This isn't mean to bash or praise, merely illustrate my experience, as the question wether or not to build or buy a complete is something quite frequent on these boards.

First upper - After my first upper arrived, I got a hold of Carrico for a Mega/Stinger lower, since he is local I went to his house and picked it up that night.

The lower build went... alright.  There were a few missing things such as the pin to keep thet hammer in place, no big deal... Olympic Arms is also in the area, so no shooting that night (friday), I waited until monday and got the pin.

Went out to the range.  Very excited.  Fired the first round...the shell stuck in the chamber.  What the hell?  Managed to get it out, and repeat.  Came home posted on this board and got some suggestions.  Followed the suggestions and went out to shoot again.  Still nothing.  This time I managed to get a look at the spent shell.



It was obvious, I had been sent an upper chambed for 7.62.  So I sent it back.

Upper 2 - Woo got it and went straight out to the range.  This one was chambered correctly.  Fired first shot, failed to eject!, WHAT THE HECK?  Released the magazine and pulled the charging handle, this time the round ejected.  Tried this a couple times. No luck.  Jesse from j&t suggested I scrub the chamber with a chamber brush.  I did that until my forearms wanted to fall off.  Went to the range, first 5 shots ejected! yes I was stoked....6th..failed to eject.  Mailed back the upper.

Upper 2 try 2 - Got it last friday, went out today.  First 10-15 shots fired flawlessy.  After that... same problem...

I can say that I'm exhausted of babying this thing, mailing it, and waiting for it to get here.  This will definitely not be a home defense weapon.  I'll attempt at scrubbing the shit out of it again but I've lost confidence.

Luckily I still have faith in ar15s as I've shot plenty of functioning ones.  I see a bushmaster in my future.

p.s. I've tried 5 different types of ammo and 5 mags, 3 have proven to be functioning in another ar15.

Just my 2 cents and insight, although plenty of other people have had luck with their kits.

Wow... I feel bad for ya: my J&T AR is flawless, and super-sweet.  I wonder why you keep having problems.  I don't understand, however, what exactly the problem is.  Is it that the rounds won't eject, or that they all get deformed like the picture?  Am I missing something?

I'm not trying to be smart, I'm just trying to figure out what's wrong so that perhaps I can help isolate the issue or help find a solution.

Take care, and good luck!

I cleaned my freshly assembled J&T Carbine kit, took it to the range, and broke it in by quickly dumping a 30 round mag through it.  Smooth and no problems.  Let it cool a few minutes, and another 30 rounds rapid fire.  Still, perfect functioning.  Cool!  

Then I sighted it in.

I am now approaching 1000 rounds through it, and have not had one single misfire, misfeed, or failure to fire for any reason.  It has gone band every time.

1st upper was wrong chamber so it resized like the picture

2nd is correct chamber but just doesnt eject

Hmmm... doesn't eject: J&T told  you to clean it?  Have you tried a different bolt or at least extractor?  It sounds more like a bolt/ejector issue than a chamber issue.

I've sent the upper back and it was returned with a note that said

Fixed, Test Fired

That being said <> I sure would want to know what the term fixed meant. I would want to know exactly what they did for future reference.

wow, that first case/photo is an example of the need for examining your purchase and headspace check.  Luckily no one was hurt!

time to do a headspace check again, with the new upper.

check the extractor, make sure there is a spring and buffer (black/blue rubber) on it.

also, is it just failure to extract?
or is it not cycling?


if it is cycling, is it picking up the next round in the mag?

if it's not cycling, I'd suspect a gas tube blockage.

Don't mean to bash also but how did you miss the 7.62 chamber in the original upper?  Seems like that would be very difficult to overlook.  I clean every bore before shooting and I think I would have seen the difference in bore size and chamber size.

Have to tried different brand ammo?

FTE sounds possible ammo related.

ibtl...

Something about business bashing....

it doesn't sound like bashing to me, sounds more like bad QC and an honost report.

Did you read his post?  I believe he said he tried FIVE different kinds of ammo.

I also don't think it's business bashing.

Yea it picks up the next round and trys to jam it into an already filled chamber, which means I'm ruining one perfect round of unfired ammo everytime.

I'm sorry you see it as such, I thought it was just an honest unbiased report of what my experience has been.

Don't worry about what some say, You ain't bashing. I am glad you posted your problem. It might help some of us in the future.

Have you looked at the allen bolts on the bolt carrier?  They may be loose and need to be tightened.  Also, have you cleaned and lubed the bolt, bolt carrier, firing pin?  

If nothing else, this thread will serve as a lesson to those Headspace Weenies who think that even a tiny bit of excess headspace will cause their AR to blow up.



