Alright, to start off, I've lurked around here for quite a long time, and I had a name at one time, but I seem to have lost it, so I started a new one. I have a Bushmaster XM15E2S (The "varminter"). I bought it used about a year and a half ago. I've had absolutely no problems with it whatsover, until yesterday. I've run all sorts of ammunition through it, from RWB to Wolf, to M193, and M855. I was shooting M855 yesterday. Everything was fairly clean when I went to the range. I'd cleaned the bolt/carrier and the receiver before I went. I left my cleaning rod at my brother's house, so I didn't clean the barrel.
Anyway, so I got to the range and fired 12 rounds, and then it looked like this:
http://img470.imageshack.us/img470/7766/arbroken16yu.th.jpghttp://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6065/arbroken22gi.th.jpgand a look through the magazine well:
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/4303/arbroken33bu.th.jpgI read some other posts on here about a guy who had a similar problem with his CAR-15 and how it took a chunk out of the magazine, so I inspected the magazine (and all the others just to be sure) and it was intact, as well as the shells I had fired (as far as I could tell....some were already buried in the sand under other shells, so it was hard to find them all).
Before anyone says anything about me not knowing what I'm doing, I do. I'm not out to build AR's or anything like that, but lets just say I can disassemble an M16A2 with my eyes closed.
Now, is there a possibility I did something wrong, even though I've done it ten thousand times? Yes. I know people have the tendency (and rightly so) to blame the operator first off for being stupid.
After inspecting everything, I tried the forward assist, with no luck. Then I tried pulling the charging handle...no luck. Removing the lower? Impossible. The bolt is about 7/8 of the way forward, and because of the way the lower is designed, I can remove the front pin and the rear pin, but the receivers won't come apart. I removed the stock and buffer spring/tube to see if maybe the retainer was blocking the bolt (for some reason), and it appeared that it was, and I was able to remove it, but the bolt was still stuck. The bolt has seized as though it was meant to be that way, and there is no way to remove even the lower receiver to get a better inspection. I can separate the upper/lower by about 1/2", where the only contact being made is between the very back of the carrier and the lower at the rear of the rifle where the buffer spring tube would be attached if I hadn't removed it. I'm going to call Bushmaster today to see if they've heard anything about this, as well.
Anyone on here had any similar problems?
Thanks in advance for your replies,
Ross