I started a thread a while ago about my 6.5 grendel having feeding issues. While shooting I would often have failure to feed issues. It looked like this (Not my picture):


I believe the issue is my AA E-Lander mags (mine are the 17-rounders). I took a video of the bolt being RETRACTED and I noticed the round pops up and out of the magazine as the bolt is coming OUT of battery. Here is a picture of the frame of the video where this happens:



I compared it to a 556 gun and noticed it did not ever pop up as shown above. My wife said I should just use pmags. I told her it would not work and attempted to demonstrate. To my surprise it actually worked perfectly. Here is a picture of a pmag loading the round at approximately the same frame:



I have not got a chance to test this with live fire, but my questions are:
1) Why do the E-Landers allow the round to pop out of them (FYI this occurs with multiple mags and I am using Hornady factory ammo)
2) Why do pmags supposedly not work with 6.5 grendel? Operating the action manually appears that they function BETTER than the 6.5-specific mags. I can't see why they would not work under live fire.

ETA: It looks like in the pmag picture the bolt is off the round, but if I could upload the video (not sure how) you would see that at no time does it allow the round to "pop-up" as in the case of the E-lander.

I just put together an upper. I used my son's spikes lower on it the first outing. No mag related issues. The next outing I used a Delton lower and I had similar issues. The bolt would override the cartridge unless I put upward pressure on the mag. I'll try another lower next time and see if the problem persists.

I'm using a 17 round AR Stoner mag with blue follower. I have to 5 rounders too, I'll take with me to and give them a shot.

I got my videos uploaded (sorry they are upside down). The first video is of the E-lander and you can see the frame where the round pops up out of the mag. The second video is the pmag.

I will try to put upward pressure on the E-lander and see if that helps. Stand by...

E-Lander:
http://s1343.photobucket.com/user/trackmagic218/media/E-Lander_video_zpsi9mwggxp.mp4.html?sort=3&o=0

Pmag:
http://s1343.photobucket.com/user/trackmagic218/media/Pmag_zpsh1wvzvde.mp4.html?sort=3&o=1

E-Lander magazines are the only reliable mags in my rifles. I'm using the 17 round models.

Since you are doing everything at home slow motion I doubt you're getting an accurate accounting of what will happen in the field.

I can virtually guarantee that your Magpul magazines will not work. Hold your judgement until you actually shoot the thing. I think you're getting ahead of yourself.

Upward pressure on the E-landers did not help them.

double tap

I have tried the E-landers in the field full speed and they have F2F issues often. Until I got home and tried them in slow motion I could not figure out what the issue was. Now that I see they are tilting the round up before feeding I am trying to figure out how to solve the issue.

You may be right about the Pmags, but what should I do to get my E-Landers to not pop a round up like the picture?

How am I getting ahead of myself, I'm just pointing out that the magpuls don't have the symtom that the E-landers have. E-landers are not reliable in my rifle.

ETA: The pmags do start having issues if you put more than 3 or 4 rounds in them. They start jamming pretty badly.

I've had similar problems with my newest batch of 17's I bought. In my Colt lower that's exactly how they act. However, in my Modulus Arms lower they work great. They feel really loose in the Colt when they're locked up and feel pretty good in in the MA lower. All may other mags feel pretty good in the Colt but a bit tight in the MA. Not sure if the newer batch of 17's is a bit out of spec or what.

I've read numerous post where forum members have used PMags with 6.5 Grendel without issue.  The PMags will work with a few rounds of 6.5 Grendel cartridges but the more rounds you try to load the more the body of the PMag swell.  The 6.5 Grendel cartridges can't stack properly in a 5.56/223 PMag.  Most forum members report good functioning with 3-5 6.5 Grendel cartridges in PMags.  The exact number of 6.5 Grendel cartridges you can get into a 30 round PMag may depend on the internal demensions of a given lower receiver.  

I've read a couple reports with faulty E-Lander 6.5 Grendel mags.  I suggest you contact ALexander Arms and see what they suggest.

Thanks, I sent them an email last night. Hopefully they can get me good mags.

bend, what bolt and barrel are you using?

I've never seen magazines lose control of a cartridge upon action cycling.

If that's happening, the feed lips are not in spec.

A common FTFeed in PPC-based cartridges in the AR15 are caused by the ejector when feeding from the right feed lip.

The rim gets stuck against the side of the ejector.

I radius my ejectors.

AA uses a shorter ejector to prevent this problem.

Thanks, The ejector on my bolt looks about the same as all my other AR15s. It does not look shorter.

Both my barrel and bolt are from AA.

Maybe I should round my ejector and see if that solves my issue. I have not noticed if it is only from the right feed lip.

What do you think of the video? Would you say the mags are defective if they are allowing the cartridge to pop up like that?

Couldn't see any videos when I tried.

Me neither.

X3

Couldn't get the video to play either. In my case with the Colt lower it appears the mag is sitting too low in the magwell. I think what's happening is when the cartridge is starting to get chambered the tip of the bullet is hitting the very bottom of the feed ramp. Combined with sitting to low, it's popping the cartridge up too much and the tip of the bullet is landing between the top of the upper and the outside of the barrel extension.

I figure either the mag catch hole is too high, or the feed lips are way out of shape. Maybe both.

Got the video on youtube now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1xjm-1QZ_0

Makes sense. I will measure the mag catch position tonight. Thanks!

I have half a dozen of the 17s and two 5s.  Have not had any issues with them. 

I have quite a few 17 rounders purchased a year or two ago and they run perfectly.

My buddy set up a 6.5 Grendel like mine and just bought a bunch of the e landers and they are having the same issue.

