Locked up AR 7.62x39

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45aber

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Northwest Oklahoma
I bought a 7.62x39 AR on gunbroker.com and got it from my FFL yesterday. It has a new Stag lower and a used Bushmaster upper. The seller said it would shoot steal case ammo fine except for Russian hollow points. I shot five rounds of soft point Romanian and it worked fine. I tried five rounds of Russian hollow point and it jammed on the third round. The bolt ran over the top of the round. I shook out that round and it fired the next two ok. I thought, that's alright I have plenty of soft point ammo and a SKS that loves hollow points.
Today I loaded up the 30 round mag with a box of Romanian soft points and it failed to fire on round fourteen. The bolt carrier was about 1/4 inch from being all the way forward. The forward assist would not move it and the charge handle would not pull it back. It is stuck solid with a live round in the chamber. The selector will not move to safe and the upper won't separate from the lower. I sprayed WD 40 all over the bolt carrier and it will not move forward or backward.
I need suggestions. I emailed the seller and have not received a reply. This is my first AR. HELP.
 
hinge open the upper so the firing pin/hammer won't strike the live round, take a long cleaning rod romove any tip you have on it shove it down the barrel keep hammering the handle of the cleaning rod with your hand and hopefully will push the stuck round out. it sounds like the ammo you are using is out of spec
 
either the rounds aren't shouldered correctly on the brass or the bullets are oversized to be getting stuck in the barrel like that... or worse the barrel might not be headspaced correctly
 
If the bolt isn't closed all the way, the lower and upper won't separate - It sounds like either an out of spec chamber or out of spec ammo.
 
hopefully it's out of spec ammo... when you think of quality ammo "russian" isn't at the top of the list it's the same with chinese/korean ammo....
 
what if he took both takedown pins out
Click to expand...
It still won't separate because the bolt carrier is stuck inside the buffer tube.
maybe the bolt retainer pin slid out
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Not unless the firing pin is missing.

Do this:
1. Keep your head clear of the muzzle.
2. Collapse the stock.
3. Pull on the charging handle and slam the butt on the ground hard.
4. Bolt carrier inertia when the butt hits the ground should pop it out.

rc
 
I guess the WD 40 finally soaked in. I held it with my knees, muzzle on the floor and pulled the release side of the charging handle while pounding with a rubber hammer on the other side of the charging handle. After about ten whacks it moved a little then I just pulled it back and ejected the round. Whew. I'm going to clean every thing real good and try this again. I hate when stuff like this happens.
 
45aber said:
I guess the WD 40 finally soaked in. I held it with my knees, muzzle on the floor and pulled the release side of the charging handle while pounding with a rubber hammer on the other side of the charging handle. After about ten whacks it moved a little then I just pulled it back and ejected the round. Whew. I'm going to clean every thing real good and try this again. I hate when stuff like this happens.
Click to expand...
Might want to be sure you didn't warp, crack, twist or otherwise damage the charging handle and/or the bolt carrier/gas key.

The preferred method is as rc suggested, thumping the butt of the gun on the ground.
 
Each and every event is competely different and could be cause by several things. Myself, I had a problem with my AR while trying to use TulaAmmo .223. Three rounds and it was sticking, 4th and 5th rd locked up with the 5th requiring a cleaning rod down the bore. Turns out the ammo was so dirty and steel case didn't expand to seal chamber. Cleaned weapon with bore brush, loaded up two 30 rd mags with 5.56 Lake City ammo and never had another issue.
 
" I " can only use steel cased ammo in my CMMG rifle with m4 feedramps, I have a LMT and a Sig and they won't run them for nothing.
 
45aber, take note of the method described by rcmodel. Some refer to this as mortaring the rifle. Just take special note of the part about collapsing the stock before you do this. Stuck cases are nothing new and you should never go hammering on parts of your rifle. Well, almost never, anyway.

In any case, take note of the ammo that gave you trouble. I'd ask the guy that you bought it from what brand of ammo he was running. As mentioned, all steel cased ammo is not create equally.
 
For future reference, if a spent case (or live round) is truly stuck in the chamber, "mortaring" it might just result in the extractor ripping a chunk out of the case rim, and the stuckage will still be stuck.

