FAL case failures

[markthenewf]

Something amiss going on here...

Took my ~3 year old DSA 18" FAL to range today and I had two sets of case failures: first one was Armscor and the second was Tula. Here they are.... sorta... the Tula round is still stuck in the barrel! I can't get it out with my shell extractor.


The first happened after perhaps a dozen shots. The Armscor one wasn't a big deal as it did shoot and I was able to easily extract the case. There doesn't appear to be any overpressure indicators on the primer or anything, so it's just a basic brass issue.

The failure seems to have occurred on extraction, not during firing, since everything cycled and nothing blew out the chamber or down in the mag. I continued to shoot the remaining 20-odd rounds from the same batch without issue. Again, no further signs of any case damage or overpressures.

The second happened after less than 10 shots and it was fairly violent. The thing spit a bunch of crud out the ejection port and the mag blew out of the bottom. You can see how the metal is bowed out under the pressure.

Now this one shows overpressure signs, including additional cracked cases and bulging primers. This image shows the extracted bottom of the case that's still in the rifle and the case next to it shows the cracked case and primer pushing out.


Anyways, nobody injured 'cept my FAL pride and now I'm going to have to bring the upper somewhere to get the case extracted as my regular methods don't work.

Here's the thing: I could understand one of these happening, but both within 20 minutes of each other? Am I that unlucky? I clean the rifle after every outing and the gas has been set where it is since the day I first shot it: just enough to extract WWB+2 clicks. I think it's between 3 and 4 on the setting. Additionally, it was shooting rather erraticaly. I couldn't get a sensible group out of 5 shots. Perhaps 2 would be about 1.5MOA, then everything would go crazy. I haven't had any issues like this before, so am I possibly looking at a problem with my upper? Perhaps something with the chamber? Other than some basic mods (grip, rail, etc.), I've not changed much and certainly not anything that would be related to this. I'm at a loss. :

[Beiruty]

You need a good gunsmith to diagnose and fix your rifle. I believe too much gas is pushed back and recycling is to powerful.

[DocV]

The brass case has a Lake City headstamp (LC). If this was the Armscor ammo it was a reload. I usually think that such separations are the result of resizing the case too often causing the case to thin near the web.
Having the bottom blow out of the magazine is alarming. I am glad you were not injured!

I am curious about when you obtained this ammo. Was it acquired during the recent 'ammo shortage' by any chance?

[ammoboy2]

It sure appears to be excessive headspace. I say that because you said armcor for the first one, but the picture shows the LC case head. That could be still excessive headspace or a reloaded case with about 5 reloads through it, with the resulting case thinning at the base as previously described. WIll probably need to use a cleaning rod to get it out.

[MoJo]

You need to have the headspace checked. Case separations like these can be caused by excessive headspace, high pressure, bad cases or a combination of factors.

The bulk of military 7.62 once fired brass has been fired in machine guns resulting in the case stretching and when reloaded case failures. I would avoid reloaded .308 ammo using GI brass.

eta. The silver primer is a dead giveaway the ammo is reloaded. It's also flatter than
I like to see and, there is flow of the primer cup into the firing pin hole both signs of higher pressure or excessive headspace. Please, don't shoot this rifle again until you have it thoroughly checked by a competent gunsmith and/or, send it back to the manufacturer.

[The Annoyed Man]

FWIW, there are very few commercially reloaded products I'll buy. Black Hills is one of them. Their blue box ammo is all remanufactured. It isn't cheap cheap, but it is cheaper than their red box products. On the Tula ammo you were using, does it have varnished cases? I've seen a number of AR15s disabled this way shooting that kind of Rooskie-import ammo with varnished cases. As the chamber heats up, the varnish on the cases eventually sticks to the chamber. As it builds up, it causes difficulty extracting, eventually building up to the point at which it won't extract. That's when the case heads tear off, leaving the case in the chamber and often a bullet stuck in the bore.

You said you had already fired 30 rounds when the catastrophic failure occurred. 30 rounds of .308 will generate quite a bit of heat, and add to that the heat of the weather so the barrel/chamber wasn't really getting a chance to cool off, and you've certainly got the potential for a failure like that. The bullet may be stuck in the bore simply because enough of the charge blew out down the magwell that there wasn't enough pressure to drive the bullet out the muzzle.

I would certainly have the headspace checked as a precaution, as others have suggested, but if your ammo is varnished, I'd lay the blame there as the most likely cause. If it isn't varnished, then yeah, the headspacing is probably off.

