Carbine class equipment problems

[SuperSet]

I saw this on ARFCOM and thought 'that class must have been really annoying'.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_118/586609_Weekend_carbine_class_observations.html&page=1

"Had a carbine class this last weekend with Louis Awerbuck.


19 shooters. All but 5 running Ar15's. I ran a G3 clone, there was an M1a, a Scar 16, Sig 556 and a Wasr Ak.


First, most of these folks were experienced shooters. Many had been to multiple courses under different instructors. Gear quality was EXCELLENT across the board- Pmags out the ***, only two guys shooting steel cased ammo (neither of them, shooting Bushmasters, had any issues that I saw) lots of Aimpoints in evidence. One Eotech XPS- more about that later...The cheapest gun on the line was probably a couple of Bushmasters and ranged all the way up to a couple of BCM's, a Wilson Combat, a Les Baer, a Noveske (with a Short Dot on it!) etc......

The course was a fairly low volume fire affair- 400-500 rounds over three days.

We had numerous problems and I was NOT impressed with several guns.



BCM- I know the guy that shoots this gun- he is meticulous. It is a BCM factory rifle through and through, no expense spared- Battle Comp, T1, Tan Pmags......shooting Federal xm193. Gun was properly lubed- this point was driven home REPEATEDLY. Gun choked several times and had to be pogo sticked open- not cool.

Les Baer Police Special, also choked repeatedly- this is a ****ing $1,700 rifle! Pmags, shooter was using Remington UMC brass cased ammo. Rifle had to have it's bolt pried to the rear several times to open it. Gun was dripping with lube.

Bushmaster- this gun has been used for several courses- it has many rounds on it and was being shot by an instructor and an excellent shooter. There was some issue with the rear action pin spring- We were going to replace the spring on the range as several people had spare parts kits BUT the stock nut was peened in place and without a magwell block it couldn't be torqued off to access the hole. I wish I knew more about it........

Another Bushmaster AR- when fired at 100 yards was dead on with the large apeture. Flipping to the small apeture caused the point of impact to shift over 7 inches higher in elevation.

Rock River, repeatedly short stroked. Rifle was being fed out of Pmags with Aguila ammo. I am not sure which model of RR it was but it was a higher end gun- fluted stainless steel barrel, more rail on it than Burlington Northern has etc....Guy said it was a factory gun....didn't know that shooter.

There were a couple of other issues with the AR shooters but on a line while you are trying to shoot your own targets etc....it's not always clear what was going on. Most of the guns ran....ok I suppose. Generally, people were using what I would consider GOOD equipment, good, brass cased ammo, again lots of PMAGS and they were almost all of them lubing at lunch every day from what I saw- SLIP, CLP...dunno what else but they were lubing. What I have reported I witnessed personally.

I had not a single round fail to fire or extract or any other issue..... I was shooting mid 1970's Argentine milsurp that was sold as "tarnished" by Century about 15 years ago. Iron sights......

M1a shooter was a friend of mine.Rifle was a Socom with a Vortex on it, CMI newish 20 rounders. Not one failure of any kind. He as shooting mildly corroded Men and Dag ammo that was recently imported.

Scar shooter had no issues at all. It just ran.

Ak shooter. Had MANY issues, he got a lemon of a gun as far as I could tell-Century WASR 10/63. The magwell was too tight and showed evidence of having been dremeled. It would not accept several different types of AK mags and the ones it did you could see the scratch marks on the sides of the mag. He was initially shooting Yugoslav corrosive, brass cased ammo. The rifle short stroked.... Thought the issues might be ammo related (I told him HIGHLY unlikely) he switched to some Barnaul after a heavy cleaning of the rifle and some new mags that fit the magwell better ( Polish )- rifle ran for the next two days with only one or two minor bobbles.

Eotech XPS. Zeroed fine at 25 yards. Then we moved back to 100 to verify the zero. The sight would NOT respond to corrections. They dialed in 20 clicks of elevation and it did not track them at all. The impacts NEVER moved... Not real impressed by that!


Long story short....I really, really like my G3!!!! Its a Greek Springfield SAR 3, gave $800 for it 20 years ago....... It goes BANG every time, even with ****ty ammo.....I never lubed it, never cleaned it and the newest mag I was running was a 1968 HK German military surplus mag that I bought for $2 from RTG as a "rusty" mag deal mag......It just worked, not bad for a 50 year old design that has never been "updated"."

[BMWguy206]

Thanks for the range report on these rifles going down. I find them very interesting and important because there's always a small remote chance that it can happen to any of us. Very disappointing to hear the high end brand names going down but S%IT happens.

I hope these guys fix the problem.

[Stan08]

I always have a spare rifle in class...and often it gets used.

[zombiescanlearn]

I've been lucky, the only problems I have ever had with my guns were always operator's error

[Kempfer]

In this course it seemed like there were a good handful that never shot their safe queens before. Sounds like all but one of those problems would have been spotted by tossing a couple hundred rounds down range.

Another Bushmaster AR- when fired at 100 yards was dead on with the large apeture. Flipping to the small apeture caused the point of impact to shift over 7 inches higher in elevation.