You didn't say exactly what type of barrel you have.  These symptoms sound like what happens with your typical non-chromed or stainless barrel and a tight ("Match") or rough chamber.

Try a mil-spec chrome-lined barrel and everything will probably work fine.

Read my post near the top.  My J&T has the 16" E.R.Shaw chrome moly unlined barrel.

I do have another rifle with a "tight match chamber" and have had no extraction problems with that one either.  Something else is going on here.  I suspect his extractor is damaged.

No bashing going on here.  Sounds like I misdiagnosed the problem.  Since changing to parkerising we have had some problems with the park solution getting into the chamber area (although plugged) and causing it to be rough enough to prevent proper extraction.  The solution was to take a chamber brush chucked in a drill and clean the chamber for approximately 10 seconds.  I assumed that this was the problem.  When the second upper came back we replaced it with a new upper which we test fired prior to reshipment.  Looking back, what I should have had thesacrifice do was return the complete upper that way test fired the entire unit prior to return.  

If you'll IM me with your name or invoice # (I can almost remember it but I lost my memory in college) I'll Get you a new bolt carrier assy. out to see if that will solve the problem.  I apologize for the problems that you are having and for my error.  

Jesse

I am in the same boat.  It all started a month ago when a friend and I purchased two quanico eagle recievers. Then we got two J&T 16 inch flat top kits. Assembly was easy and the finish looked great. I mounted my eotch 512 and went to the range. After my cleaning ritual the jams started. I tried five different types of ammo but nothing worked. Then the company suggested using a chamber brush to clean the chamber but to no prevail.
However, my friend mounted a 6.5 to 20X50 scope and at 50yrds puts five shots on a quarter. His to date has not jammed and has not had any issues.
I have sent my upper back and will keep you posted to my results.

ps. Im not bitching, just telling the facts and i plan to buy more kits form them in the future due to the way they treated me and my friends positive results.

Sorry, dude, but looks like I called it - a steel barrel with a rough chamber.  [:D]

I, in no way, wish to bash JT Distributing - I've bought lots of stuff from them in the past and will continue to do so in the future.  They're good people.  I was especially impressed with them recently replacing a damaged lower receiver when it was obvious that the customer was a complete bonehead and broke it himself.

That being said, there is no way I would ever use a non chrome-lined barrel on any rifle that I wanted to depend on.  Without that slippery plated chamber, extraction is always going to be hit or miss, especially after a magazine or two.  The military learned this lesson the hard way in RVN.

I currently have a 24" stainless Olympic "Ultramatch" barrel that I got to work reliably by polishing the chamber with emery cloth on a wooden dowel in a hand drill, but I still wouldn't expect it to function as rock solid as my little M4gery with a real Colt barrel.

So, the moral of the story is - if you don't mind putting up with a finicky rifle that may or may not work all the time, get a plain or stainless barrel.  But if you'd rather spend more time actually shooting your AR than trying to clear jams, get a quality chrome-lined barrel.

I'm not sure if what I'm thinking here is even possible but are the barrel extensions the same for .223/5.56 and 7.62 x 39 chambered barrels? If so, be certain the bolt is for .223/5.56 and not 7.62 x 39. The 7.62 rim diameter is 11.3mm and the .223 rim is only 9.6mm. If the barrel was wrong , could the bolt also be for the 7.62? This would deffinately cause failures to extract.

No, I don't think any bashing was going on, but what WAS going on here, is we are ALL trying to diagnose a problem, and come up with a fix.  And we all learn from it.  This is the purpose of a forum.

AMEN!

I agree.
And, IMHO, it's a good thing that Jesse at J&T monitors this site as QC check, to keep pulse on the market & customers.  I'd say it helps to bolster their customer service reputation.

The barrel extension is the same for .223 or 7.62x39, only the barrel itself, bolt, and extractor are different.  We got the first upper back complete, so we changed out the complete upper.  So the bolt is for the .223.

Jesse

Don't let this guy fearmonger you into thinking you HAVE TO HAVE A CHROME LINED BARREL in order to have a gun that works.  Good grief.  "Without that slippery plated chamber, extraction is always going to be hit or miss, especially after a magazine or two."  <--That's a bunch of crap.  "if you don't mind putting up with a finicky rifle that may or may not work all the time, get a plain or stainless barrel.  But if you'd rather spend more time actually shooting your AR than trying to clear jams, get a quality chrome-lined barrel."  <--Also a not true.  I don't know if he had a bad experience or what, but I have a stainless barrel and it's more accurate than a chrome lined barrel and has ALWAYS FUNCTIONED PERFECTLY with ANY kind of ammo, whereas my shooting buddy has a new Armalite chrome lined AR15 that jams all the time.

