Team,
I had an interesting failure at the range yesterday. I was shooting my always reliable AR15. I was using new factory Federal XM193 ammo with 20 round USGI magazines. I was shooting with two associates, one right hander and one left hander. We all shot using my rifle. We each shot a 20 round mag at the target. I went first and had no issues, the right-hander then shot and had no issues. The left hander then shot had a failure to load mid-way through the 20 round magazine. After removing the round, I inspected the firearm and it appeared in working order. I inspected the magazine and it appeared to be in working order. Inspected the round and aside from a few scrapes on the case, it appeared to be fine.
I loaded the round back into the magazine and fired the remaining rounds with no issue. I then loaded a new 20 round magazine and the lefthander commenced firing. After the fifth round the rifle failed to feed again. I went through the same procedure as above. This same failure occured three times to the lefthanded shooter. Everytime I cleared the failure to feed, and finished out the magazine, I shot with no additional failures. We shot a total of about 300+ rounds. The only failures happened with the lefthander. This rifle has never failed to feed for me in the 10 years I've owned it.
During matches, I have often shot this rifle left handed with no issue. After the failure, I put a 20 round mag through the rifle shooting left handed and could not repoduce this failure. If it had only happened once, I would have chalked it up to chance. After the third similar failure with the same shooter, I am left puzzled.
What do you think?