This one made me crack a smile. Come on now!

[MXRider]

In this course it seemed like there were a good handful that never shot their safe queens before. Sounds like all but one of those problems would have been spotted by tossing a couple hundred rounds down range.

Exactly. ^^

A training class isn't the environment to see if your new gear works. You do that before the class that way you can learn from the instructor(s). I would be pissed if I paid for a class and others people gear failing them held up the class and the information being taught.

[zombiescanlearn]

Exactly. ^^

A training class isn't the environment to see if your new gear works. You do that before the class that way you can learn from the instructor(s). I would be pissed if I paid for a class and others people gear failing them held up the class and the information being taught.

That's why I always bring two guns. If anything goes wrong, you won't slow the class down.

[The Virus]

In this course it seemed like there were a good handful that never shot their safe queens before. Sounds like all but one of those problems would have been spotted by tossing a couple hundred rounds down range.



This one made me crack a smile. Come on now!

Happens ALL the time. All kinds of crap stuck on rails everywhere, configured all wrong.

No substitute for experience.

[OutlawDon]

One word...

K.I.S.S.

[9mmepiphany]

I had not a single round fail to fire or extract or any other issue..... I was shooting mid 1970's Argentine milsurp that was sold as "tarnished" by Century about 15 years ago. Iron sights......

Long story short....I really, really like my G3!!!! Its a Greek Springfield SAR 3, gave $800 for it 20 years ago

...It just worked, not bad for a 50 year old design that has never been "updated"."

I thought this was funny.

Roller delayed actions always extract, they are also self adjusting to the pressure of the cartridge as the action timing is based on the recoil impulse imparted to roller through the breach piece.

The 5.56x45mm H&K 93 is just as reliable

[Roecar]

A training class isn't the environment to see if your new gear works. You do that before the class that way you can learn from the instructor(s). I would be pissed if I paid for a class and others people gear failing them held up the class and the information being taught.

^^1000% this^^

That sucks... it's a bummer to go to a class and experience failures like that, but it's a good way to learn how to clear them.

I ran my WASR at a recent class and dumped close to 700rds with Bulgy, Chinese, and Russian mags with zero problems. I even used dirty M67. I have an Aimpoint T-1, Scoutlight, rails, and a TangoDown stubby bolted onto it. Zero problems. I even added a Solar Tactical magwell adapter, still zero problems. Prior to the class I dumped close to 2500rds through my WASR in two other classes and time spent at the range. It's more of inexperienced shooters than "bad" guns.

Looks like a mix of inexperience in maintenance and weapon usage.

[G-forceJunkie]

In this course it seemed like there were a good handful that never shot their safe queens before. Sounds like all but one of those problems would have been spotted by tossing a couple hundred rounds down range.



This one made me crack a smile. Come on now!

Interesting. The POI should change, there is about 2 1/2 moa difference between the two holes. Perhaps the rest of the 7" differance is due to the difficulty to get an accurate site picture with the big hole. Its typical for a good shooters groups to open up 50% or more between the big and small hole.

[vintagearms]

BCM- I know the guy that shoots this gun- he is meticulous. It is a BCM factory rifle through and through, no expense spared- Battle Comp, T1, Tan Pmags......shooting Federal xm193. Gun was properly lubed- this point was driven home REPEATEDLY. Gun choked several times and had to be pogo sticked open- not cool.



Eotech XPS. Zeroed fine at 25 yards. Then we moved back to 100 to verify the zero. The sight would NOT respond to corrections. They dialed in 20 clicks of elevation and it did not track them at all. The impacts NEVER moved... Not real impressed by that!

Im wondering if the BCM shooter tried the alum mag it was designed for, if he would have still had issues.

On the EOtech- this is a COMMON issue with these. Eotech is good about repairing them but would not want to be in a class/RL situation with this issue. Thats why I ditched my EOtechs for an Aimpoint PRO.

[Kempfer]

Interesting. The POI should change, there is about 2 1/2 moa difference between the two holes. Perhaps the rest of the 7" differance is due to the difficulty to get an accurate site picture with the big hole. Its typical for a good shooters groups to open up 505 or more between the big and small hole.

Not sure what 505 is but in a perfect world 3" or so I think. Somehow this was missed in the class and the student(s) left without this knowledge. Also the guy writing the review thought this was a malfunction in the equipment I wonder if that is what the rest of the students thought as well..

Im wondering if the BCM shooter tried the alum mag it was designed for, if he would have still had issues.

I'm not sure if mags would actually make the gun malfunction in a way it had to be pogo sticked. Sounds more like .223 chambered eating 5.56 or since the guy was a no expenses spared guy he might have gone with a McFarland gas ring. I know on one of my guns I had to wear it down before it cycled reliably.

[Caseless]

That's why I always bring two guns. If anything goes wrong, you won't slow the class down.

+1.

AKs...none of the AKs on the civilian market has 100% OEM parts after conversion because of 922R.
It's like buying and shooting a U.S. made AR-15 with some Russian/Romanian parts in it.