I bent the feed lips out and it seems to run well now.

When you withdraw the BCG that slowly, the bolt lugs are catching on the extractor groove, which makes the cartridge pivot like that.

Under normal operation, you'll never see that.

Rack the BCG back faster and see what happens.

I wanted to give an update on this thread. Yesterday I was able to test a 5 round ASC mag and the gun ran 100%. I ordered 3 of their 15 round mags to test, but I think I am going to send back my E-Landers. Hopefully I just got bad E-Landers.

Pmags don't have the right geometry or follower to work with the grendel case. They work in a pinch if you load like 5 or so though. As far as the E-Landers, thats usually considered the go-to mag. Is it doing the same with multiple E-Landers? maybe you got a bad one some how. My 17 rounds have been flawless.

My grendel mags are the shittiest and most finicky mags I've ever had to deal with. Shooting with a can will will cause the mags to fail to feed. I know other people having the same problems.

I had 5 E-Landers and all of them had the same issues. They were most likely from the same batch so I am hoping that is it. I don't want to be stuck to one type of magazine.

At this point I can't disagree. My limited time owning a Grendel mags seem to be the weak link. I love the power that it provides!

Interesting.  I had a slightly different issue this weekend with my Grendel that I didn't experience with the first range outing, but I'm almost 100% positive it's mag related (probably feed lip issues, although I haven't done much troubleshooting yet).

Anytime I'd load the mag over 9 rounds (17rd E-Landers), when feeding from the right side of the mag (so round 10, 12, etc.), the round would nose dive below the barrel extension feed ramp and jam.  Would fuck up the polymer tip on the ELD-Ms I was shooting pretty badly.  Even more weird, it wouldn't happen while firing.  It would only happen while loading a new mag into the gun and dropping the bolt release.  

I only had 3 of the 10 mags I own with me out at the range, so I'm pretty sure it was happening with at minimum 2 of them if not all 3.

Also, I had no issue of the sort during my first outing with the gun where I fired 100-120 rounds.  I know it was the same 3 mags from that trip as I never removed them from one of my range bags.

My .264LBC did the same thing at first.  I didn't know what to do because I only had one mag, an ASC, and Pmags I used with my 5.56 which both saw my rifle not cycling and damaging the ammo.  I ended up smoothing out the lips of my ASC magazine and then very, very lightly buffing the bolt face because it's what was suggested.  After smoothing the lips of my magazine and polishing my bolt face a tiny bit my rifle ran like a dream.  That was last year sometime and it's run great ever since. Considering the rifle worked after the slight polishing of the bolt face using both the ASC and Pmag I can only assume that the mag was not the problem to begin with.  Of course this is my rifle and what worked for mine may or may not work with someone else's gun.

Just recently I discovered that I had a gas block leak which lead me to find out that my gas port was oversize.  That rifle will get an adjustable gas block to fix the oversize gas port issue but since whatever I did previously worked to fix it's cycling issues I don't forsee any other problems.

That particular rifle is being gifted to my sister and I'll be building my own "super Grendel" soon.  It's not really a "super" Grendel, the name just means it'll be the Grendel I wanted from day one instead of the one I ended up with on day one.  Hopefully I don't have the same issues with this one.

I've been wanting to order some Elander magazines since all I have is one ASC 6.5 magazine and once my new rifle is finished we will have two 6.5 Grendel shooting rifles in the house.  This is the first time I've heard anyone say they had issues with their Elander mag.  As far as I know the Elanders are the best Grendel mags available today, of course that doesn't mean they are exempt from the occasional gimped up product getting through.  Once I am able to figure out how to afford all the parts for my new rifle I'll worry about mags, I can't use them until then anyway LOL.  As expensive as this build has become I may end up trying to build my own Grendel mags out of Crayon boxes or something lol.

Got a chance to shoot my replacement E-Landers yesterday. Shot 60 rounds through the gun without any drama. I almost gave up and re barreled the gun in 556 at one point. I'm glad I stuck it out. I think I'm going to like this gun now that I will get to shoot it and not spend all my time debugging it.

If you add "fixed" to your thread title, that will help others who might have had the same problem.

Over 8 years of shooting Grendel regularly now, here's what I've seen.

1. FTFeed 123gr PPUp soft point from bolt hold open with a fresh mag on my MGI Quick Barrel Change Gen I upper (no M4 feed ramps).  All remaining rounds chambered and fired under fire.  That ammo was notorious for being garbage, haven't seen it in years.  The soft point on mine hit the sharp edge of the rifle upper where there normally are feed ramps on M4 uppers, and smashed the nose in.  I slapped the bottom of the magazine and it went into battery, fired fine.

2. FTFeed reloads where my die wasn't set down far enough when I re-installed after a move.  Shoulders weren't getting pushed back anywhere near enough, and these cartridges will not even chamber in my Howa Mini Grendel.  Feels like the bolt handle would shear off before I could get them into battery, so reloading mistake.

3.  FTFeed with experimental Elander mag sent to me.  Doesn't have any markings on it like production versions.  I've only had that one FTF with it from bolt hold open, hit the bolt release and it smashed a 123gr AMAX into the mag well.

I've never had that happen with my CProducts Defense or my other Elanders, and my last trip to the range with the LaRue Stealth Grendel and 17rd Elander it came with ran better than 99% of the 5.56 guns I've ever shot as far as handling and the way the action cycled.  Felt like that was how the AR15 was really meant to be, not 5.56 NATO.

The thing with the 5.56 NATO is that there are 60 years of experience and development with the mags, and they are still making improvements to them, like any other well-supported program.

Done! Thanks for all your help with this.

ETA...Hope your back on your feet soon!