Finally finished my first AR

A

Advoc

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EE Expired
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Location
Lethbridge Alberta
My wife wanted to do something special for me last christmas and bought me the one gun related thing I put on my wish list. An inexpensive stripped lower.

It's been sitting in my safe for months, and I slowly started putting it together with a LPK minus the trigger, stock and grip.
Got the stock at the calgary gun show for 20 bucks. Grabbed the spring and buffer from a local shop from their parts bin for 30 bucks. Bought a plain boring trigger that had been polished up a bit by a local gunsmith and an MOE grip and started putting it all together.

Enter a deal on the EE for an upper I couldn't pass up, and here I am.

0fLi8kt.jpg


ATI Omni Hybrid Lower,
DPMS LPK
unknown milspec trigger (but worked on, it's kinda nice)
unknown stock

Norc upper, BCG and 10.5" Barrel, 1:9 I think...
Midwest Industries quad rail, and DD Extended A2 Flash hider.

Right now it's got a carry handle and an ugly flip up sight on it. Just because I'm taking it out in the morning to play with it. I plan to get a Vortex optic of some sort, or maybe just a See All.

I have about 60 rounds packed in the range bag, which should last me at least a few minutes with only a single 5/30 mag.

Range report tomorrow. I"m pretty excited about this. Gotta get up early, first pull of the trigger will be at dawn!
 
Sweet, I hope it shoots well. By the way, buy that lady something pretty cause she's a keeper.
 
THE_SASQUATCH said:
A printer, ginger ale & toilet paper..

What goes on in there!?


Nice build though!!
Click to expand...

You missed some key elements. Nearfield monitors for recording, and all the DIY maker arduino stuff for designing electronics. :p Poor soldering iron got left out of the picture.

well... fires okay! but this happened lots...

WT8DUGy.jpg


At first I thought it was an extraction issue, but i'm leaning more heavily toward an ejection issue. But when it does eject it does it perfectly, and when I do it manually there are no problems. So maybe it's a gas issue?

I stopped thinking it was extraction when I loaded a mag with one round. the bolt locked back but the brass was just sitting in there.

What do you think? Not as much fun as I wanted but i'm still stoked. Was firing American Eagle and Chinese surplus. this happened about 15 times out of the 60 rounds I brought with me. One nosedived so hard i almost lost the bullet inside the case.
 
Check that the gas block is aligned and tight. I'm guessing a gas issue that is causing short-stroking.
 
if it is locking back, and if it will lock back, leaving the spent shell IN the gun like you outlined, it is not short stroking.

Have you stripped the bolt (not the Bolt carrier group))and cleaned it? it sounds like an ejector issue to me. the extractor MAY be grabbing enough to pull the brass out of the chamber, but it slipping off the cases before it travels rearward enough to pitch the rounds out of the ejection port, so check the extractor.
 
Advoc said:
My wife wanted to do something special for me last christmas and bought me the one gun related thing I put on my wish list. An inexpensive stripped lower.

It's been sitting in my safe for months, and I slowly started putting it together with a LPK minus the trigger, stock and grip.
Got the stock at the calgary gun show for 20 bucks. Grabbed the spring and buffer from a local shop from their parts bin for 30 bucks. Bought a plain boring trigger that had been polished up a bit by a local gunsmith and an MOE grip and started putting it all together.

Enter a deal on the EE for an upper I couldn't pass up, and here I am.

0fLi8kt.jpg


ATI Omni Hybrid Lower,
DPMS LPK
unknown milspec trigger (but worked on, it's kinda nice)
unknown stock

Norc upper, BCG and 10.5" Barrel, 1:9 I think...
Midwest Industries quad rail, and DD Extended A2 Flash hider.

Right now it's got a carry handle and an ugly flip up sight on it. Just because I'm taking it out in the morning to play with it. I plan to get a Vortex optic of some sort, or maybe just a See All.

I have about 60 rounds packed in the range bag, which should last me at least a few minutes with only a single 5/30 mag.

Range report tomorrow. I"m pretty excited about this. Gotta get up early, first pull of the trigger will be at dawn!
Click to expand...
Congrats on an AR build as you will feel well earned satisfaction when it shoots and cycles as anticipated. I have one rifle with an OMNI G2 lower and am very happy with it.
 
Advoc said:
You missed some key elements. Nearfield monitors for recording, and all the DIY maker arduino stuff for designing electronics. :p Poor soldering iron got left out of the picture.

well... fires okay! but this happened lots...

WT8DUGy.jpg


At first I thought it was an extraction issue, but i'm leaning more heavily toward an ejection issue. But when it does eject it does it perfectly, and when I do it manually there are no problems. So maybe it's a gas issue?

I stopped thinking it was extraction when I loaded a mag with one round. the bolt locked back but the brass was just sitting in there.

What do you think? Not as much fun as I wanted but i'm still stoked. Was firing American Eagle and Chinese surplus. this happened about 15 times out of the 60 rounds I brought with me. One nosedived so hard i almost lost the bullet inside the case.
Click to expand...

Lubrication? Clean the chamber. Try NATO ammo.

A couple of suggestions.
 
airtruck63chev said:
mag issue, smooth out feed lips or try different mag had same issue.
Click to expand...

how would a mag cause the bolt to extract the round from the chamber, hold open (it was the last round after all), but instead of ejecting the round out the side of the upper, leaving the fired brass, loose on TOP of the mag
 
Trinimon said:
Maybe you bought someone else's demons in that used upper...
Click to expand...

TBH I sort of expected that. I'm also okay with it because in my experience there is no better way to learn how something works than fixing it because it's broken. I built this whole AR for less than 700 bucks, so I think I have little to complain about.... once I get it working.

