M305 and Tula ammo kaboom

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Nachoninja

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Hey everybody, was out shooting my M305 the other day, put hundreds of rounds through it in the past with no problems. Had some cheap tulammo 308 steel cased stuff. Shot my first mag and felt that the recoil was a bit higher than I remembered. Noticed one of the primers was backed out a bit. Probably should have heeded the warning in my head but I decided it was a one off and loaded a 2nd mag. Fired a couple no problem then saw a flash of fire in front of my face and an unusually strong concussion. My buddy sitting next to me felt the concussion as well and looked at me to say "what was that?" Any way here is the result






So as you can see the case minus the case head is still stuck in the chamber and it looks to me like the ring around the base of the chamber (not sure what the name of that would be) has several pices of metal chipped away. Looking at the bolt face I don't see any obvious damage but maybe someone else does? Is that plunger that extracts the round supposed to be angled like that on the face or is it chipped as well? I don't see any other damage to the rifle aside from the chamber so does anyone know if this rifle could be salvaged with a new barrel, and who and where I would be able to get one and get it installed? Thanks for your time everyone.

Oh yeah, no injuries at all aside from my pride for not heeding the warning signs
 
unsupported out of battery fire?ie the firing pin struck b=BEFORE the case was in the chamber- personally, I won't use BERDAN primed ANYTHING
 
Probably do not need to rebarrel. Put some oil down the barrel with the gun standing upright and let it sit for a day. If you do not have a case extractor you can take a threading tap just slightly bigger than the inside of the case and gently thread it into the back of the case. Once it is snug and has threaded into the case take a cleaning rod, put it down the barrel from the muzzle end and give it few taps. Case should come right out.Clean her up and Inspect for damage but should be fine. I believe the plunger is angled but do not have an M305 handy to confirm. Had this Happen as well once, remanufactured .308 in LC case. Good deals on ammo are not always so, unfortunately.
 
I'm 99% sure there are big chunks of steel missing in that ring of steel around the base of the chamber just by looking at it so I won't be firing it again until I know that's not the case.
 
The only part of the chamber that I can see that looks a little odd is where the shadow falls across it. Can you take another pic of the chamber with light from a different angle?

The firing pin hole on your bolt-face, however, looks badly eroded.
 
Frapps said:
Wow.... note to self do not buy tulammo for my M305. Thanks for the Post
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its most likely bad head spacing.

what is the head spacing on the gun?

i'm going to bet + 4 to 8 thou over 7.62 field gauge. any takers?


this is pretty much a slightly more dramatic occurrence of what happened in my first one, but I was lucky enough that the rim did not fully detach.

The head space started fine, then within 200 rounds had banged out to over field gauge leangth. bad metallurgy.
 



Much easier to see in person but maybe these show what I mean. There's some areas around the base of the chamber where the bolt would contact that to me look like they are chipped just based on the strange angles that don't look to be machined. Perhaps I'm wrong though, I never thought to look at it in detail before
 
LordEvilPepper said:
try it again.... I bet it will close on a field gauge now.... its a norinco thing...
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Interesting. Just the other day, I recommended to a buddy to stay clear of those cheap Chicom M14 clones, based on the widespread rumors of piss poor metallurgy on these. Some people reported their receivers stretching, others head space problems (as seen here, apparently). Chinese quality control at its' finest! :rolleyes:

I guess rumors are not really rumors anymore when it happens in real life after 200 rounds. These POS rifles appear to be hazardous to the shooter without major updates/overhaul right out of the box and shouldn't even be imported...

What a scam. :(
 
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Nachoninja said:
Much easier to see in person but maybe these show what I mean. There's some areas around the base of the chamber where the bolt would contact that to me look like they are chipped just based on the strange angles that don't look to be machined. Perhaps I'm wrong though, I never thought to look at it in detail before
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Google "M305 chamber pictures" to see what it looks like.
 
on the other hand I have 4, an d they're all well within headspace and reliable- including one with the so-called soft bolt syndrome- al000389- came over in the FIRST bunch from alan lever- so yo can't simply say all norincos are junk and leave it at that- theres thousands that have been ought and sold in this country that are problem free-
now is someone like tactical teacher or 45acp king were to tell me they're all junk I MIGHT listen to them- provided my own experience bore them out-as to the guys posting here , well that's another story
 
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t-star said:
on the other hand I have 4, an d they're all well within headspace and reliable- including one with the so-called soft bolt syndrome- al000389- came over in the FIRST bunch from alan lever- so yo can't simply say all norincos are junk and leave it at that- theres thousands that have been ought and sold in this country that are problem free-
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Glad to hear it worked out for you... but most people have better ways to invest $500 than playing the M305 lottery! :(
 
Guess those weird angular areas that I thought were chipped metal are normal after googling pics of m14 chambers (which I should have done in the first place). So I'm happy that my barrel isn't ruined. Still working on removing the stuck case. I'm not sure whether to blame the ammo or the gun or both. I've never had any problems with other types of ammo, even surplus steel stuff. I definitely won't be shooting the rest of that tula ammo out of anything though
 
t-star said:
on the other hand I have 4, an d they're all well within headspace and reliable- including one with the so-called soft bolt syndrome- al000389- came over in the FIRST bunch from alan lever- so yo can't simply say all norincos are junk and leave it at that- theres thousands that have been ought and sold in this country that are problem free-
now is someone like tactical teacher or 45acp king were to tell me they're all junk I MIGHT listen to them- provided my own experience bore them out-as to the guys posting here , well that's another story
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they are not all junk... they are mostly junk.

-If the stars aline and tengo is pleased get yourself a unicorn, it shoots awesome hitting that MOA region, no issues
-you might get a decent one that shots acceptable groups and has no issues
-you will probably get one that shoots crap, and has a few ####ed up parts. But is sub $200 to get running well
-you may get a problem child, were a major component if not all of them are ####ed, such as bad head spacing due to a bad bolt, barrel, or reciever. Maybe a bent op rod, out of spec gas system, or even a complete triger group failure. Its going to cost more then the rifle to fix, and maybe even cost as much as a Springfield to get going.
-There is a small chance you will get an epic kaboom rifle that will net you a 20 000 view thread on CGN, such as the one were it shot the barrel off, or the one that put part of the bolt back into the side of buddies head, or like this one, destructed the rifle
 
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