I am hoping someone can talk me through this.  I have a jam in my AR.  Unfortunately it is jammed with a loaded round.  My gunsmith is out of town on vacation.  Can anyone explain to me how to clear this jam?  I believe it is caused by a reload that was not sized properly.  

Thank you.

Don't worry, you don't need your gunsmith.  Put the rifle on safe and take it to a safe place.  Hold the charging handle release with one hand and place the other on the forearm.  "Smartly" strike the butt of the weapon on the ground, while pulling the charging handle rearward.  This should solve your problem.  If it doesn't try it again until you see the bolt carrier has moved enough to place a small round punch (to avoid scratching the weapon)between the bolt carrier and the forward face of the ejection port and gently applying pressure to aid in the extraction.  If it doesn't work let me know.  By the way this is the way I was taught in the military to clear a M-16.  Good luck.

Thank You HackSawTom.

It worked perfectly.  Do you have any idea what is causing the jamming?  This is the second episode in as many weeks.  The first time, my gunsmith blamed it on a dirty chamber, then he cleaned it and this jam happended on the 22nd round fired.

Thanks again HackSawTom!!

Have you got a "go no-go" gauge for your ammunition?

I am interested to know your barrel- match chamber in .223 is gonna be tight compared to the nato standard.

What bullet are you using? Try this poor man's go/no-go:

Pull your upper, remove the bolt.

Make a dummy round (you know- no primer or powder, but bullet seated about .05" longer than your present COL (overall length, sorry.) You can make it a lot longer, if you are curious about your chamber.

OK, drop the dummy round in to the chamber, seat with pinky finger or a wooden dowel. Are you engaging the rifling or sticking in the chamber? You'll feel it.

carefully poke the bullet out with your ramrod. Uh, cleaning rod- measure COL. You can sort of poke the bullet in to exact engagement- then give yourself .05" of extra leade (I think that's the fancy word for bullet to rifling jump.)

Other thing to check is your neck resizing, and I'm going to use a Lee factory crimp to touch up the neck. No need to go crazy with it.

So, this is my inexperienced suggestion. I'm still making once fired brass, myself.

Pete

MKN,

You are the first or the last to have that problem.  You probably aren't screwing your full length die down far enough.  You can buy a case gauge as suggested or do like I do.  I put a resized case in the chamber of my rifle and let the bolt slam home.  If it extracts like a factory case, you're good to go.  Make sure you don't push the shoulder of the case back, 'cause if you do then you'll get case separtion.  You can avoid this by making small adjustments, like 1/8 turn down of the die.  Good luck.

Sounds like your using 5.56 nato or military surplus ammo in a .223 match chamber.

I was playing around with some hot loads and had that happen.. If you're reloading you may want to discontinue that load...

Your turn rod is not connected to the bink pin. If you send it to me with about 1k rounds of ammo I'll get it up and running for ya.
[bounce]

agree with hacksawtom,  you might not be seating the bullet far enough.  The bullet might be contacting the grooves of the barrell & you might be forcing the bullet into the grooves making it stick.  Check the round you pulled out of the gun, the bullet might have a round pattern which is the start of the barrell.

Also,  Does your sizing die go full length?   If not the base of the case might be a little wider than the sized portion...  If this is the case you might need a full length sizing die.

Prosise

Thats an easy jam.  i had a worse one- I shot 750 rds rhrough my CAR and put it away for a few hours.  Latter that night I pulled the charging handle back and it stuck.  It freed while in transport and a good cleaning fixed it.

I had been in a CQB class and was supprised how many people had jams,  I was proud that in 1500 rds I had none. My gun is bushmaster factory, a lot of the jammed guns were parted together.  In fact one of the few others that didn't was a LEO's FA Bushmaster CAR.  Its just when the class was over, I figured I could wait to clean it

Every problem I have ever had with 5.56mm automatic rifles from the Mini-14 to the Valmet 76 to the AR15 has been ammo related!
If no other rifle will shoot it, the Mini-14 usually will, but there is some ammo even the Mini-14 will not shoot reliably.
I bought 1000 rounds in a  feed sack, "gun show reloads" and have finally gotten through them.
My advice:  shoot military surplus, or factory ammo or load your own.  Don't rely on the doofus at the gunshow selling home-brew ammunition.