Building up a couple rifles, and having a problem that I seemed to have narrowed down to two brand new charging handles I bought. These are going in two new A4 uppers. Both exhibit significant drag or binding when they're pulled back, and sometimes can even hold open even against the buffer spring pressure.

Replacing either charging handle with one from another rifle that works perfectly, eliminates the problem. And, putting the bad handles into the good rifle, I get the same binding then. So I've definitely narrowed it down to the charging handle.

I can put up a couple pics later, after I get the camera thawed from sitting in my trunk, to show a slight difference I noticed in the old vs. the new ones. The forward tip where the gas tube goes thru, on the old one, looks to be a perfect 90° angle. The new ones seem like the bottom of that tip is pulled forward a little bit.

My question is... is this common for new charging handles to have this binding and does it work itself out after X amount of time, or is it a manufacturing error with these handles and I should just replace them?

edit to add photos:

A while back someone posted pictures of a charging handle that  was too short on the front portion top to bottom. I think it was causing binding on theirs also. It was catching on the front of carrier at the wrong location.

Charging handle end should be a straight 90*, hence the bent ones are defective units.

Where did they come from?

Quoted: Where did they come from?

Bought 'em at a gun show. Looking at them now, they seem to have stress cracks at the end where they're deformed. Aside from that they look brand spanking new. I got hold of the seller and he said just bring 'em back and we'll go from there. Hopefully we'll figure it out in the next day or two. Thanks j3 and Dano523