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Troubleshooting my AR10 (308) and what I discovered #7213907 07/02/18 04:31 PM
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The 308 AR-10 story
By: PigPopper

I built a budget friendly semi auto 308 with the intent to share the lower between my 338 Federal upper and a 308 upper.

The 308 was supposed to be my main hunting rifle due to:

1) shoots 165 grain Speer DeepCurl bullets which I successfully used in 30 Rem AR 2 years ago at lower velocities

2) is suppressor friendly versus the 338 Federal (I have a .308 suppressor on hand would have to buy another specific to large cals for 338 Fed)

3) offers more Terminal Energy over AR15 calibers

4) is lighter than original AR-10s (I’ll have to weigh it) but overall the market is leaning towards leaner components.

In January 2018 I developed a handload with Varget powder which is very temp stable. I was very excited because the rifle was stacking the 165gr Deepcurls into tiny groups.

In April I thought it was ready for it's hunting debut and took it West in pursuit of feral swine. Jam-O-Rama ...

Running the rifle unsuppressed I didn’t have any issues but adding the can seemed to trigger jamming and cycling problems. For weeks I tried an assortment of adjustments to the gas block and buffer and springs.

Bought a cycle friendly full length A2 stock and reseated the gas block.

Tested it once in May and jams.

At this point I was perplexed at how I made it through load development without any jams and it dawned on me that I was only loading 4-5 rounds in the magazine and so I looked now at the magazine and lower mag catch as the issue.

Tested the rifle last Friday loading single rounds and the gun would jam and not lock the mag back the one time it did extract.

Out of options I began to ponder opening the gas port with a drill or switching BCG even though the BCG was new and of good quality.

I’m glad I checked the BCG because I discovered way too many o-rings and springs in the extractor area. I trimmed my ejector spring two coils and discarded the two o-rings and smaller inner spring of the extractor.

Saturday I ran 30 rounds suppressed through the rifle with zero issues and the bolt was now locking back so I adjusted the gas block as well

The attached photo are the final shots from Saturday, ready for action (debut hunt #2 and beyond ... I adjust between the top grouping of 3 and bottom grouping of 2.

So check your extractors for too many parts if you're getting unexplained function issues.....




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Re: Troubleshooting my AR10 (308) and what I discovered [Re: Pig_Popper] #7213911 07/02/18 04:44 PM
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Well...if that don't beat all. I remember when you posted about it and I might go back an re-read. I like to see who was on the right track and how he got there, it's instructive.

Glad you gotter figgered out!


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Re: Troubleshooting my AR10 (308) and what I discovered [Re: RiverRider] #7213937 07/02/18 05:26 PM
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Originally Posted By: RiverRider
Well...if that don't beat all. I remember when you posted about it and I might go back an re-read. I like to see who was on the right track and how he got there, it's instructive.

Glad you gotter figgered out!


http://texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbth...ppe#Post7197911

Here was my posts on the magazine and mag catch modifications - looking back with that 20/20 hindsight it wasn’t the primary cause for my failures BUT the fact is the lower/upper reciever set are different than other makes of AR10s. At this time I still can’t use my LaRue metal magazine in this rifle because it won’t seat.

The mag modification did address some bolt drag so now that I cleared up the traffic jam in the bolt extractor the rifle is humming , dare I say ... like a well oiled machine.

I’ll update here after the next hunt - hopefully malfunction free....

Last edited by Pig_Popper; 07/02/18 05:27 PM.

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Re: Troubleshooting my AR10 (308) and what I discovered [Re: Pig_Popper] #7213956 07/02/18 05:45 PM
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Can't say ive ever seen that

Re: Troubleshooting my AR10 (308) and what I discovered [Re: Pig_Popper] #7214417 07/03/18 06:31 AM
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Good info and I hope to remember if I start having cycling problems in my .308.

Re: Troubleshooting my AR10 (308) and what I discovered [Re: Pig_Popper] #7214527 07/03/18 01:33 PM
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The rifle ran another 20 rounds without issue last night completing a string of 50 since Saturday.

