Pulling the charging handle wont chamber a round

Hawes said:
Back to the original question..... one of my mags (30rnds pinned to 5) does the same thing. If I even try to use the cocking handle to chamber a round, the bullet usually ends up mashed completely inside the casing. Out of 4 mags, I have 1 that works perfect. Pain in the ass!!
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It is a mag issue.

In the US where pinning is not necessary, people frequently slightly underload their 30 round magazines to permit reliable feeding from the closed bolt.

When you start with only 5, dropping down to 4 seems unacceptable. Better to load from the open bolt.

You could play with re-pinning the mag, but bear in mind that it is easy to accidentally create an illegal 6 round mag, sometimes without even realizing it.
 
Gothmog said:
It is a mag issue.

In the US where pinning is not necessary, people frequently slightly underload their 30 round magazines to permit reliable feeding from the closed bolt.

When you start with only 5, dropping down to 4 seems unacceptable. Better to load from the open bolt.

You could play with re-pinning the mag, but bear in mind that it is easy to accidentally create an illegal 6 round mag, sometimes without even realizing it.
Click to expand...

No its not. Re pin, load magazine. If magazine holds six you need to re pin it. Its not rocket science.

TDC
 
Either way should work correctly.


Arguing otherwise is a semantics debate about standard operating procedures and tactics; not mechanics.

That you have to lock the bolt back to perform a proper load cycle suggests to me that you have a lot of tension or unequal tension on your magazine due to follower tilt. I don't know which.


*Edit: I think what many are saying is that it is not uncommon to have a f**ked mag due to minor differences in pinning to comply with legal requirements. The magazines were designed within specific tolerances. Pinned magazines do not always receive the benefit of such mechanical precision.

Now that I think about it, if this is normally a 10 round mag, does the pinned portion enter the magazine well? Is it possible that is canting the mag forward enough to prevent loading of a first, tight round?


I would suggest working from a known good. In other words, if the gun runs properly with all other magazines (borrow from a friend to test), then there is simply something wrong with that mag.

Run the gun to observe what is failing.



Try this:
Cant the rifle 45 degree to the left so that you can observe the motion of the bolt carrier as you pull the charging handle rearwards.

Does the bolt travel rearward to sufficiently clear the base of the cartridge seated in the magazine?

If it does not, remove the magazine. Strip a single round and repeat the process.

If it does so correctly, allow the bolt to move forward under control.


*This is abnormal process to not freely release the charging handle, but you are simply validating that the locking lugs on the forward face of the bolt properly 'engage' the base of the cartridge.

If they do not, check the magazine to ensure that is is correctly assembled. That the rear of the magazine carrier is not depressed, and that the base of the uppermost cartridge is properly seated to the rear of the mag.

If they do, check that the round can be stripped from the feed lips towards the chamber.

If they cannot, repeat earlier process of unloading the mag, downloading the mag capacity by one round and repeating testing.


General cycle is:
Cocking, loading, locking, firing, unlocking, ejecting, reloading

Your problem is either occurring in the first phase (cocking) or the second (loading). Running from a known good will validate that the problem is not with the gun itself, but the mag. If the problem is the mag, does it suck tit in other AR's? If so, I'd replace it with a quality mag and call it a day.

Let us know how you make out dude.
 
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it sounds like the follower is getting hung up when you put your mag in if its pinned too tight the rivit can wedge the follower nit letting the rounds come back up in the mag try 4 rounds and i bet it will work and i would put money on it that if you have 5 rounds in and push the rounds down with your finger at the front they will move and if you push down on the base of the round im sure it will not move or move very little
 
Semantics of ###ming aside...

If a rifle will strip from the hold open but not when the charging handle is used then I fail to see how it is a mag issue. If the mag is f*cked then the mag is f*cked and it shouldn't make a difference one way or the other.

Not having a big 'sporting' background I'm not aware of all the 'special' and 'perfectly adequate for range use' ways of circumventing the original manual of arms but from a tradition background the obvious (and most common btw) cause has already been proposed...

You are riding the charging handle...stop doing that.

jl
 
Another fine reason why these mag limit rules are :onCrack:
I hope one day very soon, some one in the government will take a good, long, hard look at this stupid law and get ride of it!
 
I've seen something similar before, and it had nothing to do with mags.

In this case, the owner swapped over to an ACE butt stock assembly, and
THE non-AR 15 BUTT SCREW HE USED IN THE BUFFER TUBE WAS A BIT TOO LONG.

So the buffer was bottoming out on the screw and not allowing the bolt to consistently go all the way back. It would feed ammo from the mag, but the hold open latch was only engaging part way, part of the time. Taking a 1/4" off the screw fixed it.

Might want to check that out?
LAZ 1
 
Are you loading ammo correctly into the mag so its seated at the rear? Or are you "pushing" rounds into the mage and having them seated to far forward?
 
For the people who are positive that he is riding the cocking handle and that could be the only reason for this problem....try listening to him when he tells you that he isn't! As I've said in a previous post, I have 1 mag out of 4 that does the exact same thing, and I can guarantee you that I am not riding the cocking handle. Definitely a mag issue.
 
Here ya go

[youtube]bx3J0zaOEPk[/youtube]

I've also had what sounds like a similar problem with an iffy mag. There was just enough slop so that occasionally the locking lugs on the bolt wouldn't contact the round. Replacing the mag solved the problem. If that's the case you can see it missing when you wiggle the mag while operating the bolt.
 
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bnichols said:
Here ya go

[youtube]bx3J0zaOEPk[/youtube]

I've also had what sounds like a similar problem with an iffy mag. There was just enough slop so that occasionally the locking lugs on the bolt wouldn't contact the round. Replacing the mag solved the problem. If that's the case you can see it missing when you wiggle the mag while operating the bolt.
Click to expand...

Hence, cant the weapon while operating the bolt so you can see what is failing.
 
Lazerus2000 said:
I've seen something similar before, and it had nothing to do with mags.

In this case, the owner swapped over to an ACE butt stock assembly, and
THE non-AR 15 BUTT SCREW HE USED IN THE BUFFER TUBE WAS A BIT TOO LONG.

So the buffer was bottoming out on the screw and not allowing the bolt to consistently go all the way back. It would feed ammo from the mag, but the hold open latch was only engaging part way, part of the time. Taking a 1/4" off the screw fixed it.

Might want to check that out?
LAZ 1
Click to expand...

It's either this or your reserve capacitor is of the wrong voltage.
 
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