Galil stovepiping like crazy

[PILMAN]

I have a Galil that I had built through a gunsmith which is on a ORF receiver, and I've been getting stovepipes like crazy, mainly on brass cased ammo.

About a month ago, took the rifle out for the first time and I used a 35 round steel South African magazine, had nothing but problems but I think it was the spring.

I used orlite magazines with wolf steel cased ammo and I had no problems at all though it was a bit dirty.

When I started using brass cased ammo, I was getting stovepipes like crazy and sometimes double feeds.

I figured maybe the rifle had to be cleaned out a bit. Took it to the range about 2 weeks ago and rapid fired, every 5 rounds, I was getting a stovepipe on the brass cased stuff and it even ripped one case in half. It was some Serbian surplus ammo if I remember.

I loaded 18 rounds of Wolf and it didn't stovepipe even once.

I'm not sure what the issue is, my builder thinks the cases are bouncing off the bolt carrier or something. Someone else said my ejector may be burred.

He wants me to send it back to him, don't have the money for shipping yet but any idea what could be causing this?

 

[PTK]

Edited.

 

[PILMAN]

Ok I asked for suggestions on what could be causing this, not criticism of the manufacturer. Thanks.

 

[Trempel]

My guess is the ammo. If Wolf works in both the plastic Orlites and the steel SA mags, then it rules out a problem with a rifle or the mags. Buy a different brand of ammo and give it a try.

 

[Bwana John]

OK then,
My first suggestion as to what is causing it is the out of spec receiver (even if thats not what you want to hear).

How do the bolt lugs seat, evenly?
Is the ejector starting to mushroom?

Kind of hard to build a good rifle when the receiver is FUBAR to start with.

 

[PILMAN]

The bolt lugs both contact the bolt as I can see on the wear pattern of the bolt, ejector is not mushrooming.

Headspace is fine as well.

 

[Evil Monkey]

You gotta do some systematic stuff here. Buy a box of winchester, remington, wolf, prvi partizan, silver bear, brown bear, etc, as well as that serbian surplus and see if you have problems with other ammo brands. If you have problems with only the serbian stuff, then maybe that's it.

If not, then it's probably gunsmith time. Something may be wrong with internal specs.

 

[strat81]

Sounds like a dirty chamber or bad ammo.

Hit the chamber with some brake cleaner and a bronze brush, followed by some Hoppes #9 and a bronze brush. It's possible that bullet sealant has gotten into the chamber.

 

[briansmithwins]

1st define the problem and collect data. Get a notebook and number your mags. Each time you have a malfunction write the type of malfunction down along with the ammo involved and the magazine number. Once you have a pattern you can try to solve the problem.

Randomly doing things to your rifle when you don't know if it's the ammo or mags is just wasting your time and money.

I'd use the information you're going to gather to rule out these things:

1) rifle not clean (ammo makes little difference, no pattern with mags)
2) gas piston welded to bolt carrier causing enough binding to slow bolt carrier down (ammo makes little difference, no pattern with mags)
3) gas system too leaky (ammo makes little difference, no pattern with mags)
4) incorrect receiver assembly (ammo makes little difference, no pattern with mags)
5) bolt carrier dragging on mags (ammo makes little difference, more FTEj with certain mags)

BSW