I'm a happy guy

rifle


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Re: Troubleshooting my AR10 (308) and what I discovered [Re: Pig_Popper] #7214558 07/03/18 02:27 PM
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Happy that you figured it out!

As the price of parts keep falling, and material goes up, they have to cut cost somewhere.
Unfortunately, that cost cutting often comes in the form of untrained labor.
Yeah, it's not hard to put these together but building a 100 or 1000 in a run, operators get bored, start talking to their neighbors, etc. and install wrong parts or too many parts.
I've seen it in high dollar DOD houses with skilled/trained labor so I can imagine a Mom and Pop shop with cousin Wilbur who's visiting for the week assembling parts.

I will bet that during that same run that assembled your BCG, there is another one that is missing that o-ring.

That's the main reason anytime I buy parts, I disassemble and check them before adding to the rest assembly.
I have bought and seen assembled uppers bought by friends from different manufacturers with various problems.
Seems like loose barren nut is the worst, followed by gas blocks that are sorta in the neighborhood of the hole in barrel.

There is a reason reputable builders take 2-3 weeks to assemble and TEST your upper.
Imagine testing a production run of 1000 uppers.
It would take a long time to change the upper, load mags, test fire, wash, rinse and repeat on a run like that.
If it works, it goes to customer - if it doesn't, it goes back to the table.
A good armorer is needed in the test fire phase because they can recognize a short stroke, over-gassed, etc. and sort the reworks accordingly.


Production guns are usually better because they have liability.
If you buy "parts" you are responsible for assembly problems.


Cheers,
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Re: Troubleshooting my AR10 (308) and what I discovered [Re: Pig_Popper] #7214810 07/03/18 06:12 PM
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My aero precision BCG has the same internals in the extractor. No issues though. It definitely was VERY tight when it got it. After some shooting the extractor tension has loosened up and works perfectly. For how hard that charging handle can be to pull back sometimes (compared to an AR15) I am it is as strong as it is.


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Re: Troubleshooting my AR10 (308) and what I discovered [Re: Gwood88] #7214849 07/03/18 06:43 PM
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Originally Posted By: Vern1
Happy that you figured it out!

That's the main reason anytime I buy parts, I disassemble and check them before adding to the rest assembly.
I have bought and seen assembled uppers bought by friends from different manufacturers with various problems.
Seems like loose barren nut is the worst, followed by gas blocks that are sorta in the neighborhood of the hole in barrel.

If you buy "parts" you are responsible for assembly problems.


Vern - You're so right on many points you make, the above being two of the most important that I overlooked

Firstly I bought into the "quality" of Toolcraft's standing as an industry supplier for many OEMs and reading recent reviews of the "value" for the price and just flat out made the assumption that the BCG was good to go. I guess what I'm saying is that I didn't inspect this part as I did on the barrel nut fit and installation, gas block, and lower parts kit

Then when problems surfaced I defaulted to being confident in my abilities as an assembler and ran back in my mind the many dozens of times I've built, tweaked, modified, and reassembled previous builds and couldn't accept the "responsibility" that I didn't check the BCG so I made stabs at other areas as being the problem.

Well again it was a journey and a learning moment by the end but your insight is spot on.


Originally Posted By: Gwood88
My aero precision BCG has the same internals in the extractor. No issues though. It definitely was VERY tight when it got it. After some shooting the extractor tension has loosened up and works perfectly. For how hard that charging handle can be to pull back sometimes (compared to an AR15) I am it is as strong as it is.


I actually believe that Toolcraft designed their BCG with the two O-rings and internal spring versus a plastic insert inside of the larger extractor spring. AR-10s have a history of exhibiting extraction issues and sometimes you'll read of folks adding the single oring to the base (larger) spring and it solving the problem. Unfortunately I think they took this concept and went way out of the way to improve the design when there wasn't a problem to begin with...


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Re: Troubleshooting my AR10 (308) and what I discovered [Re: Pig_Popper] #7229017 07/19/18 03:09 AM
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August 2018 - Shooting Illustrated Page 68





This is exactly what I was having issues with...


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