Remington 223 won't cycle AR

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Went to the range today and a friend had trouble with his AR not cycling brand new factory Remington 223. We tried different mags, different brands of mags, Nada. Bolt wasn't coming back far enough and recoil and noise were light. Anyone ever have this happen? I'm just gonna pull the bullets and make new reloads out of the brass but still. Strange.

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Went to the range today and a friend had trouble with his AR not cycling brand new factory Remington 223. We tried different mags, different brands of mags, Nada. Bolt wasn't coming back far enough and recoil and noise were light. Anyone ever have this happen? I'm just gonna pull the bullets and make new reloads out of the brass but still. Strange.

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Other ammo was GTG?
 
Went to the range today and a friend had trouble with his AR not cycling brand new factory Remington 223. We tried different mags, different brands of mags, Nada. Bolt wasn't coming back far enough and recoil and noise were light. Anyone ever have this happen? I'm just gonna pull the bullets and make new reloads out of the brass but still. Strange.

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Remington / UMC .223 is pretty much garbage, I wouldn't be surprised if even shit like Wolf worked in that rifle where UMC doesn't.

-Mike
 
Went to the range today and a friend had trouble with his AR not cycling brand new factory Remington 223. We tried different mags, different brands of mags, Nada. Bolt wasn't coming back far enough and recoil and noise were light. Anyone ever have this happen? I'm just gonna pull the bullets and make new reloads out of the brass but still. Strange.

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What specific ammo was it?
I will agree UMC hands down has been the worst over all ammo in any cal for me.

What AR does he have.
I have run some very very light loads with 40
Grain bullets and only 20 grains of H4895 and functioned 100%
 
i have shot tons of UMC never with an issue. however i've never shot their .223 because haven't found the price to be all that great. as mentioned above, what was the bullet weight on this 223 UMC ammo you're firing?

OP if the gun cycles on everything except UMC then I would say you've answered the question. would contact remington and ask them to replace the ammo. they may already be aware of an issue with that lot #.
 
Upper custom build? Lower custom build? Alignment issue maybe with gas port on upper? Buffer and spring on lower?
 
i have shot tons of UMC never with an issue. however i've never shot their .223 because haven't found the price to be all that great. as mentioned above, what was the bullet weight on this 223 UMC ammo you're firing?

OP if the gun cycles on everything except UMC then I would say you've answered the question. would contact remington and ask them to replace the ammo. they may already be aware of an issue with that lot #.

I dont think the OP declared exactly what ammo did not work?
If I read the post correctly he mentioned UMC "garbage" working fine.

I have found if a AR is mil spec and has the correct buffer and spring its amazing how "low" a 223 can run and still cycle. I will be getting to cast bullets soon for my AR and will find out just how low you can go.
 
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It was UMC FMJ unknown weight. Loose rounds from partial boxes. It's an SOG AR from ten years ago that has eaten everything else. The garbage it ate was Russian and stuff like brown bear ammo etc.

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It was UMC FMJ unknown weight. Loose rounds from partial boxes. It's an SOG AR from ten years ago that has eaten everything else. The garbage it ate was Russian and stuff like brown bear ammo etc.

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are we even sure that was the original ammo from the box of UMC?
any how personally i have had more issues with UMC vs tula or other inexpensive ammo.
 
Yeah it was stuff he had leftover from multiple boxes from a value pack. I even mixed the Remington in with green tips, and brown bear steel cases and it was the Remington that would jam every time.

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In my experience Remington ammo, especially in the green/white box is very underpowered. That's not based on chrono or anything, just report and felt recoil. I had bought some of the 10mm stuff, felt like I was shooting 9mm.
 
In my experience Remington ammo, especially in the green/white box is very underpowered. That's not based on chrono or anything, just report and felt recoil. I had bought some of the 10mm stuff, felt like I was shooting 9mm.

Funny......their 357 mag in the green and white box is the hottest factory ammo I've ever found in 357 Magnum.
 
My buddy has a Ruger AR 556. It won't cycle federal american eagle .223 reliably. So he doesn't buy it.

what you have to think about is what are they basing the functionality of the AR "insert manufacture and model here" on. I had a a conversation with stag service once when I had a rifle not functioning 100%
It was a model H2 carbine. When I called CS the guy on the phone said in a simple blunt statement.
That carbine is built to mil spec standards run 5.65 NATO 62 grain 3100 fps ammo and standard magazine and see how it does if you have problems with mil spec NATO ammo and a GI mag call back and i will create a return label and send it out. Now that carbine runs great on any 55-62 grain ammo with a MV of 3000 fps ? sold that upper long ago so no more worries there

Now i have old school armorer who where around the M16 from day one to they retired who say they should run on "any" 223 ammo and 2 of them will tell you any mil spec AR that doesnt cycle and shoot steel cased ammo there is something wrong with your rilfe/carbine?

In the end buy what your gun likes and runs on and buy as much as possible. The next lot/batch might not be as good.
 
