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Federal Gold Medal Destroys National Match Upper ! (BOOM !)

Hello Fellow Shooters,

A few months ago my family & I went to the Motherlode Club Match in Jamestown, Ca.

For the first time I personally competed in the match, it was a blast (literally !). Took my trusty Rock River arms match service rifle and 100rds. of factory Federal ammunition.

I wanted to shoot up my factory ammunition and get a good start on brass to reload for my match rifle. What a huge issue it would turn out to be, shot offhand 10rds for sight in and 10rds for record, 80 w/ 1x. I was happy and prepped for rapid sitting, Nathaniel Nye very graciously helped me adjust my sling and I was in position, felt pretty good about my hold, rifle was steady and I shot the string, on the 9th round my rifle exploded !!! Magazine flew out of the bottom of the receiver in pieces !! Nathaniel and I were unharmed but the rifle upper was TOAST ! Bolt was stuck, we used the forward assist to seat the bolt in battery position, removed the upper from the lower and then we used a punch and hammer to remove the bolt from the upper receiver. So much pressure the extractor was warped, lugs were twisted in the barrel and on the bolt, my match upper is destroyed.

The federal ammo in question is pictured, lot numbers included.

If you have any of this ammo, from the lot pictured please be careful.

After a month of no news from Federal, I called Ryan @ Federal today.

Ryan told me the ammunition exhibited no signs of pressure in their testing, he attributed the failure to the age of the ammunition(21 years old).

In short, they do not believe the ammunition had pressure issues (his words).

Just got off the phone w/ Steve at Rock River Arms, very nice Guy, I know it wasn't their fault but I need to get my upper fixed and want to see if they could help. He said they will get back to me with options by tomorrow.



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First question have you called federal ? Larry

I think that's literally answered in like his second statement:

After a month of no news from Federal, I called Ryan @ Federal today.

Ryan told me the ammunition exhibited no signs of pressure in their testing, he attributed the failure to the age of the ammunition(21 years old).

In short, they do not believe the ammunition had pressure issues (his words).
 
First, glad no one was injured. When AR's blow they are usually quite catastrophic and lots of flying pieces to dodge.
Now, it appears by looking at the picture of your brass that over-pressure didn't appear unexplainably with the round that welded itself to the bolt. There were warning signs and I really think those warning signs should have been noticed before things went upside down.
There are two scenarios that come to my mind right away.
First, you had ammunition that was unsafe for your gun in particular. How many rounds had been fired thru the upper prior to this incident? Maybe something in the barrel or chamber spiked pressure or maybe the headspace wasn't correct and adding a bit of heat from the barrel made it go boom.
Second, and I've seen a couple do this, the rifle fired out of battery.
Lastly, good luck with getting that rifle back up and running.
 
Wasn't that ammunition made for a bolt gun?
That was why I ask ? It is clear only 2 case show problems and I don't know what one was fire first ,. Larry
 
Upper has approx 2k rounds fired, w/o issue. No bore obstructions, 9 rdns hit target (scored 77 w/ one saved).

Bolt was stuck in battery.
 
Yes Sir,

Pierced primers are fairly common, even blown primers.

Unfortunately, I did not look at the first strings cases until after my day was ended.
 
You have 1 blown primer and 1 pierced primer in the batch of empties in your picture. Those were 2 very good reasons to stop.

Nothing so easy when you rifle is kicking the brass 3' away every shot. On top of that, there is no way they are going back into the box in the order they were fired. Most wouldn't catch this until they started getting ready for cleanup and reloading.

HS would be my guess, but it's just a guess. Maybe HS of the case since you have so many rounds fired w/of incident, but there are a few flowed primers in there with the pierce so it would seem to me either the HS on the ammo is a little short or the bolt isn't fully closing.

I seriously doubt anyone if going to figure it out. Unless they test the powder residue in the case and it's pistol powder this is gonna get chalked up as unknown.

Glad everyone is ok.
 
The bolt was stuck in battery, I had to beat it out w/ a hammer. Bolt carrier was set back about 0.2", lugs were all engaged.
 
Yours is not the only one too be blown up by Federal in 223,there are others on Ar15.com with the same issues .As for those who say out of battery ,try again if the bolt is locked up it is in battery. Usually an over pressure will blow out the extractor and flow the brass around the case head escaping the weak link (extractor area).Glad you were all safe!
Good luck with Federal others have had to get a lawyer involved.

JFM
 
If you believe that pierced and blown primers are fairly common, you really need to start over with the help of someone with lots of experience or stop shooting before someone really gets hurt.

Like it or not I have been to many a HP match where the blown primer got down into the trigger group and disabled the rifle from firing .Now I believe that most of the time it is not over pressure but a condition of using old brass where the primer pockets have expanded too much. There was even a company that made a felt strip for Ar's to keep the primers from jamming things up.

John
 

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