Last Saturday, a buddy of mine and I took our newly built rifles to the range to test fire them.  We had 4 Polish U/F’s and 2 Romanian G’s to test out.  
While we were firing them, encountered a few problems, but one issue on both Romys was a failure to feed.  We were using old Norinco soft point and new Wolf HP ammo.  The rounds kept jamming each time when we tried to feed a round into the chamber from the magazine.  We noticed that the rounds were not lifting high enough to be inserted into the chamber and were impinging on the bottom of the barrel face.  We tried several different mags with the same result each time.

After scratching our heads for awhile we looked at the Polish rifles and found that a small feed ramp had been milled into those barrels (hadn’t noticed this before),  We didn’t have this feeding issue with them.

We are now thinking of extracting the barrels and grinding feed ramps into the Romy barrels.  Could this problem be a result of another issue?

Now I realize this rifle was designed to take FMJ ammo, but has anyone else noticed this or experienced this problem?

Using the Wolf HP ammo in my SAR-1 It Jams around every 4th shot or so.  Then it screws up the head of the bullet and thus it can't fire without having to be manually loaded directly into the chamber.

I would too like to know if theres a quick fix or something.

run a couple hundred FMJ rounds through them, then try HP.  breaking them in should help your feeding problems.

Some guns just don't like anything other than FMJ

I had asked a similar question and observed the same thing with Polish AKs.  I wanted to be able to shoot all tipes of rounds with all types of mags.  I did grind an ever so shallow feed ramp copying the other AK's.  I did it with a dremel without removing the barrel.  Clean up the "grindage" after you're done or it will prevent rounds from chambering or the bolt from locking.  Now it feeds everything including the damaged HP's from before the feedramp.  

I am not suggesting you do the same, act at your own risk.  

It could be due to other issues, like the mag not seating properly, but if it does this only with HP's and not FMJ's it may benefit from a feed ramp...I am no expert, but as you know:  " measure twice, cut once"

good luck!

I don’t believe it to be mag issue.  We had seven mags with us that day and tried every one of them.  All of the rifles were built with the same jigs and all of the mags seated properly in all of the rifles. They all fed properly in the Polish rifles – just not the Romys.

I still think adding a feed ramp to the barrel face will solve the problem, but I am surprised that I haven’t seen this issue posted before with all the Romy kits being built out there.

I started this venture to learn something new – I guess I got my wish.

Quoted:" measure twice, cut once"

I had some of my Romy builds come back to me for that problem and I, like those I have done builds for, like the rifle to be able to handle whatever it is fed.

What I did was what I have done on other military rifles and that is "work" the feeding ramp with a dremel to create a nice bevel and then polish it (this probably happens with time, but the dremel bit and dremel probably cost less than the number of rounds you would have to put through it to accomplish the same results).  The thing is the feeding ramp is like a brick wall for those rounds and you want to make it more like a freeway offramp if you get my drift.  I found it is a lot easier to do this before building the rifle so now I do it with all my Romy builds before I assemble them.  But I have also experimented with my own beast and you can even mimic the M4 feeding ramp and make seperate grooves for both sides of the mag.  Eye ball it and just make sure your mag clears the bottom of the feeding ramp and you should be fine.

Shoot enought FMJ through it and it will break in to allow SP & HP.

Otherwise guys on gunsnet have had good luck with ramping the barrel:

Interesting, did I miss the point again?  Was this about the rounds jamming into the barrel and not the feeding ramp?  I'm terribly sorry if I was way out in left field on this one, but the problem I had with some of my builds and HP ammo was jamming into the feeding ramp and for that reason I assumed that this was the same problem.  At any rate it also fixed the problem for the builds I did.

Quoted: Interesting, did I miss the point again?  Was this about the rounds jamming into the barrel and not the feeding ramp?  I'm terribly sorry if I was way out in left field on this one, but the problem I had with some of my builds and HP ammo was jamming into the feeding ramp and for that reason I assumed that this was the same problem.  At any rate it also fixed the problem for the builds I did.

The rounds (SP and HP) were jamming into the barrel face just below the chamber (where a feed ramp would normally be).

ETA:  The polish barrels look a lot like the pix posted by drobs, with a small feed ramp.  That is what I plan to do to my Romy - one at first to see how it works.

I used a chainsaw file and worked the feed ramp through the mag well. Just go slow and don't let the file go into the chamber. You may want to polish the ramp with emery cloth when finished with the file.

I think my Romy G almost has that problem -- the nose of chambered rounds get dinged and the cases get tiger stripes on them as hit the sharp edge of the chamber during feeding. It's been 100% reliable though and there is less striping as time goes on so I think it's wearing in all by itself. I guess it's just a Romy G quirk.

I'd be cautious about making a feed ramp. Go too far and you could blow out a case and really ruin your day. But if you know what you're doing, it does sound like the solution.

you need to build up the feed ramp so the rounds hit it
then the rounds will go in the barrel instead of hitting the face

ive had this happen also only with rommy g kits tho

ive also fixed the prob by changing the bolt dont ask me why that fixed it but it did

Before doing those mods, shoot some more fmj though it. HP and SP is a new thing for AK's. They're made for FMJ.  

I filed on my feed ramps after having problems and it took care of it.

Take the top cover off and put a mag. in with ammo and slowly feed the ammo in and watch where it hits and jams ups up and slowly grind.