Has anyone had problems with wolf ammo jamming your AR15?  I bought 1000 rds to shoot through my mini-14 and had no problems, but I bought my first AR15 on wednesday and tried it out yesterday, almost every other shot jammed.  Either the cartridge would not load all the way into the chamber or it would not eject all the way, and sometimes the bolt would close without chambering a shell at all.  I had some leftover remington ammo and put 20 rounds of that through without a problem so I dont think its the gun.  The gun is a Bushmaster Varminter upper on a Hesse post-ban lower.  The upper only had 4 rounds through it when I bought it.  Thanks for any input.

Chances are that you have a tight/rough chamber and your trying to run the rifle too dry.

Polish out the camber, and use a little more CLP to keep the rifle running.

Side note:  Although I am a fan of Wolf ammo, in your case, you may want to rethink the idea of using wolf ammo in the rifle.  The single purpose of buying a bull barrel is to be able to shot tight groups.  This is something that the Wolf ammo will not be up to the task to do.

On some of my rigs, the wolf will print just over MOA, but at a small target a few hundred meters away, it will leave too much angle of variance for a clean hit.  Also, in order to get the rifle to accept the wolf ammo, you will need to loosen up the chamber, and again, not the ideal thing when it comes to achieving/maintaining a Sub MOA barrel.  Since you have a rifle that you can use the Wolf ammo(Mini-14), my choice(if it was me) would be to use the ammo in the Mini, and search for a hand load or match type ammo that will be better suited to the performance that you are expecting from the New AR-15 upper/rifle.

Food for thought!

And, Welcome aboard.

I have had nothing but trouble with Wolf stuff, I'll never use it again....Remember you get what you pay for!!

There is nothing wrong with any Wolf ammo.  I have used it in every caliber they  make in every gun I own of that caliber.
The problem is ALWAYS the gun.  Usually, it is, as Dano pointed out, a tight or rough chamber.  The former being a match chamber made for accuracy and the latter in need of polishing .  There are also chambers that come out of the factory NOT MIL SPEC, for a variety of reasons.  It's not usual, but it does happen.
None of the above is the fault of the ammo.  Wolf is made to milspec and they do a damn fine job.  The lacquer has never stopped a properly built firearm from operating all day long.
An AR, or any military firearm, that will not eat anything milspec that you feed it is questionable for field use.  Wolf is used all over the world, and they use a lot of it.

I just checked Bushy's website to try and answer my question. It wasn't so here goes:

Isn't the Varminter's chamber .223 and isn't Wolf 5.56?  If so, isn't that enough of a difference to cause extraction/ejection problems?

Just a thought [:/]

The Wolf ammo I'm using is .223 Rem 62 GR. FMJ.
I'm going to try polishing the chamber and bring it out to the range to try again. The guy I bought the lower from said I can borrow a couple different uppers to try out and see if they jam. Thanks for all the responses.

This thread started with problems that we did not seem to cover thoroughly. Let's make sure that we understand the failures first.

Your note indicates that the bolt stopped with a Wolf round not fully chambered? Pull the rounds that do this, set them aside, and look for witness marks from hard contact with the chamber on the neck, shoulder, and body. Marks here indicate small chamber or large ammo.

Look for marks from the throat and rifling on the bullet. Marks here indicate short throat, small throat (both chambering issues) or large bullets or cooked bullets. A long curved scratch on the bullet is not a problem here.

You can verify chamber dimensions with a cerrosafe cast and a headspace check. Rounds that stick going in you can check with a dial caliper for diameters and a Stoney Point tool for shoulder length.

Next you have problems getting the ammo out of the chamber after firing too? This can be because they were tight going in - no excess room going in equals inadequate spring back to get room to get them out. And if extraction is sticky, they will sometimes not eject, or the bolt will not go back far enough to pick up the next round... Are the rims getting bent on any of your ejected rounds? These all go together.

All of this tightness could be a rough chamber. I am a believer that all semi-auto rifles should have polished chambers for reliability. They get that way after a couple thousand rounds anyway...

5.56 NATO and .223 Rem chamber drawings have dimensions in the case body, shoulder, and neck that overlap pretty heavily,s o I would not get wrapped around the axle of that distinction. The big difference is in the throat. Mil spec chamber has a long cylindrical section while commercial throats are shorter and have a shallower angle into the rifling. Competition chambers are another deal entirely.

If you want you rifle to run with everything, and it has a short throat that interferes with Wolf, get a mil spec chamber reamer stuffed into it.

If you bought your bull barreled rifle to shoot little tiny groups and bust 'chucks at 300 yards, tailor your handloads to the chamber and do not worry about Wolf ammo.

Billski, that is a beautifully poetic sentence.
I enjoyed reading it. In fact, I read it 3 or 4 times.
Thank you.

And yeah...what Billski said about the ammo.

For my $$, I've gotten a lot of cheap shooting with Wolf ammo. That's all I run in my 7.62X39  and 9mm uppers. I've used a case or so of the .223, seemed to function fine, but a little on the weak side, IIRC.

