Blew up my AR today. KABOOM!

AROD89 said:
haha I was thinking the same thing… I face palmed to half the comments in this thread from apparent Norc haters.

yes, we are aware that norc is a budget AR, however they are not all crap lol … ( spoken from a Norc & DD owner )

Id be curious to see what the ratio of Norc to Domestic ammo in canada would be… 10:1, 20:1 ?
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Please look at the OP's photos of the BCG once again. That is indeed crap, beaver's chew wood finer that that metal work. Does it work? Sure. Would I want to use a firearm that shows that kind of quality? Not me. What else sucks? I am a metalworker and that machining is deplorable. If the BCG which I can see stinks, what is the rest of the firearm like? Tolerances? I shudder to think...

I realise that the OP's problem here is an ammo problem but I also see that Norinco has some gun problems as well.
 
fdc said:
Please look at the OP's photos of the BCG once again. That is indeed crap, beaver's chew wood finer that that metal work. Does it work? Sure. Would I want to use a firearm that shows that kind of quality? Not me. What else sucks? I am a metalworker and that machining is deplorable. If the BCG which I can see stinks, what is the rest of the firearm like? Tolerances? I shudder to think...

I realise that the OP's problem here is an ammo problem but I also see that Norinco has some gun problems as well.
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Meh, I love my norc AR.. goes bang, paper gets holes in it.
The norc ammo though, I just seem to have quite a few duds already and I'm only at around 400 rounds. So my train of thought was that this is likely due to less QC where they make this ammo then say, i dunno, federal.
After saying that, a few people got upset and offered to buy all the norc ammo because I was being paranoid.

Which I'm not -- I was mostly just venting -- cuz, its not like you can contact norc and say hey, you sold me a couple boxes worth of duds.
 
The thing about Norc AR's is that they prove the premise of Stoner's design. Simple, light, and easy to produce in huge quantities - the vast majority work perfectly out of the box and handle abuse with no issues, despite being made in a high school shop class. It's very rare to hear of parts breaking, and even when people set out to make them crap out, they have trouble succeeding. So this member has a round that destroys the upper, as I noted you can Google "Winchester Sucks" and see all manner of defective ammunition, every single round of which cost more than the Norc 223 ammo.

PS - Winchester just recalled some 22 LR because it's double charged (I wonder who was the first to find that out?)
 
Like another poster said, that case looked like a belted magnum! I'm going to grasp at straws here and suggest that is it possibly a head spacing issue? I'm fairly new to the AR scene so I don't know if head spacing can get that bad on an AR to cause a case head to swell like that.
 
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Brian46 said:
for replacing the gun or the ammo?

what do they say caused the issue or is that what they are "working on"?
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The warranty guy is away for a bit apparently. I will be calling Tuesday to check in if I do not hear from them.

The retailer & distributor have not said what they think is the cause or if they want the upper back. I did reference them to the pics on this thread.
What I am hoping for is a replacement upper and to have the lower checked over by their gunsmith. I am not against replacing the whole rifle, but the other way saves me having to deal with the paperwork of getting rid of one restricted to be replaced with another. As for the ammo, I am probably TSOL. I have well over 1/2 a can left.
OOOO! Maybe a 10.5" AND a 14.5" upper combo to make up for the write off ammo!!!!!
Seriously though I think I will be lucky if I get anything from this. We will see who steps up to take on the warranty for Norinco.
 
I'm still not convinced this is an ammo issue. I don't see how the case head could bulge around the whole case like that with the bolt being locked up, unless the chamber/headspacing is out of spec. Like others have said it kind of looks like a belted magnum. I would expect the brass to look like that if the bolt had unlocked and started to extract the case, but that didn't happen here.
 
09outlander said:
I'm still not convinced this is an ammo issue. I don't see how the case head could bulge around the whole case like that with the bolt being locked up, unless the chamber/headspacing is out of spec. Like others have said it kind of looks like a belted magnum. I would expect the brass to look like that if the bolt had unlocked and started to extract the case, but that didn't happen here.
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There is always a little bit of case that is unsupported between the bolt and chamber....its the solid brass part where the flash hole is. High enough pressure and brass will flow into any gaps. Look at the ejector mark on the brass....takes very high pressure to do that normally, like 65,000+ psi.
Andy did a test in the milsurp section where he tried to blow up a Carcano with pistol powder.... Check it out for some pics of brass flow.
 
Hitzy said:
There is always a little bit of case that is unsupported between the bolt and chamber....its the solid brass part where the flash hole is. High enough pressure and brass will flow into any gaps. Look at the ejector mark on the brass....takes very high pressure to do that normally, like 65,000+ psi.
Andy did a test in the milsurp section where he tried to blow up a Carcano with pistol powder.... Check it out for some pics of brass flow.
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Exactly right.

There is no doubt it was the ammo. I examine these professionally all the time. It is perfectly typical of soft brass. I have even duplicated this in a lab setting.

The AR has a rather large unsupported area at the rear of the chamber. Stoner did it on purpose. It acts as a safety valve in case of obstruction or case failure.

You can see the supported portion of the chamber marked on every fired round.

This is why good ammo is important in ARs and headspace is important. But this was not a headspace issue.
 
so in a case like this where the ammo caused the catastrophic failure, I assume the rifle manufacturer, distributor or retailer would be free of any liability or customer service obligation, and the owner of the rifle would have to eat the cost?
 
Another reason not to purchase Norinco ammunition. Seriously, the last time I seen this ammo at our range, someone had thrown it into the garbage can.

Now, considering it is a burn barrel, it does not belong there. But this s@@@ ammo is just about this level of regard.
 
You know what? I don't quite get it. I'm not one to encourage government interferance, but they allow this horrendously low brow, asian cr@p, zero quality ammunition into the country, meanwhile we have to wait years for Brenneke shotgun slugs to pass NRCAN red tape!

wtf ???

Edit: In any other industrial standard, someone would lose thier job for letting this pipe bomb level of s### into our country.
 
Odd Shot said:
so in a case like this where the ammo caused the catastrophic failure, I assume the rifle manufacturer, distributor or retailer would be free of any liability or customer service obligation, and the owner of the rifle would have to eat the cost?
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It would be the ammo mfg who would cover the costs. US mfgs do this, in this case I don't know what's gonna happen.

As for Norinco ammo being total crap, I get 3" groups at 100m with my yellow box crates and it's been 100% reliable and pretty damn consistent.
 
I'd like to thank the OP for being both fair and very detailed, not to mention all those who have contributed despite speculation before the photo's. It has been a learning experience, about the ammo and the rifle... Thanks to all.
 
Geer_Hoor said:
I'd like to thank the OP for being both fair and very detailed, not to mention all those who have contributed despite speculation before the photo's. It has been a learning experience, about the ammo and the rifle... Thanks to all.
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This^ Thanks everyone.

I'm steering clear of this cheap ammo, I'll pay a little more and stick with proven brands.
 
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