On my daughter's AR15 carbine, everything works just great, except when
we're at the range and the line goes safe, it's like pulling teeth to
get the live round out of the chamber, really have to yank the hell out
of the charging handle.





I'm about 3K rounds into my new
reloading hobby this year. All my rounds fit freely in a Wilson case gage.  But this happens every
time with her rifle.  Never a problem while shooting, only when
unloading.  We have the same problem with commercial Remington .223 in
it as well.  




The other 3 rifles I have don't do this and one of them is
identical to hers, the uppers even came in the same shipment.  It's a
Stag 2H upper.





Any ideas what might be the issue?

I had this happen before, turns out the bullet was seated too far out for the carbine so every round you tried to extract manually was a nightmare because the projectile was actually slammed into the lands.  Are there marks on the projectile when you get one of the rounds removed?

No, bullets are pretty far off the lands for these, I took a measurement a while back, to hit the lands on an AR15 you have to seat the bullet so far out that you won't get the round in a magazine.





 

    Clean the heck out of the whole rifle , especially the chamber .  Look for deposits of carbon , cosmoline , dried grease , lacquer from Wolf brand ammo , etc .

    Is the chamber chrome lined ?

    Scratches on the brass , after you eject it ?

God bless
Wyr

    What kind of commercial ammo ?

It's a chrome-lined barrel, I assume that means the chamber is chromed?



I never did check the brass for scratches, at this point, it would be hard to determine which came from her rifle and which from mine, so I'll have to check that on our next range trip, or go home tonight and just manually cycle a few rounds through it.



It was cleaned pretty thoroughly before we first took it shooting, probably 200-300 rounds through it and haven't cleaned it since then.  I never shoot Wolf, so it wouldn't be laquer.



The first 100 rounds we put through it were Remington Bulk Pack.  I wanted to get it started with commercial ammo until we knew for sure everything was working fine, just in case I had to get any warranty repairs (evidently reloads void the warranty).  





 

For headspace, I guess I need to get a set of go/no-go gages.  Or maybe I can just take a fired round from it and put it in the mic?



How would I check the mating surface between bolt lugs & barrel extension lugs?  



What should I be looking for on the extractor?





 

[/quote]

Best guess if the reloads check out, and it's doing the same with factory ammo as well, ether the Head space is too tight (maybe like a thousands or two at the most since it sounds like the rifle is cycling fine), or the mating surface between the bolt lugs and the barrel extension lugs is rough enough that is causing the same unlocking problem.

Also, might want to take a look at the side of the extractor, just in case is slightly out of spec and binding on one of the lugs as you try to unlock the bolt.[/quote]
For headspace, I guess I need to get a set of go/no-go gages.  Or maybe I can just take a fired round from it and put it in the mic?

How would I check the mating surface between bolt lugs & barrel extension lugs?  

What should I be looking for on the extractor?

 [/quote]


    The whole Head Space issue can easily get into a flame war .   :-(

    If it satisfactorily chambers several brands of commercial ammo , I call it good .  Therefore , I have never bought a go gauge .

    I use a commercial .223 no-go from Forester .  Others may tell you to use a USGI 5.56 mm field gauge ?

    Also , look / clean / flush the lug area of the barrel extension , where the bolt lugs lock up .  For burrs and foreign objects that do not belong there ( slivers of brass ? ) .  Might blow the area clean with compressed air ?  Also inspect your bolt lugs / bolt head .

    Not sure on the extractor .

    Bolt closes OK on an empty chamber ?

God bless
Wyr