Hello all,
I am a long time reader, but new to posting on this board. I am from N. Ark., age 43, male, and love to shoot and hunt.
I have a problem that I can not seem to get worked out, and want to see what my best route to go might be, and this might be the place to get an honest answer.
I have an Essential Arms lower that I built in '93 with a collapsable stock. The upper is a pre-ban 16 inch HB that was bought from a company called Nessard in '93. Ever since I put this rifle together, it has a FTF problem. The bolt will ride up over the round in the mag, and push it up to where it hits the feedramp, and then it jams. It does this from both sides of the mag. I can't hardly shoot a 20 round mag without jams. The mags are Colt 20 and Adventureline 30 rounders. All of these mags work fine in my pre ban Colt R6700 flat top, as well as the same loads.
The load is 27.0 gr Win 748, 55 gr fmjbt, win primers, OAL 2.23, mil. brass. I also shoot Remington factory loaded 55 gr fmj's (not UMC) and get the same problem. I am not an AR expert, and have checked and double checked everything I know of. The bolt and all are clean and lubed, the chamber is clean, the rings are not lined up on the bolt, etc. I have lost all confidence in this rifle. Where the bolt carrier key goes over the end of the gas tube, it all looks OK to my untrained eyes. The collapsable stock doesn't seem to be screwed in too far. (These are all things that I was told to check). I have had this problem since I built the rifle, and it has set in the safe for years. My Colt is 100% reliable. I have decided to either get it running right, or get rid of it. It probably hasn't had more than a few hundred rounds through it.
I took it to a couple of local shops on Friday to see what they would give me for it. Both offered $750 toward anything in the shop. One had an Armalite .223 20" flattop (A4 style) and a 16" Bushy flattop (XM15A2 M3 I think) that I liked that I could get for about $100 difference. The other shop had a 20" A2 Bushy that he would go even trade on, and a AR10 A4 that I fell in love with, and would go $700 difference. I am thinking about trading, because I feel that if I get one of the "factory" guns, it would probably be 100% reliable. But at the same time, I don't want to get ripped off on my preban. Being that it is a "parts" gun, I am not sure what it is worth. That is the excuse the gun shops are giving for the $750 price, compared to maybe double that for a matching preban.
Any suggestions? What would you do if it was yours? Keep it and try to get it working and rebuild confidence in it, trade it for a factory gun, or get the new gun and keep this one for a while? As I said, I already have a R6700 and a Mini-14 in .223 also, but I am wanting another flattop. If you got the new gun, what would be the best of the 3 .223's above? I like the flattop, but could put the handle mounted scope on the A2. I have about $1000 to spend, and that puts the AR10 just a little out of range. But, OHHHHH, it is SO SWEET!!!! I know mags are a little expensive, but I shoot Glocks and know about high priced mags.
I am going to post a couple of pics to let you see what the FTF problem looks like. The lighting wasn't the best, maybe you can see enough to tell what is happening.
Thanks all for any replies.
Bob
http://www.bobshuntingpage.com/ar-1.jpghttp://www.bobshuntingpage.com/ar-2.jpg