My family were shooting my UL50 and my Brother's BOHICA 50 over the 4th of July weekend.  Ammo was linked API/APIT from Saint Louis arsenal, 1953 headstamp.  First a round stuck in my UL50 upper, not a normal occurrence and the first in over 200 rounds.  He managed to get the case out but broke off my bolt handle first. . Then a round locked his BOHICA up solid.  Took several grade 8 bolts threaded into the bolt and dry ice freezing the chamber and vigorous tapping on the side of the chamber with a three pound mallet before my brother finally got it open.  Take a look at this crap:





What do you think? Hot loaded ammo? We are obviously not going to shoot any more until we can pull a few bullets and compare to other mil spec ammo we have.  This is not reloads, factory original stuff.  I've shot tons of APIT/API/AP through our 50s in the past with no issues.  We will buy a set of go/no-go gauges and verify headspace before shooting them again too, but wtf?

I would be tempted to blame it on the fact it is a BOHICA but since you had issues in both rifles I think the ammo is to blame.  You're lucky that's all that happened.

My brother and I both have BOHICA uppers with at least 100+ rounds through each.  Never had a problem with either until now.  There is very little different in the design of the BOHICA vs my UL50 or most other AR uppers, certainly nothing inherently unsafe.

I'm just going to assume that when the ammo plants were building ammo for the .50 in 1953 the thought they they would ever be fired in a BOHICA upper or that they would have to worry about the rounds being a little too hot the M2
machine gun.

Perhaps you should stick to recently manufactured ammo.

2017 - 1953 = 64 year old powder.  1953 QC, probably part of a Korean War order.

Have you considered pulling all your bullets and reloading w/ recently manufactured powder that hasn't been stored in unknown conditions for 64 years?

Sorry about your bolt handle.  Will it be covered under warranty?

There are a couple of silver linings.  We had two extra bolt handles that we got when BOHICA updated their design, and they are the same thread pattern as my UL50.  The ammo was free, and we do have a 50 reloading press, so we can easily pull the bullets and reload the powder.  It just surprises me to see that happen, the vast majority of ammo we have shot through our 50s has been linked mil spec ammo in the original cans.  We have components to load several hundred rounds, but I've been overseas for the better part of a decade and my brother just got back stateside for the first time in six years.  Once he gets his reloading bench set up we can load and shoot our own ammo, and not worry about occasional hot rounds.

Can you post a photo of the case head of a LIVE round from your lot?  

Also a closeup photo of the case shoulder/neck/mouth/projectile area of a LIVE round?