Im having an occasional stuck case when shooting Wolf or Brown Bear ammo (steel cased). Its happening in both my 16" with chrome chamber and my 20" without chrome chamber. Its just the nature of the ammo I suspect. Will lightly lubing the chamber help this?
i own an ar-15 and i have my m4 over here in iraq, ive noticed the same problem when using cheaper ammo. what worked for me is lube the extractor well and lightly lubing the chamber never hurts. I have used quite a few lubes and cleaners and my personal favorite is strike hold...most have never heard of it and it is tough to find. after that military issue CLP is amazing if you dont have dust/sand to worry about like i do over here. so i use nothing but strike hold here and it works very well. hope this helps
I know the Brown Bear is laquer coated, and yes, that can cause problems now and then with the tight chambers of AR's. Is the Wolf the laquer coated, or the newer polymer coated stuff (grey colored). The newer poly stuff has been pretty good, unless you leave a round in the chamber while it is hot.
I know I do not lube the chamber ,but as I am loading Mags I generally inspect the cartridges , if I notice accesive Lacquer on case i set it aside and later on, rub fingernail polish remover on casing, I use Wolf Ammo because it is cheap, But Extremely Dirty. Just a thought to put out there.
my bushmaster did that alot, i sent it back to them and they polished the feed ramp and polished the chamber and relieved the chamber tension and that sucker feeds and ejects anything I'm willing to put in it now, never had another problem since
The laquer coating can melt in a hot chamber. US designed and made weapons are not intended for laquer coated steel cases. They were designed around brass cases. Some people have decent results with Wolf in AR's. Some have horror stories. I will not shoot cheap ammo through a $1000 rifle. My Combloc rifles (AK, SKS) were desinged for laquer coated steel cases and I have no reservation shooting Wolf through them. If you feel the need to shoot cheap ammo through your AR, never let a round sit in a hot chamber, ever. You might start off with Wolf in the top of a magazine and have brass cased ammo toward the bottom. I have not tried the polymer coated Wolf. It should do better. Personally, when I find a few range pick up loaded Wolf rounds in 5.56 or 7.62 X 51, I pull the bullets to be loaded in brass cases and fertilize the grass with the powder. Bushmaster says the Wolf ammo is OK for their rifles but, your mileage may vary.
Lubing the ammo or chamber is a very dangerous practice. Friction between the case and chamber wall is expected to slow rearward travel of the fired case. When you take the friction away, this increases the stress on the bolt, causing increased chamber pressures. In the 1920's the practice of greasing cartridges was found to dangerously increase chamber pressures and was forbidden in the U.S. Army for that reason. Hatcher writes of experiments performed by Col. Townsend Whelen, citing the following recorded pressure readings using National Match .30-06 ammo: prior data for the ammo used in testing = 51,335 PSI; same ammo lightly lubricated with Vaseline averaged 59, 000 PSI; same ammo with bullet, case, & chamber lubricated = 71,154 PSI. :shock: The latter wrecked the pressure-testing device, which Hatcher says was stronger than an ordinary M1903 action.
Shouldn't be shooting steel cases in an AR platform, ever. The weapon was designed to shoot and function wwith a brass case, steel on steel just doesn't work for the ARs. Steel is ok for AK, no go for a sophisticated and tight tolerance AR. Shoot the proper ammo and it will not be an issue. regards
