Bought my first AR - NEA in 7.62x39

TheWhole9Yards said:
I'll touch on couple points here:

- The event wasn't as dramatic as those videos posted above, just a lot of smoke and I took the charging handle to the face. No noticeable difference in recoil.

- As mentioned by someone all ready, money was well spent on my Smith Mil-spec shooting glasses, nobody should be shooting anything without eye protection. Don't cheap out!

- The casing is not deformed in any way, colour is different due to residue.

- I'm in the "cam pin failure" camp for this event. I'm not saying this because I think I'm suddenly an AR guru, however looking at all the damage and evidence it appears the bolt was unable to rotate out and weak components failed to hold it together. If I'm correct, I am in awe of how much pressure the gas system actually transfers (or how incredibly weak the barrel lugs were). Although the cam pin was broken, the way in which it failed allowed it to hold the bolt in place, leading me to believe it failed enough to not allow rotation, but strong enough to yank the barrel lugs out. When I finally got the BCG out of the upper the bolt was locked in the rearward position.

- Looking up "over pressured ammunition in AR" with google shows severe damage to the upper and lower receivers. My damage is cosmetic in comparison. Based on the failures I see in other ARs from over pressured rounds I'm not sure my rifle would look this good if it had experienced that. That being said I'm sure there are different levels of over pressure.

I really appreciate everyone's feedback. As mentioned in my original post I'm new to ARs - I've certainly learned even more about them in the last few days trying to understand this event.

Keep the comments coming.
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Over pressure can be and in most instances the root cause for blowing the teeth off of the barrel extension followed by poor quality steel. I routinely close off the entire gas system with my adjustable gas block when shooting without any ill effects. Even if the carrier is moving rearward and the cam pin fractured halting the bolt rotate I can not see how a partially engaged or disengaged bolt should tear the barrel extension apart, unless a number of teeth are not engaged and the remaining lugs take the brunt of the force. I have observed some feed ramp lugs being severely altered on 7.62 to facilitate feeding to the determent of strength.

It would be nice if the company did a failure analysis of the metal and supplied a report before they just replaced in kind. That is just wishful thinking.
 
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Stop stop stop, just stop. I just want to say...if the rifle was made by Norinco...with catastrophic failure like this... and many others, nobody will touch it anymore...nobody.
why people are still buying this POS brand? just because it's Canadian? or Cheap? or both?... what baffles me is that people are buying it knowing NEA make pos ARs?
so you just want to chance your luck? roll the dice that yours is okay? oh yeah It may be okay now, what about down the road? I have a KAC had 20k rds thru it and still going, sure it's 3 times of the price of a NEA, but freaking 10 times the gun.

and this is AR15 we are talking about you don't even have to pay big for quality...from Chincom Norinco to American Windham(bushmaster), to some no name JSE Surplus 7.62x39 upper, own/owned them all, they all run like sawing machines...
http://www.jsesurplus.com/762x39-4.aspx

why are people still buying this garbage? or better still, send it back and get another garbage back?
Yes I'm a NEA hater(bad experience), and the hate is well deserved.
 
Familygunnutz said:
Stop stop stop, just stop. I just want to say...if the rifle was made by Norinco...with catastrophic failure like this... and many others, nobody will touch it anymore...nobody.
why people are still buying this POS brand? just because it's Canadian? or Cheap? or both?... what baffles me is that people are buying it knowing NEA make pos ARs?
so you just want to chance your luck? roll the dice that yours is okay? oh yeah It may be okay now, what about down the road? I have a KAC had 20k rds thru it and still going, sure it's 3 times of the price of a NEA, but freaking 10 times the gun.

and this is AR15 we are talking about you don't even have to pay big for quality...from Chincom Norinco to American Windham(bushmaster), to some no name JSE Surplus 7.62x39 upper, own/owned them all, they all run like sawing machines...
http://www.jsesurplus.com/762x39-4.aspx

why are people still buying this garbage? or better still, send it back and get another garbage back?
Yes I'm a NEA hater(bad experience), and the hate is well deserved.
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This, ive said it over and over again NEVER EVER AGAIN
 
Nea had a large batch of over nitrates barrels. But this almost year ago.
I know I got to see about 20of them where they were blown apart in 2or 3pc. But I'm sure those were recalled. Same with the bolts that kept mushrooming.
So I'm sure with basic quality control and inventory management, the defective parts were felt with.
I have an early nea x39 while I have only shot 200rds on it. I have had no issues
Guy I shoot with almost every week has 1000+ in his 7.5 and no issues.
Maybe this is a new problem.
 
TheWhole9Yards said:
The only guy with that ability is currently at shot show, right now my focus is getting a functioning rifle back. At minimum the rifle will need a barrel and BCG - I trust it will be a new upper.

In all honesty, I'm not sure if I'll shoot it again. I made the point to NEA that I was pretty spooked and that I dont want this to ruin the AR platform for me. I can't really return or sell it in good faith either unless I know it works.
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You can absolutely return it. It was/is defective and dangerous.
 
Is it really going to take several incidents where a shooter looses his eye and/or face to really have people stop buying these?
 