I've been called a lot of stuff in the past, but "fear monger" is a new one.  [:D]  I find this funny and ironic because I'm usually the one chastizing the Barrel Torque Nazis and Headspace Weenies for spreading fear and loathing about anything that goes against their preconceived beliefs.  Then again, I guess I'm doing that here, too.



Let's see, after only one single data point and  blatantly misinterpreting my quote by reading only what you want to read, you draw a conclusion about all non-chromed barrels.  Pitiful.

If you re-read my message, you'll see that I, too, have a stainless barrel that I got to work.  But if you had also taken the time to read "The Black Rifle" you'd know that one of the changes that made a HUGE improvement in M16 reliability was chroming the chamber.  Mikhail Kalashnikov also specified chromed chambers on his design for this exact reason.

And, as a matter of fact, in the past I have replaced a couple of dozen plain barrels on customer's ARs with chrome-lined mil-spec units and in each and every case it fixed the problems with extraction.  You might call that "a bad experience or what."

catch223 - do you actually read messages posted here?  If you did, you'd see that frequently people post stories just like this about problems caused by plain barrels and rough chambers.  (Up until a few years ago they were mostly about Olympic barrels, but they seem to have gotten better lately.)  Oh, wait - you've only been on this board for a week or two so your experience only goes back a few days here.  I suggest reading messages for a year or more and then you may be more qualified to comment.

Now it's definitely not impossible to get a plain barrel working on an AR - people do it every day.  But without that "slippery plated chamber" the rifle's tolerance to dirt, environment, ammo, etc., is far less and they are much more prone to jamming.  That's why I prefer to use genuine Colt barrels whenever possible.  I'll gladly buy cut-rate, no-name, gun show parts for lowers, stocks, action parts, springs, pins, buffers, etc., but not barrels.  I've also had good luck with Bushmaster barrels, and they're a whole lot cheaper ($185 vs. $450 for a 14.5" Colt M4).  I firmly believe this is why the FrankenARs I build just seem to run and run with no problems, while my shooting buddies with "Match" or stainless barrels usually spend more tinkering with their guns than shooting them.  But once I convince them to get rid of their plain steel barrels, their guns start working and never stop.

Just my experience.


[Edited to ficks speling misteaks]

Sweet, my first flame.  I figured that would be coming.  *shrug*  At any rate, I'm glad you responded.  Sorry about the 'fearmonger' thing, I knew that would get a response.  I know you're on the same side as me about being a procedure Nazi.  

Let me assure you that I didn't read "what I wanted to read."  I don't have some kind of agenda that I'm trying to facilitate here.  I just wanted the guy to know that just because you don't get a chrome lined barrel doesn't mean you're going to have to "get it to work."  I HAVE indeed read about the advantages of chrome lining, and will not be as presumptious as to assume that I know what you have read.  I ALSO have read however, lots of testimony about people NOT having trouble with their plain old barrel, AND that it is more accurate.  I spoke soley for the benefit of the originator of the post, not because I wanted to try to make you sound dumb.

In closing, just because the username and account that I am CURRENTLY signed in under is a couple weeks old does NOT in any reflect on the amount of prior experience on this site.  But who cares about that...  That was just another way for you to get a good dig in.

Homo a "fearmonger"?  No.

Pompous Ass? Maybe.

If only he held as much reguard for the truth as he holds others to. Because he has 1 data point that shows a bad, non chrome lined chamber, he can conclude that all non chromed lined barrels are trash. And like he feels the swollen case in the photo posted at the begining of this thread should be no cause for  alarm.  What's a little excessive head space going to hurt.

It's a good thing the case head didn't seperate, but that hardly ever happens in situations like this. [rolleyes]

First, my J&T functioned perfectly from day one, and hasn't malfunctioned in hundreds of rounds except for a few magazine-related FTEs...

Second, I can't believe the mistaken caliber wasn't caught... not only is that dangerous but it's like mistaking a Geo Metro for a Ford Excursion!

Panzer Out

Hi all, I just received my J&T 16" Carbine Kit,& reading this post got me worried so I was looking in the chamber and notice it is shiny metal about 1/4" in then it looks like it is grey like the outside of the barrel. Wonder if this is the Park finnish they are talking about! I'm picking my bushy lower up fri. guess I will find out this weekend.It is 5.56 though.Everything looks great about this kit,can't wait!

i'm going to have to agree with homo erectus.

i built my ar with a colt chromed 1-12 barrel it runs FLAWLESSLY. any ammo wolf barnaul doesn't matter.

my dads HBAR is not chromed. it chokes on non brass ammo especially silver bear.


will be getting dad a chromed bore here later this year.

