Out here in the wonderful place where AR's have to hide in plain sight, I have noticed an issue that when things were normal (bullet buttons only) I never experienced.

To whit, we now need a "disassembly" of a "fixed" 10 round magazine rifle to reload it. This is the genesis of the AR Maglock (somewhat like throwing a WW2 grenade, pull the pin first) and things such as the MA loader and Bear Flag loader (glorified stripper clips).

In the old days a chamber flag was all you needed to push the bullet button to drop the magazine in things like NRA or CMPicon matches during the rapid fire stage. The pointy end was used as the "tool" to push the Bullet Button. Now a legal rifle needs to have a muzzle brake instead of a flash hider (really we didn't learn from the SVT 38/40 or a Cutts compensator for excessive noise???), remove the pistol grip and put on a faux stock or put in a fixed non removable magazine if the evil features are retained.

I chose to keep it stock and put on a AR Maglock and use a MA loader to do the rapid fire reload because I hate muzzle brakes and and the "fin" stocks are not my cup of tea.

What has happened is that I was experiencing a rash of Fail to Fire and unable to extract events. At first I blamed it on my reloads being slightly out of spec (they're not BTW). I started to experiment and found that if I rode the bolt slowly home on a round (even a factory one) the bolt may not close all the way, leaving about 1/4" inch of space. At this point the charging handle is useless and the rifle must be "mortared" on the butt stock while holding the charging handle down to extract the offending round. If the same round is fed at full bolt speed, it can be extracted without any issues. My guess is that when the MA loader is used and not smartly smacked back after pushing in the rounds it mimics the phenomenon of a slow bolt closure. I can replicate this with any round. If it was chambered and ejected, and then I rode the bolt slowly using the same round, same thing: stuck round and drastic measures to clear the jam.

I know it is not the way Eugene Stoner designed this rifle but it is what it is. Why is the bolt sticking when slowed down but not when at "full speed" My only thought is that the geometry of the Cam Pin has something to do with it or possibly the partial engagement of the bolt lugs.

If anyone has an idea besides moving to a more AR friendly place it would be nice to hear from you.

Happy Holidays and my wife says my new hobby is getting a Covid-19 test a week (please people, can we just not hang out together in crowded places for a little while longer?).

All the best and Cheers!

Dave
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