We have had some folks on this forum who have had trouble with Wolf, but it is almost always due to a commercial or target chamber being too small some place. If folks want to shoot Wolf or other military style ammo, you really need a full 5.56 miltary chamber.

Hey Royce, we agree again. That could be habit forming... Merry Christmas to you.

Billski, it took me a long time but I am finally getting you & Dano properly trained and using your powers for good instead of evil with the newbies.

MERRY XMAS to You & Yours!

So I picked up this used Krieger barrel and whadda-ya think?  I drop  a round of Wolf into the chamber & it sticks!  A good wrap of the chamber on the [carpeted] floor and it jumps out.  Of course, the SS109 drops right in  and drops right out.  Damn!  This has finally attacked me at home.  Now to decide whether to leave it alone or ream it....I'll take suggestions pro & con.

Royce, If you so much as think about taking a reamer to the barrel, I will hunt you down and hurt you!!!!!!!!

What you have on your hands is the bases for a hands down, long range varmint/target rifle.  

To allow the barrel to really sing, you will need to hand-load for it.  The barrel is short throated to allow the reloads/bullets to be seated to just kiss the rifling, and still allow the rounds to fit into the mag.  
The chamber is tight to minimize blow-by of gases past the case at ignition, and will run with polished brass ammo.  
By adding a adjustable gas tube, you can ever further direct the gas towards a consistent bullet speed, without losing unneeded pressure threw the gas port.

Welcome to the life of a shooting perfectionist!!!  Here, were not looking for a wide range of ammo to shoot, just the single hand-load that will deliver the exact same POI, over and over again.  The road is littered with down falls(loads that fall short, and powders that change FPS with the temperature),but once you get to OZ, You will have achieved euphoria.

Perfection is never achieved, but every so often you will get so close, that it will frighten you.  Then something goes south, and you get to start it all over again. It's a viscus cycle, but well worth the journey.

P.S. If you still feel compelled to ream, I will swap you a 5.56 Wilson  barrel for it. This way, you won't have to look back with hindsight, knowing that you have just made the barrel a MOA verses the Sub MOA that it was before the reamer.

OK.

To expand a bit, I picked up this barrel used and have no way of knowning the actual level of wear.  It looks to be in very good condition.  When I get this project gun built (another month,probably) I will find out what this barrel is capable of.
At that point, I'll be better able to decide what to do with it...sell, modify, or keep.

Considering that it is still choking on Wolf ammo, you know that the chamber is still tight, and chances are the throat is still short.

You would be surprised by the reasons the some guys will change a barrel out.  Very seldom will it be that the barrel is worn-out.  More often it is just a new season change-out, or the rifle may have started to open up it group(from.5 to .7) and the barrel was just the first of many changes.

Once you get a chance to take the barrel out for a spin, you may surprised on the life still left in it.  Especially when you use a standard factory barrel for the comparison!!!

Dano

Wolf seems to be problems in about anything except 762x39 here

Ahhhh, Taxman. You are young here and have seen little....
Don'be fooled by the posts over Wolf ammo being a problem.  If you dig deep you will find that the root cause of most 'Wolf' problems are either the gun or the gun owner.
As we are speaking of here, if you encounter a NON-MILSPEC chamber, the WOlf ammo will give you problems.  AR's, unless set up for match competition, are military weapons and are made with a lot of tolerance...One being a healthy chamber that will eat anything made in that caliber...WOlf included.  I, and many other respected & knowledgeable members here in TroubeShooting have used Wolf in every caliber they make in every gun we own with no function problems.
The other cause for problems is just poor gun maintenance.  Especially when someone gets a new gun and takes it out to the range with WOlf, did NOT thoroughly clean & lube it FIRST, and then blames the ammo for failures.
I even heard a vendor at a gunshow telling someone that the steel case Wolf will hurt their chamber. It took all my self-control (of which I own precious little) to not call the vendor an idiot in front of his customer.
I have seen Wolf print amazing groups in a $3,000 Sako.  Rare, but it does happen.  You never know what a particular gun will like, but AR's are supposed to eat whatever you feed them...accuracy aside.

Have you read the Olympic Arms site about the Wolf Ammo?
Go to:
http://www.olyarms.com/usa.html
and click on the Ammunition Warning button. There you will find the following plus more:

If you plan on using lacquer-coated ammo in your Olympic Arms AR-15, please be aware of the following. We have received many recent phone calls, as well as some rifles sent in for repair, complaining about reliability problems in their Oly Arms AR's. The first question usually asked is, "What ammunition are you using?" The answers to the question, as well as seeing the chambers of the rifles that were sent in are showing us that lacquer coated ammo is clogging the chambers badly.

What we are seeing is that once the chamber in the rifles gets hot, it is melting the lacquer off of the casings, and leaving a gelatinous goo in your chamber. Under continuous fire, this is usually not noticed, but once you stop, the barrel cools, the lacquer sets and you now cannot chamber and/or properly extract your ammunition. You will experience this in AR-15's much more frequently than other rifles such as the SKS and AK/MAC variants.

