring, leave that is play.  That insert is to keep the spring from collapsing sideways over time isntead.

So of these parts, we want to use the small inner insert installed into the large coil side of the spring, the large coil side of the spring pressed down into the channel in the extractor to seat it in place (will take a set of pliers to get it the spring seated) and we want to leave the O ring out of play/not placed around the outside of the spring before the extractor is installed in the bolt.


Hence the O rings where items used if you where having extraction problems for testing, as a band aid for testing until you resolved the original problem instead.

Glad to hear it runs on the brass cased ammo.  We have seen quite a few problems on the range when people use Monarch ammo, generally solved with a good lubrication on all friction points and feeding it some quality ammunition.  Kind of think of the rifle as a high performance engine, that probably won't run its best on E85.

CY6
Greg Sullivan "Sully"
SLR15 Rifles
TheDefensiveEdge.com
(763) 712-0123