Something strange at the range...

[Heartland Patriot]

While my mind was focused on how bad my Mosin did, I almost forgot about this little incident at the range the other day. It was with my friend's AR-15. Its a DPMS with a rifle length stainless "bull barrel", not sure of the exact model number. Since we were just knocking holes in paper, he went cheap and bought some steel-case 55 grain HPs. He had fired a mag of 20 at least when the incident occurred.

Here is what happened. Just as my friend inserted a new magazine and released the bolt, the range official called "one minute". So, my friend didn't fire, he put it on safe, dropped the mag, and attempted to pull the bolt back and eject the chambered round. It wouldn't budge. Now, I know what is going through (some of) your minds: cheap steel case, case was stuck. But it wasn't. This was an UN-fired round and all the empties had extracted and ejected just fine. I noticed the bolt wasn't even completely in battery. We got the bolt pulled back and the case extracted...yep, just the case, with primer unfired and powder spilling out.

After the cease-fire, I got my cleaning rod out and pushed the bullet, still stuck inside the barrel, back out into the chamber area. The bullet had a little circle marked into it about 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch back from the tip. That is where it was stuck. Now, for my "theory" and see if anyone concurs (or has a more educated idea, of course). The barrel is stainless and marked ".223, 1/9". The boxes of ammo SAY they are .223 but I suspect the are more likely closer to 5.56x45mm. I know one of the differences in barrels between the two is the leade, with .223 being tighter tolerance than 5.56mm. Could it have been that it was simply too "tight" for the ammo he was using? Anyway, I told him he was probably better off sticking with American commercial manufactured ammo that was packaged stating it was .223 and to stay away from ammo marked 5.56mm.

Was that good advice, or does he have some other problem he should have looked at? I'm pretty curious on this, and I'd like to pass info on to him before he goes to the range next time. Thanks.

[G.A. Heath]

I would suspect that the bullet wasn't seated to the proper length, or the shoulders were formed wrong, or that the neck was too long (Even for 5.56). Buy cheap ammo, get cheap results.

[The Annoyed Man]

Regardless of what made the circle, if the rifle is marked for 5.56mm ammo, you can shoot both 5.56 and .233 ammo in it. But if it is marked .223, you should never fire 5.56 ammo in it. There are pressure as well as leade issues.

[Heartland Patriot]

After the cease-fire, I got my cleaning rod out and pushed the bullet, still stuck inside the barrel, back out into the chamber area. The bullet had a little circle marked into it about 1/16th to 1/8th of an inch back from the tip. That is where it was stuck.

That circle is likely where your cleaning-rod made contact with the bullet; that close to the tip, it's going to be a teeny diameter and pretty unlikely that the bullet made contact and stuck at that point.

Yep, I got out a round and the cleaning rod and BINGO! Okay, so how did the thing get stuck then? Its one of those mysteries that I really want to figure out. Plus, I really want to pass something along to my friend, info-wise.

[Heartland Patriot]

Regardless of what made the circle, if the rifle is marked for 5.56mm ammo, you can shoot both 5.56 and .233 ammo in it. But if it is marked .223, you should never fire 5.56 ammo in it. There are pressure as well as leade issues.

Okay, TAM, I almost forgot about the higher pressure. So my advice to him wasn't bad advice, just given for the wrong reason perhaps. Thanks for the reminder.

[Lonest4r]

I suspect that it got stuck in gummy, semi-solid carbon residue. The steel cased ammo doesn't seal the chamber well and leaves quite a bit of residue in there. It probably didn't have good neck tension to begin with, so when the round was extracted, the bullet just got stuck there.

[Heartland Patriot]

I suspect that it got stuck in gummy, semi-solid carbon residue. The steel cased ammo doesn't seal the chamber well and leaves quite a bit of residue in there. It probably didn't have good neck tension to begin with, so when the round was extracted, the bullet just got stuck there.

He had only fired one magazine previous to the stuck bullet. But, I will ask him how dirty it was when he cleaned it. I know he always cleans after going to the range.

[sookandy]

Just a thought but if he had been firing and had heated up the chamber, then chambered a round and it cooled. That laquer case could have melted a little then cooled and gotten "glued".???

[74novaman]

Just a thought but if he had been firing and had heated up the chamber, then chambered a round and it cooled. That laquer case could have melted a little then cooled and gotten "glued".???

Laquer doesn't get hot enough to melt in guns. Its a myth.

[Heartland Patriot]

Just a thought but if he had been firing and had heated up the chamber, then chambered a round and it cooled. That laquer case could have melted a little then cooled and gotten "glued".???

The case was NOT stuck. It was the bullet itself that got stuck. And when we succeeded in extracting the unfired case, the bullet stayed in the rifling and had to be pushed out with my cleaning rod from the muzzle end of the barrel. AndyC pointed out that the little ring around the end of the barrel was from my cleaning rod, so I still don't know how it could have gotten stuck like that.

[Weg]

The bullet was not seated deep enough would be my guess. I have had the exact situation happen with my own reloads in the past ( shame on me ). If your friend would have fired the round he would have never known any difference. I once seated entire boxes of 30.06 with too much bullet protrusion, and everything went great at the range because I never tried to remove a live round from the chamber. However, at the end of my first day hunting with the same ammo, I went to unload at the end of the day and got the exact situation your buddy did. I know the ones you were dealing with were factory, but I assume the same thing can happen with factory ammo also.

[RSJ]

I had an out of spec 55GR steel case (Herters) get stuck in my 556 bore. I am DONE with that steel junk. I have had 0000 FTF, FTE with brass. XM193 all the way

[Heartland Patriot]

I had an out of spec 55GR steel case (Herters) get stuck in my 556 bore. I am DONE with that steel junk. I have had 0000 FTF, FTE with brass. XM193 all the way

It was NOT the CASE that got stuck. It was the PROJECTILE, the BULLET, that got stuck. That is why I said it was strange.

[RSJ]

I had an out of spec 55GR steel case (Herters) get stuck in my 556 bore. I am DONE with that steel junk. I have had 0000 FTF, FTE with brass. XM193 all the way

It was NOT the CASE that got stuck. It was the PROJECTILE, the BULLET, that got stuck. That is why I said it was strange.

I gottcha. I'm just giving a +1 to Steel stuff being complete garbage.