Help: jammed .204 Hornady and a broken charging handle

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bigndn

New member
What to do?

I was shooting this weekend and had a .204 V-max factory load from Hornady jam in my AR. I hit the forward assist 4-5 times with my hand and tried again. No bang. So I went the other route and tried to pull it out via the charging handle, which must have been defective, because it fractured at the neck.

So now I'm stuck. What to do? Forward assist more aggressively?
 
I'm not sure I'm following you.

Are you saying that it left the neck and bullet in the chamber, but you extracted the rest of the case? "fractured at the neck"
 
I think I'd remove the upper from the lower and see what's going on in the receiver area.

I'm assuming the upper will separate from the lower with the jammed round in place. I've never tried it.
 
Negative. The bullet and unfired brass are in the chamber, the charging handle fractured at the neck, or just above the latch.
 
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It's going to have to go into battery a bit more to pivot the upper open, or maybe I can pull both pins and lift it out front first. I'll check into that tonight.
 
What ever you do, don't shoot it if you do get the bolt closed. You have no way of knowing "why" the bolt won't close. Normally there is a good reason the bolt won't close, and that reason is also a good reason not to fire it.

If you broke the charging-handle, you must have been tapping on it with something to try and extract the brass. I have seen several break under theses circumstances, but never by simply pulling on them.

Without the charging-handle, it's going to be real tough to get apart. You may want to try this:

Remove the magazine, roll the rifle up-side down and look into the magazine-well. If the bolt is not locked-up, you should be able to see the front of the carrier. Take a LARGE flat-bladed screw driver, put the blade between the carrier and the front of the magazine-well and rotate the screw-driver. This should force the bolt/carrier open. If you are not able to do this, take it to a gunsmith.
 
Yes, I was tapping on the charging handle, but given it's location, it's really difficult to give it a whack of any real substance.

I'll take a look at your recommendation with the screwdriver. I may have to borrow a bigger one than I currently have. Thanks for the recommendation.
 
Keeping the muzzle away from you,, or any other potentially dangerous area, hold the rifle out, away from your body and slam it down on a hard surface, on the butt, with the muzzle straight up....Usually, the inertia will pop the bolt open and allow the cartridge to extract...When doing this, keep the ejection port away from your body....

A concrete shooting bench, or similar type table that is really sturdy is the easiest place, or kneel down and do it on a concrete surface..but you have to us a sharp downward force...

It's a potentially dangerous action, of mild proportions, but it has worked in the past. Once in a while a similar situation has occurred as some competitions where the chamber gets dirty enough to cause a stuck cartridge in a non-firing position...
 
OldTurtle, I did exactly that, numerous times. This method, while slightly dangerous, has always worked for me prior to this experience.
 
In that case, I'd take DTech's recommendation and take it to a smith that is well versed with ARs, if one is in the area...I'm lucky, as I have three that are within a couple of hours of me..
 
Sweet! Some RemOil down the pipe, about 15 minutes, and a light tap on the FA sent it right in. The lower pivoted out and I soaked the front of the BCG. I didn't have time to mess with it any more than that. It's progress!!! Tonight I'll see about getting the BCG out.
 
Well, I got the BCG worked back enough to get the spent casing out. That's right, just the brass with dimpled primer. Surprisingly, the bolt didn't come out easily after that. I really had to work at it. When I did get it out, another primer fell onto my bench. That's what was jamming it up. So my theory is that the primer is from the previous shot, which cycled the action and somehow that primer got wedged between the BCG and the upper receiver wall. When I fired again, it partially cycled the action, but bound up the primer.

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After finding this, I went and checked all my other .204 brass from that shoot, thankfully there was only about 25, but there were 3 with the primers blown out.

I'll be sending Hornady an email today with the lot numbers and some pictures. I'll let you know what happens.

After cleaning up the bolt, I compared it to the other ARs I have and it appears to be undamaged. No burrs, scratches, etc, and the upper reciever wall looks fine, too. All 3 bolts slide into the action just fine. Anything else I should check?
 
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Hornady 32 gr V-MAX Lot #3080273. Barrel is 20" 1-12 twist, mfg unknown. The barrel has "204 Ruger 1-12" marked on it. There were no other markings that I saw.

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Originally Posted By: bigndnWhat to do?

I hit the forward assist 4-5 times with my hand and tried again.
?
In the future pretend that forward assist is not there.
 
your welcome...glad you didn`t take it wrong, but I learned the hard way too. Under most circumstances I think that assist is only going to make the situation(jam)worse.Perhaps in the heat of battle, as a last ditch effort,one could strike it against a solid object?
 


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