Looks like J&T's customer service continues to be superior.  I bought a 20" J&T kit to replace my ASA upper (not getting started on ASA; talk about business bashing!).  It's functioned great with every bit of ammo I've put in it; don't want to use wolf cause of the laquer(might not ever be a problem, but why risk it with the SA surplus ammo?) but I have shot it all out of my JT with no problems.  Even after reading your post I'll buy from them again because they have something most manufacturers don't have anymore: SERVICE.

I broke the cherry on my J&T 16 inch carbine 2 weekends ago.  Ran about 200 rounds through it with absolutly no problems.  Fired great, without issue from the first shot to the last.  Not one failure, misfeed or extraction problem.

My brother brought his pre-ban with a new J&T M-4 upper.  He ran about 200-300 rounds through it without issue as well.

All that without any cleaning.  I'm sold on J&T.

I agree with J&T's being a first class bunch of folks. Their kits are the equal of anyone's--I would rate them as good as Colt or Bushmaster, and several of their fire control parts are finished even better than Bushmaster's. Sounds like someone here got in a hurry when they were assembling the barreled upper, and grabbed a 7.62 barrel by mistake. Definitely not a good thing, but looks like Jessie is doing what he can to make up for it. Glad you weren't injured here.

I don't agree that you need a chrome chamber to have a 100% functioning rifle. You just need a smooth chamber. Chrome is good, but certainly not essential for 99% of us. If I were using an AR in severe field situations, as the military does, I'd definitely want it. But I don't, so to me a chrome chamber and bore is a feel-good thing. Some may have different needs, of course.

Well, my final update... I hope..

Received the new bolt assembly as promised by Jesse.  Went out today, only had 40 rounds, but I left with a huge smile on my face.  All 40 rounds fired flawlessly.  Damn it feels good to have a functional ar15.  

Can't wait to head out again!

Went to the range yesterday and fired 60 rounds Win white box (known for problems),so I've read & 20 rounds Federal XM193, flawlesly.I couldn't be more pleased with my J&T 16" purchase!Fit & finnish were supurb!

Geez, Halfcocked, don't you have anything better to do than follow me around this board and dispense erroneous advice?  Better brush up on your reading skills because it wasn't me claiming one single data point.  In fact, I've probably replaced non-chrome lined barrels on 25 or 30 ARs that had extraction problems and that fixed them.  Better work on your comprehension.

Like I said before, non-chrome barrels do frequently work if they're manufactured and maintained correctly.  But they tend to have more problems with extraction when they're dirty or using certain types of ammunition.  As the military found out the hard way, chroming the chambers improves reliability dramatically under harsh conditions.



There you go again deliberating misquoting me to try and bolster your own weak argument.  It's too bad you have to resort to such childish tricks to try and get your point across.

My point was to show those Chicken Little naysayers who fret over .001" excessive headspace because they claim if your barrel will swallow a No-Go gauge it will blow up in your face.  Here is a perfect example of grossly excessive headspace in the extreme, yet no such catastrophe took place.  I never said it was good or he should keep shooting the gun like that.  Obviously, there is a problem.  But I brought this up because I've seen AR owners panic when the try and "headspace" their perfectly functioning AR and find it swallows a "Field" gauge and then immediately trash a perfectly good barrel.

Here's a tip - more than half of all Colt barrel/bolt combinations will swallow a No-Go gauge new right out of the factory wrapper.  And some will take a Field gauge.  They set headspace on the long end deliberately because the rifle functions more reliably.  Most steel barrels and "match chambers" cut them on the short side of the spec for "accuracy" and that frequently causes malfunctions.

So now you know why I have a preference for chrome-lined barrels.  If you have a steel barrel and it works for you, good.  But if your expensive "match" barrel can't seem to keep feeding for as long as you'd like, consider swaping it for a chrome-lined unit and that will probably cure your problems.

And Halfcocked, find someone else to tag along behind and misquote because this is getting tiresome.

Chrome lining is NOT necessary.  Keep 'em clean and any barrel material will do just fine.  Afterall, most of us are shooting AR-15's at the local range, not M-16's in the Vietnam mud.

I've shot hundrends of rounds through a plain old chromemoly barrel on my homebuilt M4gery and it continues to function perfectly.

BBURN

Quote from Homo-E "If nothing else, this thread will serve as a lesson to those Headspace Weenies who think that even a tiny bit of excess headspace will cause their AR to blow up.''

