Shortly after the agB42 rifles were released in quantity I had a rifle suffer from a similar catastrophic failure. In the case of my rifle, it was completely destroyed. The mag blew down against my leg and left a bruise from my nuts to my knee.
It was after contacting the distributor that I found out from a very knowledgeable fellow they had working for them that the rifle had been plagued with such issues from its inception. There was a very good reason they were issued with spare extractors and followers/springs as well as spare firing pins and springs.
The firing pins had a habit of not fully retracting and causing the cartridge to detonate out of battery before it was fully chambered. This happened to quite a few of these rifles and it happened with the milsurp ammo they were selling along with them.
Extremely accurate rifles if the bores are excellent but to long and to heavy for my tastes.
The design was OK but ahead of its time. I notice the Hakim rifles and the Rasheeds have the firing pin issue fixed. They started to build these rifles and issued them because of the wartime necessities. They didn't have the bugs worked out of them. The kit they came with included a firing pin extrusion gage as well.
The kinetic energy of the bolt carrier along with that of the bolt seems to be enough to allow the firing pin to overcome the return spring as the bolt strips a cartridge from the magazine and if it happens to be tight in the hole or a bit long or the return spring is weak, the rifle can fire out of battery if any of these conditions occur.
To say I was irked by the blow up of my rifle to the point of completely disabled and unrepairable would be an understatement. I sent it back, along with all the bits and the ammo as well as the offending round.
International sent me a replacement rifle that was as new. The C suffix had been stamped out and a B suffix added in its place. This is pretty much normal. I have never encountered a C model but when the rifles were offered for sale there was a notation that full auto models were not available.
Along with the rifle, came another complete kit of spares and a bag from one of their techs with a longer firing pin spring. He left a note in it not to use the springs on the extra firing pins in the kit and that the pin in the rifle had already been replaced by him with the stronger spring and the extrusion was perfect.
I never had an issue with rifle #2. It fired the two cases of surplus ammo that were sent along with it without any hiccups at all. They are very easily cleaned and taken care of. The later rifles had stainless steel gas tubes installed and supposedly, the early rifles had their gas ports replaced with stainless tubes. The thing is, not all of them had these tubes replaced. I saw several hundred of them at one time and not all of them had stainless gas tubes. That isn't a big deal with late ammo but the corrosive stuff they gave me would have been a real problem with them.
The gas system is very similar to that used on the M16 and the breaching is similar to the FN FAL and FN 49.
I suspect more of them were made by other nations under contract than were ever made by the Swedes.
It was after contacting the distributor that I found out from a very knowledgeable fellow they had working for them that the rifle had been plagued with such issues from its inception. There was a very good reason they were issued with spare extractors and followers/springs as well as spare firing pins and springs.
The firing pins had a habit of not fully retracting and causing the cartridge to detonate out of battery before it was fully chambered. This happened to quite a few of these rifles and it happened with the milsurp ammo they were selling along with them.
Extremely accurate rifles if the bores are excellent but to long and to heavy for my tastes.
The design was OK but ahead of its time. I notice the Hakim rifles and the Rasheeds have the firing pin issue fixed. They started to build these rifles and issued them because of the wartime necessities. They didn't have the bugs worked out of them. The kit they came with included a firing pin extrusion gage as well.
The kinetic energy of the bolt carrier along with that of the bolt seems to be enough to allow the firing pin to overcome the return spring as the bolt strips a cartridge from the magazine and if it happens to be tight in the hole or a bit long or the return spring is weak, the rifle can fire out of battery if any of these conditions occur.
To say I was irked by the blow up of my rifle to the point of completely disabled and unrepairable would be an understatement. I sent it back, along with all the bits and the ammo as well as the offending round.
International sent me a replacement rifle that was as new. The C suffix had been stamped out and a B suffix added in its place. This is pretty much normal. I have never encountered a C model but when the rifles were offered for sale there was a notation that full auto models were not available.
Along with the rifle, came another complete kit of spares and a bag from one of their techs with a longer firing pin spring. He left a note in it not to use the springs on the extra firing pins in the kit and that the pin in the rifle had already been replaced by him with the stronger spring and the extrusion was perfect.
I never had an issue with rifle #2. It fired the two cases of surplus ammo that were sent along with it without any hiccups at all. They are very easily cleaned and taken care of. The later rifles had stainless steel gas tubes installed and supposedly, the early rifles had their gas ports replaced with stainless tubes. The thing is, not all of them had these tubes replaced. I saw several hundred of them at one time and not all of them had stainless gas tubes. That isn't a big deal with late ammo but the corrosive stuff they gave me would have been a real problem with them.
The gas system is very similar to that used on the M16 and the breaching is similar to the FN FAL and FN 49.
I suspect more of them were made by other nations under contract than were ever made by the Swedes.
