Luke E.

I can when I get home and have a minute. My sisters wedding is this weekend and the rehearsal dinner is at our place so have been running until 9 most nights trying to get things done. That's why I've not done anything else with this.

I have a couple of new ones so that's not the issue. I just like to know what exactly went wrong. Anytime I want to go to the range or shoot without fooling around with that issue I just throw another one in it. I've had zero time off so I've still not checked the thing any further.

 I've long thought that the most devastating firearm out to 60yds would be a full auto 12ga loaded with buckshot and that guy has 2 of them! They seem to have little more recoil than a Red Ryder BB gun but are quite an ugly shotgun.   http://www.ddwebvideos.com/mostpopular/aa-12-fully-automatic-shotgun-2/

  Rifle works fine when I put a different BCG in it so the buffer spring is safe.

That was the point in me starting this thread. Everything I was doing was pointing at a part that I would consider to be one of the toughest parts in the rifle so I just needed fresh eyes on it. I think I'll pull the bolt out and try just the carrier and if that still gives the problem I'll pull the gas key. The main reason I doubt it's the keys is that I pulled the upper and and the bolt to check gas tube alignment and that all seems fine. Second it the fact that it doesn't matter if I'm actually firing the gun or just run the action by hand with no ammo loaded. It's not that I don't have another BCG to throw in it because I have that, it's mainly just to satisfy my curiousity of wanting to know what is causing it not to work. I'll definitely check the key to make sure though. Thanks!

I'd say you're right about the wear but it seems odd that it still does this even when there are no rounds in the rifle or mag. Maybe it's the fact that each part is worn so when I split the parts up some will function. I'll do some measuring and comparing of each and see what I get.

Nothing has been changed with the rifle. And to top that off I can take the bad BCG and slide it into other known functioning rifles and it gives the same problems. It's my wife birthday today but if I get time to I will try to capture the problem on video tonight and post it.

  The bolt moves in and out smoothly (looser than a brand new one but not any more so than one I have with 600 rounds on it)   There is no carbon anywhere on/in the carrier or bolt. All have been soaked in kroil for 24hrs and carbon removed with a tool designed to access all critical points of a BCG. I stuck a bore light in the carrier and verified this before the testing.   Gas rings were replaced at approximately 5,000rds but the ring groove is clean now.   The cam pin has also been replaced and was replaced again during testing.   The bolt does have a small amount of play in the carrier but I don't have any of my other newer groups with me to check it against (just happened to have the questionable one sitting in my truck.     While there may be excessive play between the bolt and carrier bore but it really wouldn't explain the fact that it still doesn't function correctly with zero rounds of ammo within reach. Like I mentioned above, I can insert an empty mag into an unloaded rifle (no ammo in the equation) and the BCG still drags and it seems like the front of the bolt is rubbing across the top of the mag. but when I remove the empty mag it cycles as it should. I also took known functioning bolts and installed them in this carrier and had the problem as well as I took the questionable bolt and installed it into other carriers and had no problems.   The one thing I did not try was to remove the bolt from the carrier and install only the carrier into the rifle. After all the options I tested and the results I got I would suspect that I would still have the problem with no bolt installed in the carrier with an unloaded mag inserted in the rifle. I will check this when I get home tonight. I think the components of this BCG group likely worn with 7,500+ rounds on them and in the name of reliability I should probably replace it anyways but I sure would like to know what is causing the actual failures i'm experiencing just to satisfy curiosity.   Thanks for the lending of brain power folks!

   Only visible difference I can tell just by looking it that the bearing surfaces on the bottom are worn slick and shiny almost like they've been polished. The bolt lugs are fine and the bolt from the trouble BCG works fine when moved into any of the other carriers that I tried it in. I guess I need to get the calipers out and see what kind of difference I can find there. The fact that I can take an empty rifle and empty mag and insert the empty mag and the bolt carrier won't slide over the mag clean or even at all sometimes is what lead me to believe that the carrier is the issue. I would just think that it would have to wear a hell of a lot of material off the bottom of the carrier to cause this kind of problem.. Hopefully having more heads in the game will come up with an explanation though. Thanks and keep'em comin'

   Gas key is fine but since it never makes it to firing status i'm not sure that it would matter if it even had one ;)

I really like 25gr of 844 behind 55gr bullets, seems to be a sweet spot through my 16" barreled rifle. Speed was somewhere between 2,750 and 2,850fps but it's been a while and I can't remember for sure.