I don't think that is a valid example about an AR not blowing up with excessive headspace. Shooting a 22 cal bullet down a 30 cal bbl. will create very little chamber pressure. Looks like the  chamber pressure was not enough to split the shell casing although it did bloat the case out some before the bullet left the mouth of the shell casing.  Just my opinion.  BTW, I have bought a lot of parts off of J&T Dist over the years-always at gun shows, never mail order. First of all the people are very friendly, and there parts have always been top notch with no problems. I have several friends who have bought kits from them and have been 100% satisfied. Glad to see they fixed his problem!  AMOS

To clarify the record...

Note that chroming the barrel/chamber was done to fix the symptom, not the problem.  The actual problem was a change in powder and it caused a lot of problems.  Had the powder change not occurred, we would not have have the problems.

BZZZZZT.  Wrong.  But thanks for playing!!

When the M16 was rushed into service it had several different problems that needed to be addressed.  Certainly loading ammo with surplus WW ball powder instead of the DuPont IMR stick propellant caused reliability problems, as did issuing rifles without cleaning kits, providing no training to troops who had only used the M14, etc.

But correcting the ammo issue did not fix the extraction problems.  That's why to this day mil-spec M16 barrels are all still chrome lined.  So your statement that "chroming the barrel/chamber was done to fix the symptom, not the problem" is totally false.  Chroming the chamber was done to fix one problem, and the ammo fixed another.

Does anybody have an answer for that?  Since you claim chrome lined chambers were done only because of defective ammo, and all that ammo was replaced decades ago, why are they still chroming barrels?  Is it to make it easier to clean?  You mean the military does not like to teach new recruits how to clean a rifle in boot camp?  Yeah, right.

The reason they do it is simple - the 5.56mm cartridge has much less "headroom" when it comes to working an action and needs a slippery chamber to reliably extract cartridges under conditions normally seen in combat.  That's it.  The claim that they chromed barrels because of some bad ammo from 40 years ago in RVN doesn't explain why current issue M16A2s and M4s still have it.

To clarify the record...

M16 barrels have chromed bores because they need it.

Actually I believe the biggest reason that the chambers and barrels are chrome lined is more because it is very tough and very resistant to corrosion. I believe it is much more important to prolong the life of the action after hundreds of thousands of rounds.
The gas system on these modern rifles is pretty powerful. Take for example the AK based guns, almost all of them have chrome lined barrels and chambers. Yes they are reliable but they also shear the heads off the cases, hence the issue of the removal tool.
Just my two cents, I expect I have change coming?

Funny you should mention this, because earlier this week the History Channel ran a "Tales of the Gun" marathon, including the episode on the AK47.  In one of the interviews, Mikhail Kalashnikov himself stated that he specified a chrome chamber from the very beginning for reliable functioning.

Straight from the horses mouth!!  [:D]

I maintain 18 issue AR pattern rifles and all of the individual officer's rifles at my department.  About 30 rifles total.  Most are either Bushmaster or Colt.  However, the two most reliable rifles are two Oly Arms 11.5" with 5" flash suppressors that are owned by a Capt. and me.  They have NEVER malfunctioned and have thousands of rounds through them.  Neither one is chrome lined.  The last four barrels I put on department-issue rifles have all been unlined; one was from J&T.  No problems with any of them extracting and three are full-auto m16s.

This is just my experience; I'm no expert.  I will buy unlined barrels again and I can afford whatever kind I want. YMMV, but don't believe all the hype that you have to have chrome lined to function.

The AR-10s, AR-15 prototypes and early production M16s worked fine without a chrome chamber, thus it wasn't deemed necessary to spend the extra $2.50 or whatever to do it.

The ill advised change to ball powder produced more powder fouling, which, when, combined with the humid SE Asia environment, meant that cases weren't extracting and chambers were rusting.  

Of course the lack of cleaning kits and proper maintenance procedures resulted in this problem becoming a crisis.  McNamara's whiz kids prolonged the crisis by insisting that since Stoner hadn't designed it with a chrome chamber, it didn't need one.

Interestingly enough, this hadn't been a problem with the American advisors who were the earliest users of the AR-15 in SEA, because they had been properly trained (by Armalite techs, IIRC) on maintenance.  And of course they weren't using ball powder at that time.

It was a classic situation of several bad decisions culminating in an epic mess.

I think a chrome chamber is undoubtedly a bonus, but today it just isn't necessary for most civilian AR-15 owners who keep their AR clean and stay out of the jungle.

I don't know if this means dirt, but my dad was looking at my M4gery the other day while I field stripped it and he say that he didn't remember the inside of the bolt carrier being chromed on his Vietnam service rifle.  Isn't that a huge issue irrespective of the chamber?