[markthenewf]

You need a good gunsmith to diagnose and fix your rifle. I believe too much gas is pushed back and recycling is to powerful.

That was my first thought but..... the rounds I was shooting prior to that all landed with little plink perhaps 4 feet from me. When the gas is too high the ejection tosses them waaayyy off in the distance.

[markthenewf]

The brass case has a Lake City headstamp (LC). If this was the Armscor ammo it was a reload. I usually think that such separations are the result of resizing the case too often causing the case to thin near the web.
Having the bottom blow out of the magazine is alarming. I am glad you were not injured!

I am curious about when you obtained this ammo. Was it acquired during the recent 'ammo shortage' by any chance?

It does not say anything about what type of ammo it is on the box, but I'm guessing it is some sort of reload. Anyways, the rifle system worked as far as I'm concernted. It blew any concussion and stuff out the ejection port and down the mag away from me! Bit rot that it ruined one of my good Austrian surplus mags.

I think I may have gotten it during the shortage, but moreso because my reloading setup was in boxes due to a recent move not because I was desperate for ammo. I recall ordering it and looking at the headstamp and thinking "Hey, it's Lake City.... must be good stuff"!

[markthenewf]

You need to have the headspace checked. Case separations like these can be caused by excessive headspace, high pressure, bad cases or a combination of factors.

The bulk of military 7.62 once fired brass has been fired in machine guns resulting in the case stretching and when reloaded case failures. I would avoid reloaded .308 ammo using GI brass.

eta. The silver primer is a dead giveaway the ammo is reloaded. It's also flatter than
I like to see and, there is flow of the primer cup into the firing pin hole both signs of higher pressure or excessive headspace. Please, don't shoot this rifle again until you have it thoroughly checked by a competent gunsmith and/or, send it back to the manufacturer.

I hear ya. 80% of the brass I have is mine; either WWB or Remington fired by me in once owned rifles. I did get a few hundred of LC brass cases from a reputable guy who said these were not machine gun fired... but I could have some of that stuff at a discount if I wanted!

Not so sure about the primer cratering. I'll have to look at other casings from the FAL and see what they look like.

I do have some go/no go guages, but I can't recall if they're 762 or 308. I just built a reloading room and am still unpacking. Either way, I'll get it checked out.

[markthenewf]

It could possibly be a headspacing issue or just bad luck in ammo with weak cases, causing case-head separation - if it's a DSA-built rifle, I would tend to err towards the latter.

Squirt some penetrating oil down there, let it sit an hour or two and run a regular 30-cal bronze cleaning brush through it - try first from the chamber side, then from the muzzle side.

Edit:

1. If you decide to get the headspace checked, make sure they remove the extractor first from the bolt.

2. Check any of that brass-cased ammo for a bright ring down towards the case-head - it's a sign of a thinning area, so that ammo should be rejected.

Can't find my oil (Reference above where everything is in boxes/transit!), so I just said to heck with it and dropped it off at a shop this afternoon. Hopefully they'll get around to it this week. Speaking of which, here it is about 2/3 up and running. Giggity.


If I can find my go/no go guages and confirm they're 308 or 736, this'll be an opportune time for me to take apart my bolt for the first time and give 'er a good scrubbing!

I have the brass segreated so I think I'll go ahead and tumble a few cases and see if that tell-tale banding/ring is there.

[Silent Professional]

Methinks it was shitty ammo. Sometimes, cheap ammo is not such a bargain if it blows up your favorite bang stick. I avoid steel cased ammo like the plague, unless it's been zinc plated like MFS or Hornady. I will not let anything resembling a varnished steel cased round anywhere near my weapons.

[markthenewf]

Thanks for all the input. I've ordered the 308 headspace guages and DSA extrator tool. I have the rifle out to a gunsmith to get the case out, but I hope to have it back by the weekend. I hoping that the guages will show ok, otherwise I suppose I need to figure out how to best size the locking shoulder with a 0.001 setback. I'm hoping that this is something I can do without specialized tools, but I'm glad that the replacement shoulders are fairly cheap.

If I can confirm the headspace is ok, I'll be writing both the steel-cased and brass-cased companies and letting them know the batch numbers.

[MoJo]

Methinks it was shitty ammo. Sometimes, cheap ammo is not such a bargain if it blows up your favorite bang stick. I avoid steel cased ammo like the plague, unless it's been zinc plated like MFS or Hornady. I will not let anything resembling a varnished steel cased round anywhere near my weapons.

Ummm - - - your choice of adjective describing the quality of the ammo is IMHO not 9 year old grandchild friendly. Please choose your words more carefully.