AR and bullet length

P

Pack_Wolf

New member
Does anyone seat the bullet touching the lands for an AR?
Will the oal be too long for the mag?
Standard factory ammo has to be made to feed in all rifles, but can you taylor make ammo for your own AR so that it will shoot well and feed too?

Thanks

Pack
 
The oal will be too long for the magazine. This is by design. Loading to the lands is not done with a repeating feed gun due to the possibility of the bolt "slamming" and/or jamming the bullet into the rifling. Bullets are shot single fire loaded to the lands. Magazines faces can be cut out to allow slightly longer bullets. Shooters seeking a high degree of accuracy reload to control headspace and neck tension. Caution! Some folks strongly advise against hand loading. See Fulton Armory info.
Armalite's warranty is voided if using handloads.
 
I did have a hand load that I used in my AR using Barnes VLC bullets that would fit in my mag, cycle reliably and would stick in the lands of mine (DPMS) and a friends(Bushy Varminter) AR. They would stick bad enough that sometimes when trying to eject a live round, the bolt would be extreemly hard to open, the bullet would remain stuck in the barrel and powder would be slung every where when it finally did come loose. They also shot extreemly well.
 
CS can't see how that could be possible considering the long lead length of the 5.56 chambers. but guess its possible.
never had a bullet loaded to max mag length stick in my wylde chamber and its lead is not as long as a 5.56
JS
 
Dont ask me how, but it did. Here is the load in question.
50gr barnes vlc 28gr BLC-2 powder OAL 2.255(actually , I think we were just a tad over this, and was measured from tip of bullet to bottom of case)) Case length 1.750

I would sometimes have to use 2 hands to open the bolt on an unfired round. This was on a DPMS upper and a BM Varminter upper
 
Lance, sounds like your headspace on the brass was not back far enough sticking the bolt. I seat AR .223 ammo at 2.250 and some can go 2.260 in the mag. Like RR, all bullets could be seated way out from that if I single loaded them. This is what we do with the 80 gr Sierra match bullets. They are way over mag length. Something funny about that combo.
 
Quote:
Lance, sounds like your headspace on the brass was not back far enough sticking the bolt.



Steve, if there is one person i look to about loading and shooting it's you . How owuld the situation you described above cause the bullet to be pulled from t he case on removal and left lodged in the barrel?
 
Lance, that is a good question. I have seen this before with the bolt hard to open. It was cured by pushing the headspace back slightly. If the bullet was a coated one, it may have got shoved into the lands as the shoulder of the brass hit the chamber hard when chambered. Kinda like how a bullet puller works. Then, as the bolt/brass was opened, it pulled the brass out leaving the bullet. Barnes bullets are longer than standard ones. This is why I think they do not show excellent accuracy in a majority of rifles. I believe they need to be shot from a faster twist than normal as their length resembles that of a match bullet.
 
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