In that case, remove the top bolt from the buttplate.
That gets the stock off.

Then remove the castle nut from the buffer tube.
That will allow you to unscrew the buffer tube.

When you remove the castle nut and the buffer tube, you will free two springs and and two detents.
Don't lose them. They aren't "extra parts," and they need to go back where they came from when you put the rifle back together.

With the buffer tube removed, you can remove the bolt carrier though the rear of the receiver, and you will only then be able to separate the upper and lower assemblies of the rifle.

Most likely you will now have an upper receiver assembly with a stuck spent case in the chamber.
You can drive the spent case out of the chamber with a cleaning rod.

In the unlikely event that you really have a live round stuck in the chamber, it too can be driven out with a rod. But you better take precautions for what could happen if your hammering happens to cause the round to discharge. You don't want to be in front of, or behind, the barrel when that happens.
 
... and this is why the forward assist is useless.

Glad you cleared it.
 
DO NOT POUND ON LIVE AMMO IN THE BARREL!! Ill tell you a little story about what happened to me. It was the scariest loading incident i ever had. I was loading 223 for a mini 14. I loaded about a thousand rounds and they wouldnt chamber reliably. I got the brilliant idea to run the loaded rounds through a small base sizer with the decapping rod taken out. It worked great. Id lube and run about 20 or 30 through and would start to get dents in the case and would try to sneak one or two through unlubed. I got caught with stuck cases a couple times. No way to use a stuck case remover on a loaded round so i got the brilliant idea id take a rod and knock the case out. It worked well twice and i kept going. Got another one stuck and took the rod put it in and gave it a smack with the hammer. THE ROUND WENT OFF!! It shot the rod i was using right up through the pole barn roof and i never found it. The base of the case ruptured and imbedded a piece of brass in my hand and luckily that was my only injury. It actually sprung the press which was a stout lyman orange crusher. I got looking around later on the internet and it seems i wasnt the fist one that had rounds go off due to just powder compression. Its happened to others trying to knock rounds out of chambers. DONT do it.
 
WardenWolf said:
Get a wooden block and hammer the charging handle back. That should get it open.
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Hammering on the charging handle can easily damage not only the charging handle, but also the gas key on the bolt carrier. It's possible that hammering on the charging handle could cause damage to the gas key, bolt carrier or charging handle that could make the problem worse rather than better.

While the OP got lucky this time, who's to say that the next time he does it, he doesn't snap the gas key off causing it to bind tightly to the charging handle and upper receiver causing a bulge or crack in the receiver or other damage rendering the firearm unsafe to fire?

Please don't give bad advice that can easily result in harm or damage to a firearm or the person shooting it.
 
You mean more harm than shooting bad ammo through it would do? I'm not talking using a sledgehammer here. A couple of good solid whacks is generally enough to get it open. What do you expect the gunsmith to do? When a firearm is completely locked up, and can't even be normally disassembled, there's very few options even a gunsmith has that don't involve potentially damaging something. He'd tell you the same thing I did. And considering it took 10 whacks with a hammer to open it up, I guarantee you hitting the butt on the floor wouldn't do it.
 
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WardenWolf said:
You mean more harm than shooting bad ammo through it would do? I'm not talking using a sledgehammer here. A couple of good solid whacks should be enough to get it open. What do you expect the gunsmith to do? When a firearm is completely locked up, and can't even be normally disassembled, there's very few options even a gunsmith has that don't involve potentially damaging something.
Click to expand...
"mortaring" the rifle (as rc described earlier in the thread) is the standard (and more or less safest) method of clearing this type of jam. It also doesn't put ANY strain on the gas key or charging handle (which is what we're trying to avoid). If the jam occurs in a rifle that doesn't have a properly staked gas key, there is a very real potential of damaging it to the point that requires replacing the entire bolt carrier. That's much more expensive than replacing a stock (in most cases).
 
Pounding on the thin aluminum charging handle with anything is bad advice.

Do what I said in post #8 and you will get the round out without bending, or more likely breaking the charge handle.

rc
 
I Had a similar experience with my AR months ago (Bolt Lock) so bad i had to unscrew the castle nut, remove the buffer tube and the bolt carrier group through the back of the receiver, that was the only way i could do it.
 
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