 Okay, early this winter/ late fall one of my AR's that has been 100% reliable for 7,500+ rounds started becoming unreliable. Fast forward to now I have I think narrowed it down to the bolt carrier. Even once I new that it was something in the BCG I kept using it when I was out plinking and had time to mess with feeding failures so it has gotten worse.   Friday evening I went out behind the house with the questionable BCG (hereafter known as BCG1) and 2 more as well as 2 rifles and set up to pin this down on one part. 1. - I tried the BCG1 and pulled the charging handle back and let it fly and it only got the round about halfway out of the mag. - Next I slid a round into the chamber closed the bolt and slid a loaded mag in then fired. - It ejected the spent case but only got the next round halfway into the chamber. - With the round halfway in the chamber I hit the mag release and immediately upon the mag dropping it chambered the round that was previously hung up - I tried 4 different mags (10rd Pmag, 20rd Pmag, 20rd GI and 30rd GI) and all had about the same results. - The bolt carrier would about half the time ride up on top of the it was supposed to chamber jamming the case into the feed ramps and the rest of the time it would start picking the round up like it's supposed to but would only load the round halfway. - With an empty mag inserted I would pull the charging handle back and let it go and the BCG moved forward very sluggishly and sometimes even completely unloaded it wouldn't even get the bolt to start locking up but as soon as I dropped the mag it would start sliding back and forth like it should   2. - I moved BCG1 over to the 2nd rifle and had the same results all the way through.   3. - I placed a different BCG in the 1st rifle and it functioned flawlessly as it did in the 2nd rifle.   4. - I've swap bolts back and forth between carriers and cam pins between bolts etc... and the only combinations that have problems include BCG1    It would seem that I should just accept that the carrier is worn out but i'm having a hard time understanding how a hardened steel carrier is going to wear out before the aluminum upper that it rides against.     Anyone have any other ideas or explanations as to what's going on?                  

 Midwest Industries is one of the two that I've narrowed my field down to. The 15" can be found for $189 regularly and I've seen it for as low as $179 of coarse if you drop it down to the 13" you drop $10-$20. It's not a "keymod" rail but it is a round tube with top rail only and provisions to place rail sections wherever you like. I've got the other one book marked but can't remember what brand it was but i'll try to find it.

   Well the creole restaurant is probably more suited to "my type" than the country club would be so I better stick with meeting this fellow ;)

   That's quite the coincidence..

 Love it! I'll have to try out Razz'z.. Might I assume that the TGO member who owns it has the screen name "Razz" or something close to that?

I typically carry in the 4:30-5:00 position and rarely have any issues. My father and I typically buy and sell several handfuls of bikes per year so I get to put miles on a lot of different bikes and carrying in that position seems to work most of the time for me. This winter is the first in several that we didn't buy up stock so i'm not sure what i'll ride this season but i'm sure i'll come up with something. BTW my carry is a full size M&P

That's a bad situation.. 

   Some brands are sold with primers on edge in the tray ie.. Remington and Federal, then you have some that are sitting in the tray solid side up and some solid side down so only one of those would you not have to flip. There are a few brands that do like you described and they are much easier to pick up since they are in a grid pattern and not touching one another. 

   Yes and No, you have to flip them but you flip them in the supplied tray before attaching it to the pistol grip part so there is no flipping then transferring.

   I'm not sure if I dislike it as much as you do (you seem to have no love for the process :) ) but I would rather be pulling the handle watching loaded rounds fall off the back of the press than poking around at primers. I have found that I least despise loading Wolf and Tula primers into the tubes because of the way they are facing in the tray they come in. I can place the ribbed half of the flip tray onto the thing the primers come in and flip them over and since they are on the ribbed side they don't slide around and remain in straight rows and not touching each other. If you order one before I do be sure to let me know what you think.

   The poor finishing work seems to be the main gripe in the reviews so i'm glad to hear that it works well other than that. I only trust Midway (or anywhere else for that matter) reviews so much because you never really know what kind of moron may be mad because of their being intellectually and/or mechanically challenged keeps them from operating the item so I feel better hearing first hand from someone on TGO. I may pick one up next time I place an order. Has Midway's shipping gotten crazy again? Last order I placed was only $4 +/-

   What do you mean by "regular primer tubes" It says that it will work with progressive press primer pick up tubes.

 I guess these are somewhat new or I have just been blind to them but sound good in theory. There are some really good reviews @ Midway and some not so good ones but there are only 12 total so there's not really enough to assume that the negative reviews were left by inept individuals or the other way around.    http://www.midwayusa.com/product/890424/product?cm_mmc=pe_weekly-_-specials-_-specials_20140401_1-_-AdBlock01