Elander mags

[oyster]

Hi Everyone. Question about mags not "functioning". I've got two 17 rd and one 10 rd elander mags. Here recently I've had a few cases where I'd take a shot at a hog but the bcg would fail to pick up another round. I've also fed a mag, hit the bolt release and it wouldn't strip a round. It felt normal when I loaded the mags but after this would happen I'd start stripping rounds manually and you could hear the lower rounds lose and flopping around. When the mag is empty the follower seems to move fine up and down. It's a little frustrating when you make a good stalk on a group of pigs and only get one shot off cause you're fighting the gun after the first shot. Any other thing to check besides tearing down the mag completely. I've ran hundreds of rounds through these with no problem.
Thanks for any thoughts.
Jay

[A5BLASTER]

Tear it down and give it a good cleaning, check for spots where it might be hanging up things like that.

[LongPoke]

Hi Everyone. Question about mags not "functioning". I've got two 17 rd and one 10 rd elander mags. Here recently I've had a few cases where I'd take a shot at a hog but the bcg would fail to pick up another round. I've also fed a mag, hit the bolt release and it wouldn't strip a round. It felt normal when I loaded the mags but after this would happen I'd start stripping rounds manually and you could hear the lower rounds lose and flopping around. When the mag is empty the follower seems to move fine up and down. It's a little frustrating when you make a good stalk on a group of pigs and only get one shot off cause you're fighting the gun after the first shot. Any other thing to check besides tearing down the mag completely. I've ran hundreds of rounds through these with no problem.
Thanks for any thoughts.
Jay

Mine does the exact same thing. For the price you pay for these, it's annoying.

[A5BLASTER]

Mine does the exact same thing. For the price you pay for these, it's annoying.

You could just take the lil plate off the bottom of the mag and give it a good cleaning out and inspection to see if you can fix said issue.

Instead of cussing about it on the internet.

[Wanderson]

If you can hear rounds rattling around the follower isn’t coming up properly.
What ammo are you running? If reloads, what’s your OAL?
If the mag body is slightly dented it could allow the follower to move fine but bind on live rounds.
Some dry lube might help.
I always give my mags a light rap on a tabletop after loading, slap the back spine of the mag on a flat surface to get rounds as far back as possible so the nose won’t drag on the front of the mag. Tapered cartridges can shift forward easily and drag.

[oyster]

I'm running the AG ammo through them. I've taken the mags apart and everything seems to be working fine after reassembly, I'll try the dry lube. I just had one do this again.
Thanks
Jay

[c3k]

Edited to add: (I hope this doesn't count as a thread hijack. I'm running into Elander issues as well, but slightly different than the OP.)

I agree with the OP. I've got 6 Elander mags. Three are 17 rounders, the other three are 24 rd.

I am having a lot of issues with failures to feed. Some are bolt overruns (some of which totally miss any round, some of which push a round from the middle of the case so that it jams between the bolt face and the breech); most are nosedives.

After increasing my buffer weight, I've eliminated the overruns. Now, I am getting a lot of nosedives. The tip of the round points below the lip of the magazine.

To solve this, I've disassembled the mags and checked for smoothness. All good. I've loaded them and let them sit for a couple of weeks. I've grabbed a paint stir stick and rapidly jammed the follower to full compression and full extension over 200 times for each magazine. I've then reloaded and unloaded the mags.

At this point, I have some observations.

1. The 17 rounders seem far better than the 24 round magazines. The spring force on the 24 round magazines is impressive.

2. The base of the round (Hornady Black 123gr) will catch on the rear-most rib of the magazine when stripping them out by hand. I don't know if that has been an issue in the weapon. But, it is bad enough that I must twist the round to get it out if it catches. The ribs are deep and catch the rim and hold it solidly with the spring force. This is noted when I unload/strip by hand. (I'm doing this to find out what is going on with the ammo stacking/feeding issues.)

3. If one round nosedives (is nose down in the magazine) the next dozen or so will be as well. These rounds cannot be fed. They must be "fixed" and then stripped. This is VERY COMMON. I've loaded by hand, round by round, and using a Podavach loader. There is no difference in the occurrence of nose dives. Somehow, once the round is pushed down, its relative position shifts such that the tip gets pointed down. When it comes back up, it maintains that position and will strike, and get stuck against, the front face of the magazine.

I am new to the Grendel, but not new to the AR platform. I bought the Elander mags based on community reviews. If these are the best out there, I am not going to build/buy any more 6.5G firearms. The lack of reliability is a deal-breaker for me. I cannot trust this platform on a hunt or for self-defense/home-defense. It is a range queen, at best (with a tool bag nearby).

[LRRPF52]

I've had best results with CProducts mags.

I've had one nose-dive FTF with one of the pre-production Elander 17rd mags, which I had never had with any of my CProducts mags.

I haven't had that happen since though.

No matter what chambering of AR15 I have, I like to inspect my mags before I use them, including a follower depression test. I've discovered binding caused by burrs in some metal bodied mags this way, which needed to be removed.

I've found that not all mags, even under the same brand, are created equally. So I inspect and trouble-shoot them before they go to the range.

[A5BLASTER]

Edited to add: (I hope this doesn't count as a thread hijack. I'm running into Elander issues as well, but slightly different than the OP.)

I agree with the OP. I've got 6 Elander mags. Three are 17 rounders, the other three are 24 rd.

I am having a lot of issues with failures to feed. Some are bolt overruns (some of which totally miss any round, some of which push a round from the middle of the case so that it jams between the bolt face and the breech); most are nosedives.

After increasing my buffer weight, I've eliminated the overruns. Now, I am getting a lot of nosedives. The tip of the round points below the lip of the magazine.