Major brands of lacquer coated ammo we have seen are Wolf, most Russian ammo (even if it has the Remington head stamp), Norinco (or most Chinese) and most all former eastern block countries.

Our recommendations: DO NOT USE LACQUER COATED AMMO. Otherwise, be prepared for the consequences. Additionally, most lacquer-coated ammo utilizes steel cases instead of brass. BAD FOR YOUR CHAMBER.

The Consequences: Poor feeding, poor extraction, poor accuracy, and an impossible to clean chamber possibly resulting in a rifle that simply does not work.

After I read that message, I plan to follow their advise and sell my case of Wolf ammo.

...so what ya askin' for it?

Nonsense.  Sheer and un-adulterated nonsense.

I have seen more crap come off of manufacturer web-sites than I care to remember.
Now, I'm not knocking Oly and their products...although they have seen their share of returns on poorly turned-out firearms.  As ALL manufacturers have.
They leave out a huge part of what it takes to properly assess a problem, it's cause & effect.
First of all, your chamber does not care what the case is made of. The steel  used [in the case] is malleable enough to expand & contract in proper time to fire & eject.  If it can do that than the steel in your chamber is much harder than the case steel, so where's the problem?
As far as the lacquer melting under rapid fire, don't worry...you're probably damaging the barrel by overheating so forget about the ammo.
Try cleaning your gun after a long session of high fire rate.  Wow, why didnt Oly think of that?
This is a thinly veiled attempt [with no science and apparently little or no experience as well] to discourage the use of less expenive, foreign made ammo.  Note that Oly does not run a website and forum to fix AR problems in real time like we do here (thanks to the board operators).  Here, we get to find out what the USER did to deserve a faiure or malfunction.  And I assure you, in the end, it is usually the manufacturer of the gun or the user who made the mistake...not the ammo.
My prize Colt, all of my lesser AR's [all calibers accounted for], as well as pet guns...handguns included) all use Wolf if it is available.  All work perfectly and all show absolutely no signs of premature or unusual wear/damage.
I will continue to use/buy Oly products along with all other manufacturers...I just don't read their advice.  If I want to know the truth I ask myself...and if I don't know or I'm not sure, I ask Dano, or Billski, or any of the other fine & experienced people who lurk in the hallways of AR15.com.

Royce,

We all know were I stand regarding Wolf ammo, but I have given up trying to lead the misinformed.

Some people will not shoot Wolf ammo, while others will not shoot surplus ammo, and a few others will only shoot Match ammo.  The choice is theirs.

Given that it is their rifles, and their money, it's their decision. Beliefs, such as religion, are hard to overcome, even if they are based on fallacies. For some shooters that only shot a few hundred rounds a year, the cost of ammo is less than important, than the perception that the rifle will last a few generations.


For me, and others who shoot ammo by the case lots, we look for a product that will save use money, and not at the cost of the weapon. Most of the time, Wolf ammo fills the void (cost) regarding the AR's and belt guns.

Bottom line, Wolf has it place in the shooting community. It's the shooter that must make the choice. And, like the Flat Earth Society, who am I to tell them the earth is round.

I believe, if you closely, you will  see inscribed at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty:
"Give me your tired, your poor, your Wolf Ammo..."

3006deer, bah on that shit on Oly webpage.

I have owned 4 Oly AR15's and I have shot the shit out of them with Wolf ammo.
The lacquer coating on the ammo does not come off when you shoot it. Take a new round, pull the bullet and dump the powder, chamber it and fire off the primer, then take it and place it under a flame and see what happens.
Not much of anything.

I would shoot Wolf ammo long before I shot Sellor and Beliot ammo.
[x]

Actually, the lacquer does come off, but not due to melting.  
When the round is loaded, the feed ramps slightly scrap the case.  This causes powderized Lacquer fouling.  The problem with new rifles (rough chambers), or that with tight chambers, is that the fouling will bind up the case/bolt lugs on ejection.  Think of it as if you were to coat the chamber/lugs with graphite, and then try to shoot a round.
And, considering that the ammo is not the cleanest burning, add the gunpowder fouling that can really jam the rifle up in not kept wet with CLP.

On rifles with broken in chambers, or true mil-spec chambers, this is not a problem.  With the use of CLP, the lacquer powder is carried away with the rest of the gunpowder fouling.

Where we seem to see a lot of people complaining is that they buy Wolf ammo to try and break-in the rifle.  Depending on the chamber state, even brass case ammo may stick, and once the chamber is loosened up/self polished, the ammo will run fine in the weapon.

Note, It takes a few hundred round for the brass ammo to self-polish a chamber. As for the lacquered case of Wolf ammo, even more due to the lack of metal-to-metal contact.

For some, this could be months before they reach the point of the ammo breaking in the chamber, and in this time period, their memory is only that the Wolf ammo did not run in their rifles.  Having the frustration etched in their minds of the bad results during break-in, they never again try the ammo, and report on their initial findings.

Hope this helps.