Saturday I took my brand new 6.8 upper out to shoot.  Fired 5 rounds of Hornady 110gn Vmax, on the fifth round something very odd happened, It sounded like a normal round going off and the gun cycled I thought because when I pulled the trigger again it clicked, and the bolt was stuck closed.

At first I thought it was just a hot load or something like that, after I knocked the stuck case out of the rifle I found that the bullet was still in the case,  That was odd because the primer was melted to my bolt.  

Right now it looks like there isn't a flash hole in the case even though I am sure it went off more then just the primer, the case is bulged and was stuck in the chamber, I can not hear any powder in there any more.

I really have no idea what happened. I will try to post some pics here in a few. Either way there was alot of smoke out of the wrong end.

Never seen that before, how 'bout that shit. Thanks for the pix.

That's a bit disheartening.  

Sounds like quite a few people are having problems with the Hornady...

Damn, I thought it was top notch ammo and recently purchased 400 rounds each of the older 5.56x45 75gr. TAP and the newer 75gr. TAP T2.

Now I kind have wished I hadn't.

Wow i can't even begin to figure out what happend there. Hopefully Molon or Doc will see that and know what the hell happend

This happens sometimes (very infrequently) in all brands of ammo.
QC should catch that problem but apparently it didn't this time.
I am sure you are going to contact Hornady, right?



It is pretty obvious what happens when brass with no flashhole makes it through QC and is loaded with a live primer.
When the primer fires, there is nowhere for the explosion to go and the pressure blows out the primer with all the heat trapped against the bolt face.
Although uncommon, I have seen it happen (on the internet, not first hand) with several other reputable brands of ammo. First time seeing this with Hornady.

This kind of heat and pressure can damage a firing pin, maybe the bolt. I would communicate with the rifle manufacturer in addition to Hornady.

Thanks for the replies guys,  I guess I hadn't thought the primmer to be that strong before but it adds up.

It chaired the case and the bolt, I will take my bolt apart later today and see what the firing pin looks like.

I emailed hornady but so far haven't heard back,  the lot number of this ammo was 3090551.

There is no way the rifle cycled.  Nothing went down the barrel to cycle it.

I don't think anyone is saying the rifle cycled considering the "bullet" is sitting right there in the case for all to see...

I said that at first, i thought it had because i was able to pull the trigger again and it clicked.  I have it on video, I am going to review it tomorrow hopefully and see what happened.

Looks like the round doesn't have a flash hole, and from the description of the malfunction that's probably the problem.  I have only seen that once before with a Fed. 45 acp.  It locked a guys Glock up.  The primer goes off and smashes into the breech face locking the action.

Please post here: http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=16&t=484314