I DID clean the bolt up. I took the whole thing down to the local shop to ask for some help, since I didn't want to blow my face up this morning, and he walked me through the whole takedown process and how to fit the bolt into the carrier and cleaning the firing pin and everything. So I got a crash course in simple maintenance, then went home and did it all over again last night. I'm hoping I didn't do something wrong.

The bolt itself. The little springy part is supposed to face the ejection port right? Is it possible to put that in backwards by accident? I would hate for that to be my problem, although I figure if I did do that it would never have cycled even one round properly.

And again I have the question where it might be gas related, because when I manually cycle it, with snap caps even, it ejects every time and picks up the next round...
 
mustang979 said:
how would a mag cause the bolt to extract the round from the chamber, hold open (it was the last round after all), but instead of ejecting the round out the side of the upper, leaving the fired brass, loose on TOP of the mag
Click to expand...

it wont , my fault didnt read it through... when you cycle manually how easy does it cycle?

wrong/worn spring on ejector?? wild that it does that..
 
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Advoc said:
TBH I sort of expected that. I'm also okay with it because in my experience there is no better way to learn how something works than fixing it because it's broken. I built this whole AR for less than 700 bucks, so I think I have little to complain about.... once I get it working.

I DID clean the bolt up. I took the whole thing down to the local shop to ask for some help, since I didn't want to blow my face up this morning, and he walked me through the whole takedown process and how to fit the bolt into the carrier and cleaning the firing pin and everything. So I got a crash course in simple maintenance, then went home and did it all over again last night. I'm hoping I didn't do something wrong.

The bolt itself. The little springy part is supposed to face the ejection port right? Is it possible to put that in backwards by accident? I would hate for that to be my problem, although I figure if I did do that it would never have cycled even one round properly.

And again I have the question where it might be gas related, because when I manually cycle it, with snap caps even, it ejects every time and picks up the next round...
Click to expand...

No a builder can not mistakenly install the bolt as the cam pin hole is chamfered to ensure the pin is only inserted one way.

Did you leave a slight gap between the gas block and the shoulder of the barrel. If the GB is installed touching the shoulder the gas port will be partially covered.
 
Advoc said:
TBH I sort of expected that. I'm also okay with it because in my experience there is no better way to learn how something works than fixing it because it's broken. I built this whole AR for less than 700 bucks, so I think I have little to complain about.... once I get it working.

I DID clean the bolt up. I took the whole thing down to the local shop to ask for some help, since I didn't want to blow my face up this morning, and he walked me through the whole takedown process and how to fit the bolt into the carrier and cleaning the firing pin and everything. So I got a crash course in simple maintenance, then went home and did it all over again last night. I'm hoping I didn't do something wrong.

The bolt itself. The little springy part is supposed to face the ejection port right? Is it possible to put that in backwards by accident? I would hate for that to be my problem, although I figure if I did do that it would never have cycled even one round properly.

And again I have the question where it might be gas related, because when I manually cycle it, with snap caps even, it ejects every time and picks up the next round...
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's one of the downsides of buying off the EE. You buy it in good faith while someone might use it to get rid of a problem than fix it.

The hole in the bolt is peened on one end so you can only slip that cam pin from only one side. You can test this yourself by disassembling the BCG and try inserting the cam pin from either side on the bolt. That said, the ejector (spring loaded pin) is on the side away from the ejection port. The extractor side is closest to the ejection port.

A simple test for the ejector you can try is this. Remove the BCG from the receiver. Grab a spent case and slip the rim under the extractor hook on the bolt. With one side of the case under the extractor, lower the other end over the ejector pin. When the ejector is fully depressed by the case, is the case oriented pretty much in line with the bolt ie, are you able to compress the ejector fully? Does it require some effort to depress the ejector? If both are true, your ejector sounds like it is working fine. If the case popped free of the extractor, your extractor is most likely broken or worn.

As someone pointed out, did you try running the rifle with a different mag? A combination of factors can contribute to an unreliable firearm.
 
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Sqr said:
No a builder can not mistakenly install the bolt as the cam pin hole is chamfered to ensure the pin is only inserted one way.

Did you leave a slight gap between the gas block and the shoulder of the barrel. If the GB is installed touching the shoulder the gas port will be partially covered.
Click to expand...

I bought the upper completely assembled. I understand that Norc gas blocks are notoriously difficult to remove, so some people just cut the sight and bayonet lug off for a free float handguard ( like this one ), I don't know if he did that or not, maybe I should take a picture.
.......

OK.

QWqiHSL.jpg


That doesn't look cut down to me at all, looks new. Is it just me or does it cant to the left, could that be a problem... I'd assume the gas port in the barrel is exactly on top right?

Trinimon said:
Yeah, that's one of the downsides of buying off the EE. You buy it in good faith while someone might use it to get rid of a problem than fix it.

A simple test for the ejector you can try is this. Remove the BCG from the receiver. Grab a spent case and slip the rim under the extractor hook on the bolt. With one side of the case under the extractor, lower the other end over the ejector pin. When the ejector is fully depressed by the case, is the case oriented pretty much in line with the bolt ie, are you able to compress the ejector fully? Does it require some effort to depress the ejector? If both are true, your ejector sounds like it is working fine. If the case popped free of the extractor, your extractor is most likely broken or worn.

As someone pointed out, did you try running the rifle with a different mag? A combination of factors can contribute to an unreliable firearm.
Click to expand...

Only one mag, I just barely bought it, it's a brand new plane jane Pmag.

As for the test... What do you think?


 
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