Given some recent posts concerning kabooms I’.ll recount this experience from years ago.
So anyway there I was...in a carbine class. I supposedly had a 5.56 chamber but the barrel was bought at a gun show way back in the’80s from a local parts supplier and who knows what reamer it was chambered with. I was shooting Tula 223 (because I was tired of my brass going home with everyone but me).
I had a failure to fire. I tried to eject the round but the bolt wouldn’t open. Instructor comes over, after a brief look says “mortar it” which I did. The round ejected into the grass. I put the mag back in, pulled the charging handle back and let it fly. Bolt did not close all the way. Almost but not quite. Instructor says, hit the forward assist. No, thinks me and pulls the charging handle back, eject that round and let go of the CH. Same thing, bolt didn’t close. Instructor says, that’s that Tula ammo. Builds up residue in the chamber over time. Reasons like that are why you have a forward assist. I ejected that round and removed myself from the firing line.
I went to the work bench and separated the upper from the lower. I passed a cleaning rod from the muzzle toward the chamber and encountered an obstruction. Turns out the bullet from the round I had to mortar out was lodged in the throat. A couple smacks on the cleaning rod with a mallet and out came that bullet, lightly engraved from the rifling.
Later at home I pulled down some of the Tula rounds and used my Stoney Point OAL tool and found out all the Tula was too long for my throat by (IIRC) about .045-.050.”
Had I followed the instructor’s direction it could have been a really bad day!
“Experts!”
So anyway there I was...in a carbine class. I supposedly had a 5.56 chamber but the barrel was bought at a gun show way back in the’80s from a local parts supplier and who knows what reamer it was chambered with. I was shooting Tula 223 (because I was tired of my brass going home with everyone but me).
I had a failure to fire. I tried to eject the round but the bolt wouldn’t open. Instructor comes over, after a brief look says “mortar it” which I did. The round ejected into the grass. I put the mag back in, pulled the charging handle back and let it fly. Bolt did not close all the way. Almost but not quite. Instructor says, hit the forward assist. No, thinks me and pulls the charging handle back, eject that round and let go of the CH. Same thing, bolt didn’t close. Instructor says, that’s that Tula ammo. Builds up residue in the chamber over time. Reasons like that are why you have a forward assist. I ejected that round and removed myself from the firing line.
I went to the work bench and separated the upper from the lower. I passed a cleaning rod from the muzzle toward the chamber and encountered an obstruction. Turns out the bullet from the round I had to mortar out was lodged in the throat. A couple smacks on the cleaning rod with a mallet and out came that bullet, lightly engraved from the rifling.
Later at home I pulled down some of the Tula rounds and used my Stoney Point OAL tool and found out all the Tula was too long for my throat by (IIRC) about .045-.050.”
Had I followed the instructor’s direction it could have been a really bad day!
“Experts!”
