Master of the Bushmaster....

[Bartholomew Roberts]

What's your basis for claiming that the steel cases don't expand, and that this causes carbon buildup?

Steel cases still expand, they just don't expand as much as brass cases. Take a borescope and look at the chamber walls sometime after you run Wolf through an AR. Then clean the chamber and run brass cased rounds through it for comparison. I can't say with certainty that the cause is the steel casing; maybe Wolf is so horrendously dirty it can cause a baked-on carbon deposit on the chamber itself. Considering that it happens regardless of whether you use polymer or lacquered Wolf in an AR though, I kind of suspect an issue with the different expansion properties of steel vs. brass in that scenario.

It would also explain why Wolf is so woefully inaccurate and low-powered even out of ARs - if the expanding case isn't sealing the chamber end well, then there is part of the explanation for lost velocity and accuracy.

 

[swingset]

Chasing Wolf in this scenario is wrong-headed. He's having feeding issues. Wolf causes, if the gun doesn't like it, extraction and ejection problems (or sometimes short-stroking).

Feeding issues are usually magazine related.

Is your friend using a good, USGI aluminum magazine? If not, don't keep trying to figure this out until you get one. Cheap aftermarket and even some factory mags are notoriously CRAP.

Once you have a good mag, cycle the action by hand, slowly and see if you can recreate the problem. If you can, watch closely what is going on when the round jams.

If it's only happening on gas-cycle and not by hand, then look towards the bolt/carrier/buffer for something not causing good feeding. Check the carrier key, gas rings (Alignment doesn't usually affect anything, contrary to popular belief, but a broken ring does), pull out the spring and buffer from the tube and make sure nothing is binding or out of whack there.