ok, so I took the M out to the bush again today and put 35rnds though it. All the ammo I fired was that chi-com crap but I figure the thing should at least function on it as just about every other .308 does.
So at first I put 5 rounds thought it on each of the lower 4 gas settings. Function was EXACTLY the same on all 4 of those settings. It would fire and then when I looked at the bolt it was out of battery by about the length of the cam ie. the bolt face was touching the bbl but the carrier was back about an inch so the lugs weren't locked. I was easily able to cycle it by hand to eject the spent casings and load a fresh round.
From there I moved it to the full open position and function went back to what I was used to. I fired 15rnds thought it and it functioned fine except I got 2 jams that had to be disloged with my cleaning rod.
At this point I'm satisfied that I haven't done anything wong and it needs some love so she'll be heading back to Wolverine shortly.
Here are 2 of the casings:
Top casing is one of the ones I cycled through by hand and those marks on the body are on just about every casing that is fired through the rifle.
The bottom one is one of the jammers at full open gas setting. You can see how hard the extractor has pulled on the case!
Anyway, as a side note, that Norinco ammo is $H1T!! I felt really good about my shooting today and those things were printing ALL over the map... like 2 would be sub moa, the third would be 2-3moa and then the 4th and 5th would be way off in left field.... by like 6-8".... so far that there is NO WAY I was responsible... so far out of wack that I was IMPRESSED the bullets could stray that far in just 100yds... Anyway, I'm excited to get it back so I can run more hand loads through it. I've already had it shooting sub moa with Federal brass, Varget, CCI primers and 168gr Hornady A-Max bullets, which is awesome.