To solve this, I've disassembled the mags and checked for smoothness. All good. I've loaded them and let them sit for a couple of weeks. I've grabbed a paint stir stick and rapidly jammed the follower to full compression and full extension over 200 times for each magazine. I've then reloaded and unloaded the mags.

At this point, I have some observations.

1. The 17 rounders seem far better than the 24 round magazines. The spring force on the 24 round magazines is impressive.

2. The base of the round (Hornady Black 123gr) will catch on the rear-most rib of the magazine when stripping them out by hand. I don't know if that has been an issue in the weapon. But, it is bad enough that I must twist the round to get it out if it catches. The ribs are deep and catch the rim and hold it solidly with the spring force. This is noted when I unload/strip by hand. (I'm doing this to find out what is going on with the ammo stacking/feeding issues.)

3. If one round nosedives (is nose down in the magazine) the next dozen or so will be as well. These rounds cannot be fed. They must be "fixed" and then stripped. This is VERY COMMON. I've loaded by hand, round by round, and using a Podavach loader. There is no difference in the occurrence of nose dives. Somehow, once the round is pushed down, its relative position shifts such that the tip gets pointed down. When it comes back up, it maintains that position and will strike, and get stuck against, the front face of the magazine.

I am new to the Grendel, but not new to the AR platform. I bought the Elander mags based on community reviews. If these are the best out there, I am not going to build/buy any more 6.5G firearms. The lack of reliability is a deal-breaker for me. I cannot trust this platform on a hunt or for self-defense/home-defense. It is a range queen, at best (with a tool bag nearby).

If the rounds are sitting in the mag with a nose down attitude try bending the mags feed lips till the rounds are level or a very small nose up attitude.

[VASCAR2]

Another problem with failure to feed is the larger diameter case head of the 6.5 Grendel case head fails to seat on the bolt face during the feeding cycle. It is a good idea to mod the ejector which won’t hurt anything and can eliminate one potential cause of failure to feed. Here is a link to the mod.


http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2014...artridges/

[lazyengineer]

Interesting, I've run 400 rounds or so thru mine of various brand of ammo, and my Elander 10, 17, and 24 have all run fine. Obviously people aren't just making this up, so something is going on. But I've been lucky so far. For what it's worth, I generally do a hard tap on the back rib, like those old Vietnam movies, to align the rounds against the back. Maybe that's one thing that's helping me?

[c3k]

If the rounds are sitting in the mag with a nose down attitude try bending the mags feed lips till the rounds are level or a very small nose up attitude.

I should clarify. The topmost rounds are even with the lips. Their noses clear the front of the mag. After stripping 4 or 5 rounds, the next are the ones which will be nose down. Not always, but always like that when it happens. On each of my three 24 round mags.

They seat fine, they don’t feed fine.

Already removed base, spring, follower and checked. No rough spots.

Looking at some ASC mags...

[lazyengineer]

I should clarify. The topmost rounds are even with the lips. Their noses clear the front of the mag. After stripping 4 or 5 rounds, the next are the ones which will be nose down. Not always, but always like that when it happens. On each of my three 24 round mags.

They seat fine, they don’t feed fine.

Already removed base, spring, follower and checked. No rough spots.

Looking at some ASC mags...

This may sound like an odd question, but how heavy is the gun and is there a muzzle break being used? I ask because I once saw an interesting video where they fired a gun while it was being X-ray'd. It was fascinating to see just how much jostling of the rounds went on in the magazine, during firing and recoil. I've always wondered if that affected reliability, maybe even in a good way (jostle loose to assure nothing sticks).

[c3k]

This may sound like an odd question, but how heavy is the gun and is there a muzzle break being used? I ask because I once saw an interesting video where they fired a gun while it was being X-ray'd. It was fascinating to see just how much jostling of the rounds went on in the magazine, during firing and recoil. I've always wondered if that affected reliability, maybe even in a good way (jostle loose to assure nothing sticks).

Yes, it has a muzzle brake/compensator. Got it from LaRue so their tranquillo (not used or owned...yet) would work.

No, I don't have the ability to take motion x-rays while shooting.


I'm going to just keep shooting and clearing the jams. The biggest issue? This makes this rifle unreliable. I don't like the idea that it may take several hundred (500-800) rounds to "break in" the magazines. That makes for a very expensive magazine.

Would you trust your hunt or your life to a firearm that jammed last week?
Last month? A year ago?

Every time I pick it up, I'll wonder, "Is this the time it will misfeed again?"

I see a market opportunity for better magazines. If I had some production facilities, I'd see what I could do. (That's a hint, Magpul.)

[A5BLASTER]

You can forget magpul mags.

When I was useing the elanders I had too load them up and let them sit. Would load and unload 2 or 3 times a day, then reload and let sit. Did this for bout 2 weeks on most mags.

After that they were fine and ran good.

But yea it was a pain. I'm now only useing the CPD mags and other then a few that get a slight bend in one of their feed lips, that I quickly fix with a pair of needle nose plyer's. They have been great mags.

Easy to load, plenty of room for my handloads and don't misfired at all.

Hope this helps.

[c3k]

You can forget magpul mags.

When I was useing the elanders I had too load them up and let them sit. Would load and unload 2 or 3 times a day, then reload and let sit. Did this for bout 2 weeks on most mags.

After that they were fine and ran good.

But yea it was a pain. I'm now only useing the CPD mags and other then a few that get a slight bend in one of their feed lips, that I quickly fix with a pair of needle nose plyer's. They have been great mags.

Easy to load, plenty of room for my handloads and don't misfired at all.

Hope this helps.

Thanks. It does.

[Growler]

While we are wishing, I’d like to see Lancer make a 6.5 Grendel magazine. A polymer mag with steel inserts like the Lancer should be very reliable. They run great for 5.56, although the geometry is very different.