I'll just leave this here..

windham-weaponry-7.62x39-src.jpg
 
badboybeeson said:
Nea had a large batch of over nitrates barrels. But this almost year ago.
I know I got to see about 20of them where they were blown apart in 2or 3pc. But I'm sure those were recalled. Same with the bolts that kept mushrooming.
So I'm sure with basic quality control and inventory management, the defective parts were felt with.
I have an early nea x39 while I have only shot 200rds on it. I have had no issues
Guy I shoot with almost every week has 1000+ in his 7.5 and no issues.
Maybe this is a new problem.
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From what I've read nobody is having problems with the Gen2 rifle. In the short convo that I had with the gentleman from NEA mine is 2014 production, sold and advertised as Gen2. I'll have to talk to management at Epps, guy answering the phone at epps says they don't take rifles back - gotta deal with NEA if I have a problem.
 
when you get an nea you dont know what you get, you might get a rifle that blows up in your face, then again you might not, thats life with nea.

point is, you done what you can

have a nice day!
 
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Seeing the barrel extension practically stripped out of the barrel is telling me that is where the problem originated. To me it looks like the actual bolt was properly rotated/locked in the extension but because of material flaw it failed and broke off. That dissipated much of the pressure. If the cartridge was fired with the bolt unlocked, you would experience a full pressure blast directly into the unlocked BCG resulting in much worse structural failure and personal injury. The cam was probably just a secondary week link that failed. Another thing is that primer missing in the spent cartridge, which would normally suggest excessive pressure build up, which in turn might be a factor in that whore failure, I'm thinking a single hot load or deformed projectile or something that created that extra pressure generation but it's difficult to elaborate what came first when all you've got is a pile of blown parts on a bench. Either way, you got lucky you escaped unharmed, it could have been way worse.
 
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IMR4320 said:
Seeing the barrel extension practically stripped out of the barrel is telling me that is where the problem originated. To me it looks like the actual bolt was properly rotated/locked in the extension but because of material flaw it failed and broke off. That dissipated much of the pressure. If the cartridge was fired with the bolt unlocked, you would experience a full pressure blast directly into the unlocked BCG resulting in much worse structural failure and personal injury. The cam was probably just a secondary week link that failed. Another thing is that primer missing in the spent cartridge, which would normally suggest excessive pressure build up, which in turn might be a factor in that whore failure, I'm thinking a single hot load or deformed projectile or something that created that extra pressure generation but it's difficult to elaborate what came first when all you've got is a pile of blown parts on a bench. Either way, you got lucky you escaped unharmed, it could have been way worse.
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Could improper headspace contribute to this?
 
TheWhole9Yards said:
Could improper headspace contribute to this?
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Yes it possibly can.

Too much headspace, and the locking lugs see an impact load (ripping the barrel extension apart), rather than the normal load with the case head contacting, or just a couple of thousandths of an inch away from the breech face. The taper of the 7.62 cartridge magnifies the affect of the force exerted onto the bolt lugs.

The best example of this I can think of would be to shoot a 12 gauge with the stock firmly against your shoulder, then shoot it again holding the stock one inch away from your shoulder.


[video]AGI Gunsmithing Video Mini lessons [/video]
 
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TheWhole9Yards said:
Could improper headspace contribute to this?
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Could you take some photos of the front and back of the broken part of the barrel extension, and of the bolt face? Some photos of the case would be helpful too.

BTW, I had my "NEA can't be as bad as they say" phase as well.

I bought a 7.62x39 gen 1 upper, shot it with iron sights and it printed 2 feet to the right at 50 yards. I maxed out the windage adjustment, and double checked that the sights were straight on the top rail. Tried it again, still about a foot off target.

I put an EOTech on it, cranked the windage until it was close to on target, and it printed about a 6 inch group at 50. Gave up, took it home, looked at the barrel and it was visibly bent to one side. Did the whole "roll it on a flat surface" trick like when you're checking out if a pool cue is straight too. I wish I took a video.

Anyways, NEA replaced the barrel with a brand new one, so I took the new one and sold it as fast as I could. If they replace your rifle, that would be my suggestion to you too.
 
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Sqr said:
Too much headspace, and the locking lugs see an impact load (ripping the barrel extension apart), rather than the normal load with the case head contacting, or just a couple of thousandths of an inch away from the breech face. The taper of the 7.62 cartridge magnifies the affect of the force exerted onto the bolt lugs. [/video]
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So I guess that this means that brass that is too short won't stretch and have case-head separations as experienced in the Enfield rifles. By this reasoning the brass would slide backward and crash into the bolt face with so much force that the lugs would fail. How does this explain the robust reliability of Enfield rifles which are notorious for generous headspacing?

Most of us I think understand that upon firing, the brass clings to the chamber-wall and is supported by the chamber-wall. Under pressure, the case-base expands backward stretching until it contacts the bolt face. If the headspacing is too long or the round is too short, this can result in a case separation - not fun but not a disaster (at least in the current firing cycle). Once chamber pressure drops, the case pulls away from the chamber-wall and the round is extracted.

There was a great thread recently that discussed the dangers of not removing lube from sized cases. Lube does not allow the case to cling to the chamber wall and significantly increases bolt thrust - to point of potential failure. It is not normal for a round to slide backward on firing.

Please cite where you get your understanding?
 
TheWhole9Yards said:
From what I've read nobody is having problems with the Gen2 rifle. In the short convo that I had with the gentleman from NEA mine is 2014 production, sold and advertised as Gen2. I'll have to talk to management at Epps, guy answering the phone at epps says they don't take rifles back - gotta deal with NEA if I have a problem.
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NEA has been using the "the previous gen was bad but this gen is amazing" argument for a really long time, take from that what you will. If Epps won't take the gun back when it self destructed after 4 rounds you need to shop elsewhere.
 
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