This a warning, and a question.

I bought this Greek ss109 a while ago. And just today decided to try it out. To my dismay it does not function very well.

I fired a few rounds with a 24" barrel, and got some bad over pressure signs. The first round fired and over cycled my rifle. By this I mean that the bolt was thrown back so hard that it came forward be for the round could be ejected. Causing a failure to feed the next round and a failed ejection. I had to physically remove the spent round from the bolt. Did not think to much of it. The next round did the same thing but worse. I had to pull the charging handle in order to even get the spent round out of the chamber. I don’t me a normal pull of the CH I had to use both hands and considerable force. Now I was wary of this ammo. I fire two more that keep their primers but were stuck in the bolt and over cycled. The fifth and final round produced a FTF FTE like the second but took even more force to extract it from the chamber, which this time included slamming the but of the rifle on the shooting bench.

My questions are, knowing they are factory new and hot rounds. Could it have been because of the 24" barrel? What are the odds it will work in my 16"? And has anyone else used this ammo before?

New can

Label on can

Stamping on can

unfired side view

unfired head stamp

missing primer 1

missing primer 2

Wow, Olmpic SS109 gave you problems?  Never would have figured that, seeing how highly rated it is here.

Sorry to sound like a dick but Olympic has the worse rating here in ammo reviews posted at the top of the page.

I did not realize it was Olympic. I was lead to believe it was Greek Nato Mil spec. May be Olympic is just that. Well now that I know that it is Olympic I will tare it down and reload it at a safer pressures. Thanks for the insight.

I am not sure if I am beating a dead horse, but I have found the reason why this Olympic ammo is hazardous to you firearm and your own health.

It is made with no less than 4 different powder types. Two different size ball powders, 1 stick and 1 flattened ball.

To load ammo with this mixture of powders is criminally negligent. I do not know what can be done about this but I am going to try and a least get my money back.

thebrain,

I have learned that the problems many shooters, including myself, are experiencing is not the ammo but the Chambers in 90% of all cases. Another 5% is bad ammo and the final 5% is bad cleaning/mantenance.

I found this about a week after my gunsmith discussed the chamber issue with me.
http://www.armalite.com/library/techNotes/tnote45.htm

It seems that SAAMI specs are much...much tighter than NATO requirements which cause the higher chamber pressures, blown primers...etc, as you and many other's have mentioned in other posts and forums. My Gunsmith also told me that the chambers in the NATO specs is throated to lower pressure as well. Again, information that was on the Armalite website after the fact.

Now, with this said I have used two NATO brands that work flawlessly out of my Stainless Steel Bushmaster Varmint without any problems. These include:

1) IMI 62gr M855 Green Tip
2) Lake City SS-109 Green Tip

These are the only two that I have used that work without ANY problems but I haven't shot any in a while.

The NATO brands I have had problems with are:
1) Olympic
2) S&B

I think that I'll stick with the good ol' US and IMI rounds since I know they work without problems and they kill coyotes, feral pigs and anything else that is caught in my MIL-DOT's.

TS