I had a broken in bushmaster shorty that never did feed reliably or even lock back on an empty mag. same story with all ammo especially the weaker 223 stuff like wolf or wwb varmint. In fact i couldnt make it through a 20 round box of wolf without 7 or 8 failures to feed/extract/eject

premium 223 ammo was hit or miss, usually miss. 5.56 would cycle but im not paying for 5.56 when shooting paper. (dont want posts about training with what you use for home defense because i do, but its expensive so when i want to go blasting i take the wolf with me)

tried new gas rings, heavier buffer and ran all the checks i read about on here and determined i was short stroking and low pressure was the reason.

ending up pulling the FSB and opening up the gas port one size. took all of 15 minutes and a wooden block, hammer, punches, dewalt drill and bit. sacrificed a cheap cleaning rod by putting it in the barrel while i drilled since i didnt want to over shoot and hit the rifling on the other side. taking off a FSB isnt as hard as i thought.

i also snipped a turn or two off my mag catch spring(meant to type bolt catch spring). reason being that when i removed the upper receiver and worked the bolt catch with a new empty mag (actually tried it with 6 of them) the bolt catch would not get pushed all the way up by the mag follower. shortening the bolt catch spring made it weaker and it functions fine now.

It hasnt had any failures of any kind and ive put about 1K of wolf through it since then. this has brought new life to a weapon i had owned for a couple years. i used to get mad when i looked at it, now i take it around the house with me and often on field trips in the SUV. it is happy. i am happy. life is good.

hope this helps someone who might have given up on their blaster. once you enlarge the gas port its cant easily be undone though, so make sure its the last thing you do and the problem is not something else.

Quoted: I had a broken in bushmaster shorty that never did feed reliably or even lock back on an empty mag. same story with all ammo especially the weaker 223 stuff like wolf or wwb varmint. In fact i couldnt make it through a 20 round box of wolf without 7 or 8 failures to feed/extract/eject premium 223 ammo was hit or miss, usually miss. 5.56 would cycle but im not paying for 5.56 when shooting paper. (dont want posts about training with what you use for home defense because i do, but its expensive so when i want to go blasting i take the wolf with me) tried new gas rings, heavier buffer and ran all the checks i read about on here and determined i was short stroking and low pressure was the reason. ending up pulling the FSB and opening up the gas port one size. took all of 15 minutes and a wooden block, hammer, punches, dewalt drill and bit. sacrificed a cheap cleaning rod by putting it in the barrel while i drilled since i didnt want to over shoot and hit the rifling on the other side. taking off a FSB isnt as hard as i thought. i also snipped a turn or two off my mag catch spring. reason being that when i removed the upper receiver and worked the catch with a new empty mag (actually tried it with 6 of them) the catch would not get pushed all the way up by the mag follower. shortening the mag catch spring made it weaker and it functions fine now. It hasnt had any failures of any kind and ive put about 1K of wolf through it since then. this has brought new life to a weapon i had owned for a couple years. i used to get mad when i looked at it, now i take it around the house with me and often on field trips in the SUV. it is happy. i am happy. life is good. hope this helps someone who might have given up on their blaster. once you enlarge the gas port its cant easily be undone though, so make sure its the last thing you do and the problem is not something else.

Did you mean the "bolt catch" spring?    Glad you got the bugs worked out....sucks having a gun that doesn't work right.
I'm in the process of doing similar things to one now.  I'm working on a feeding problem that has multiple things involved. One step at a time is the only way to proceed.

yup, thats what i meant. thanks. i shouldnt try typing at 3am again. agreed on the one step at a time. dont go whipping out the dewalt drill until all other options have been exhausted.

lapped, loctited, staked....  read alot on here and tried it all.

didnt consult bushmaster first, i figure ill shoot this barrel out in a year or two, i put 1K thru it about every 3 weeks now. ammoman likes me and UPS thinks im nuts. the barrel is mounted on a RRA upper now anyway and has been cut down and altered from 16 to 14.5 and threaded so the warranty probably wasnt gonna fly after i had that stuff done anyway.

i completely agree, last resort, once done it cant be undone...  there are many other things that can cause short stroking, including over pressure (thats why i tried the heavier buffer first)

thanks for all the help ive received on here from others topics and responses, this weapon was unusable and now its a blast, literally.