First posting since joining ...
Quick background on myself to prevent further questions. I'm retired from law enforcement at the state and federal level. I have been a State DOJ, FBI Certified and NRA Certified firearms instructor plus numerous armorer certificates to include Colt AR's for most of my career.
Anyway, purchased a new Rock River AR after research into their ATH model. First day at the range I had a failure that turned my rifle into nothing more then a hammer on the first round.
Prior to range time I completely took apart bolt, carrier, and cleaned all to include a light barrel brushing with clean bore brush and patch as I would do any department gun.
Took rifle, new P Mags, new factory loaded 55 grain Winchester rounds to range (which were visually inspected prior to loading in magazine).
At range I fired first round and had a jam and double feed. I looked at bore and noted a lot of brass on bolt face after removing double feed. I also noticed a round stuck in chamber and tried shaking it loose. With no luck I cycled bolt forward and tried to extract with no luck.
I was able to dislodge brass with use of cleaning rod and found the case was very torn up. A portion of rim the size of extractor was literally ripped away but did not cause case separation (see photo #1). I could see that the main body of brass was severely pitted except for about 1/4 inch of base of round were it did not chamber correctly (see photo #2). I also noted that the round did not appear to be completely seated in chamber correctly. I was concerned it was a head space issue due to a bad chamber, but due to pitting on brass also wondered if I had debris in chamber. I thoroughly scrubbed chamber and barrel out and tried again.
This time I was able to get 20 rounds down range before second failure which appeared to hang up on feed ramp tearing brass (see attached photo #3). I cleared jam and fired another 50 rounds with no further failure.
I inspected the ejected brass and did not note anything close to the original pitting, but did note two distinct lines on brass from feed ramp, that appeared to lighten I suspect as more rounds took off edge.
I suspect my initial round may have encountered debris left over from factory due to polishing or lapping of barrel due to the ATH supposedly coming finished from factory with no break in needed. I feel as if I should have cleaned chamber and barrel better prior to shooting and should know better then to rely on the factory to have test fired rounds prior to delivery ... dumb on my part.
I still have issues with feed ramp not being finished but also found on a site that Rock River had some issues with milling and not getting specs right on the magazine well causing issues with their lowers.
Anyway just an educational post and hope this might prevent further issues with any new rifles someone might take out before really cleaning out chamber and barrel, obviously a light patch, brush, and visual inspection did not cut it ...
* Unable to load pictures? Rifle will not load and now pictures
Quick background on myself to prevent further questions. I'm retired from law enforcement at the state and federal level. I have been a State DOJ, FBI Certified and NRA Certified firearms instructor plus numerous armorer certificates to include Colt AR's for most of my career.
Anyway, purchased a new Rock River AR after research into their ATH model. First day at the range I had a failure that turned my rifle into nothing more then a hammer on the first round.
Prior to range time I completely took apart bolt, carrier, and cleaned all to include a light barrel brushing with clean bore brush and patch as I would do any department gun.
Took rifle, new P Mags, new factory loaded 55 grain Winchester rounds to range (which were visually inspected prior to loading in magazine).
At range I fired first round and had a jam and double feed. I looked at bore and noted a lot of brass on bolt face after removing double feed. I also noticed a round stuck in chamber and tried shaking it loose. With no luck I cycled bolt forward and tried to extract with no luck.
I was able to dislodge brass with use of cleaning rod and found the case was very torn up. A portion of rim the size of extractor was literally ripped away but did not cause case separation (see photo #1). I could see that the main body of brass was severely pitted except for about 1/4 inch of base of round were it did not chamber correctly (see photo #2). I also noted that the round did not appear to be completely seated in chamber correctly. I was concerned it was a head space issue due to a bad chamber, but due to pitting on brass also wondered if I had debris in chamber. I thoroughly scrubbed chamber and barrel out and tried again.
This time I was able to get 20 rounds down range before second failure which appeared to hang up on feed ramp tearing brass (see attached photo #3). I cleared jam and fired another 50 rounds with no further failure.
I inspected the ejected brass and did not note anything close to the original pitting, but did note two distinct lines on brass from feed ramp, that appeared to lighten I suspect as more rounds took off edge.
I suspect my initial round may have encountered debris left over from factory due to polishing or lapping of barrel due to the ATH supposedly coming finished from factory with no break in needed. I feel as if I should have cleaned chamber and barrel better prior to shooting and should know better then to rely on the factory to have test fired rounds prior to delivery ... dumb on my part.
I still have issues with feed ramp not being finished but also found on a site that Rock River had some issues with milling and not getting specs right on the magazine well causing issues with their lowers.
Anyway just an educational post and hope this might prevent further issues with any new rifles someone might take out before really cleaning out chamber and barrel, obviously a light patch, brush, and visual inspection did not cut it ...
* Unable to load pictures? Rifle will not load and now pictures
