Norc M14 FTE

bigcoupee

CGN Regular
Rating - 100%
9   0   0
Location
boonies
Its a bone stock 2011 M14 22inch, put 60 rounds of Norc surplus ammo flawlessly down the pipe. Fed 1 round in from the top into an empty mag, racked it, picked off a small gong at 200 yards. Bolt remained closed and had to rack it to eject the casing. Haven't tried it since. Did my gas system come out of alignment? or is that because I fed it from the top? Or something else?
 
If the bolt operates normally (normal pressure to cycle the operating rod) and locks in battery as normal, it has to be gas problems. Is the gas system still turned on? Try a "tilt test" and see if the piston moves freely?

Slide a very small drill bit through the gas cylinder into the barrel and see if it is still lined up?
 
Did a friend turn off your gas valve?

I suspect this as well..... lol

It's a pretty rare occurrence that a rifle will function flawlessly and then come to a screeching halt..... With-out something major going sideways....

Full tear down, Clean, inspect, lube and reassemble..... See if the problem persists. It could be a really fouled gas system. Especially if there was lube (oil, grease or that sticky Chinese cosmo) on the piston or in the gas system.....

Cheers!
 
Last edited:
This happened to me twice. First time was when I dropped one in from the top but the new stock wasn't fitted to the action properly yet.
Second time it was a lose gas piston cap. I put some Teflon tape around the threads and it's stayed tight ever since and comes off for cleaning easily.
On my shorty the gas valve, to go from semi to single shot, doesn't work. It's pinned to tight...TT figured it was a "Friday afternoon build" but showed me on his how it's supposed to be pushed in and quarter turned to go from semi to single shot and back.
 
Problem or contempt? Now it doesn't get over tightened or lose and is smooth as silk to put on or take off.

Hey,

That comment wasn't meant to be derogatory....

As a short term solution, to see what is going on, I guess it could work. But long term, if your gas plug is loose, it will give you problems.

Teflon tape is not designed to take the heat in a gas system. It will tighten up the threads and make a good seal. But over a fairly short period of time the Teflon will degrade and could make the gas plug really hard to remove.

I use that silver thread gunk that mechanics use on spark plugs to keep steel plugs from seizing in aluminium heads. When I head to the parts counter for it I ask for silver Anti-seize.

It works great, it keeps the threads from seizing, makes the gas plug easy to remove for cleaning, and does a reasonable job sealing the gas plug in case of small leaks. It does not act like loc-tite, which is good.

If your gas plug is "shooting loose" then you need to torque it more when installing. Anti-sieze helps a lot for this too. Not so much on the install, but after 2-3 months and 1000 rounds you'll be happy you put it on as the gas plug will spin right out for your quarterly cleaning.

Again, sorry if that original comment came across as "####-ish". It wasn't my intention, sometimes what I write doesn't come across the same it did in my head.
 
Hey,

That comment wasn't meant to be derogatory....

As a short term solution, to see what is going on, I guess it could work. But long term, if your gas plug is loose, it will give you problems.

Teflon tape is not designed to take the heat in a gas system. It will tighten up the threads and make a good seal. But over a fairly short period of time the Teflon will degrade and could make the gas plug really hard to remove.

I use that silver thread gunk that mechanics use on spark plugs to keep steel plugs from seizing in aluminium heads. When I head to the parts counter for it I ask for silver Anti-seize.

It works great, it keeps the threads from seizing, makes the gas plug easy to remove for cleaning, and does a reasonable job sealing the gas plug in case of small leaks. It does not act like loc-tite, which is good.

If your gas plug is "shooting loose" then you need to torque it more when installing. Anti-sieze helps a lot for this too. Not so much on the install, but after 2-3 months and 1000 rounds you'll be happy you put it on as the gas plug will spin right out for your quarterly cleaning.

Again, sorry if that original comment came across as "####-ish". It wasn't my intention, sometimes what I write doesn't come across the same it did in my head.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I wasn't sure how you meant it as I didn't hear it. But I hoped it was a positive thing. I have the same problem and tend to type what I'm thinking without seeing how others might take it, bane of the times I guess.

As for the teflon; I only had the problem once and right after I changed stocks. Not sure if it was under tightened and/or it worked itself lose but since teflon pans work well under heat I figured it would work for my rifle issue. I'm a big guy and tend to over tighten things easily and thought this would help with over tightening as much as under.

Lock-Tite, or other brands, didn't seem like a good idea so I avoided that.

I have an old can of anti-seize in the garage from my youth that's lasted me 40 years or so. (It was probably 20 years old when I took it from home.) Don't recall the brand name but it looks like oil and silver/lead mixed together. I'll give that a go next time I break it down. I used the tape rather than grease as I didn't want it getting into the cylinder. The liquid lead, as I call it, shouldn't be as runny, even heated, as the grease would be.

I have hundreds of rounds through the M305 but not quite at 1000 yet. To many rifles, not enough time to enjoy them all. Tend to get caught up with the next project to often.


Thanks again,
Zen
 
Back
Top Bottom