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what you have to think about is what are they basing the functionality of the AR "insert manufacture and model here" on. I had a a conversation with stag service once when I had a rifle not functioning 100%
It was a model H2 carbine. When I called CS the guy on the phone said in a simple blunt statement.
That carbine is built to mil spec standards run 5.65 NATO 62 grain 3100 fps ammo and standard magazine and see how it does if you have problems with mil spec NATO ammo and a GI mag call back and i will create a return label and send it out. Now that carbine runs great on any 55-62 grain ammo with a MV of 3000 fps ? sold that upper long ago so no more worries there

Now i have old school armorer who where around the M16 from day one to they retired who say they should run on "any" 223 ammo and 2 of them will tell you any mil spec AR that doesnt cycle and shoot steel cased ammo there is something wrong with your rilfe/carbine?

In the end buy what your gun likes and runs on and buy as much as possible. The next lot/batch might not be as good.

That was kind of my point.....just the abbreviated version.

Some semi autos just don't like certain types. And a 5.56 x 45 rifle not liking a certain brand of .223? Meh. Just don't buy that shit.
 
Funny......their 357 mag in the green and white box is the hottest factory ammo I've ever found in 357 Magnum.

The gal on the 357 assembly line is a baker by profession. She's used to filling the flour measure to over-flowing and then clearing the excess away with a knife edge. When she comes in to her other job at Lonoke, she tends to do the same thing with the 357 Magnum cases.
 
The gal on the 357 assembly line is a baker by profession. She's used to filling the flour measure to over-flowing and then clearing the excess away with a knife edge. When she comes in to her other job at Lonoke, she tends to do the same thing with the 357 Magnum cases.


I got some free ammo, and was informed that some were "hot". I broke them down, and as far as I could tell, the .458 Win Mags were compressed loads, from the amount of powder that filled the inertial puller. [laugh]

Later, I found out that the (deceased) maker of the ammo would determine acceptable pressure levels bu boosting charge weight until he had to use the shooting bench edge to open the bolt, and backing off, a bit. I will say that the reloaded 12 ga "Trap" loads were not skimpy on powder, based on boom and kick. But, for a buck a box......[laugh]
 
Funny......their 357 mag in the green and white box is the hottest factory ammo I've ever found in 357 Magnum.

Yea I don't know about the .357s, I don't shoot a lot of it and what I do shoot I make my own but I do know about the 10mm, Shoot a mag full of the Remington's and then a mag full of Sig's, huge difference.
 
Had that happen once with my bull barrel AR. I'd load a round and it would fire but wouldn't cycle the next round. Turned out the gas block loosened just enough to move off the hole in the barrel turning my AR into a single shot rifle.
 
Had that happen once with my bull barrel AR. I'd load a round and it would fire but wouldn't cycle the next round. Turned out the gas block loosened just enough to move off the hole in the barrel turning my AR into a single shot rifle.

This is often the case...mechanical vs ammo.
I run a reduced load of H4895 for a cast load in my 20" A2
 
I've found the Remington "value" pack .223 to be really under powered.

I've found Remington 9mm, .45acp and .223 all to be underpowered. The 9mm is almost a guaranteed runaway in an open bolt subgun. I bought two boxes of it years ago to test it out (it was cheap circa 2005). Loaded two mags and both ran away in an M11. No other ammo did that before or since. Fired the remaining box in a pistol and never touched another Remington manufactured round of ammo. Its dirtier than anything I've ever fired too.
 
Not AR, but two lots of Remington green box .270 Win ammo chronographed 200 fps below speed claimed on box and 300 fps below other brands I tested including Federal red box.

with out knowing how they tested them might be your variance. when i look at a lot of the reloading data its often labeled as tested from a barrel length and twist rate different from anything i have.
200fps lower or higher would not be to alarming for me but if your SD was way up there that would be a indicator of crap ammo.
I dont knwo why remington ammo is so off. I dont like any of their 22lr offerings(other than some military contract stuff from 1994) or the UMC stuff although the 55 grain soft point 223 in the yellow and green box has produced some of my best groups from my A2 out side of match ammo.?
 
I wouldn't shoot Remington ammo if it was free. It's overpriced and I've never had good luck in any caliber. I also wouldn't shoot .223 unless it was free, since it's just the under-powered sibling of 5.56 (assuming you have a 5.56 chamber).
 
I wouldn't shoot Remington ammo if it was free. It's overpriced and I've never had good luck in any caliber. I also wouldn't shoot .223 unless it was free, since it's just the under-powered sibling of 5.56 (assuming you have a 5.56 chamber).

I,won't argue if it's good or bad but the 55 grain hollow point remington green and yellow box 223 has a 3200fps velocity spec? That's right there with the M193
I will buy the cheapest Crap that cycles for range blasting and mil spec standards for a M4 A2 and looking for "hits on target" expectations.
 
I think the only Remington ammo I've tried that wasn't underpowered was their 125 gr JSP 357 mag and 180 gr JSP 44 mag.
 
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