Case scratching

[AR15gunner]

Just got my new 18" AA build together and the casings are getting scratched just clambering them. Had it sited and had some stuck cases. Using Factory Hornady 123 SST's. Had a gunsmith take a quick look and he thinks it from the chamber being all rough, suggested I try to replace it. New to building AR's and looking for some advice from the community. Thanks in advance.

[AR15gunner]

Did a little more searching and found another thread on this sorry for the inconvenience

[Sticks]

No inconvenience. Hope you can get it handled. Worth a call to AA though.

[AR15gunner]

Thanks, that's what I was going to do and see what they say. Timing sucks because deer season starts next weekend here, but when sighting in yesterday had some pretty bad scratches on the cases and FTE. Drop in fresh round and top up won't fall out, light scratches doing this.

[VASCAR2]

Most of the scratches on my brass are from feed lips on new mags plus the sharp edges on the barrel extension. Some forum members polish or sand the feed lips. They also blend and polish the feed ramp and barrel extension lugs. After a couple hundred rounds my AR-15’s wear in and the scratches go away or are not as noticeable.

If the 123 grain factory SST stick in the chamber after thoroughly cleaning the chamber and barrel it is possible your chamber is out of spec. A factory round should fall out of the chamber with the bolt open and the muzzle raised. On new barrels you might need to tap the upper to get the round to fall out of the chamber. If you need a cleaning rod to push the round out of the chamber good chance the barrel or ammo are out of spec.

[AR15gunner]

Just a tap and it falls out but there are scratches on the case before the shoulder just by dropping them in by hand.

[AR15gunner]

Here's what the brass looks like[ATTACH=CONFIG]13084[/ATTACH]

[Sticks]

Shotgun bore mop and some 500 grit lapping compound in a drill.

Do the bullets on the stuck cases show any marks?

[AR15gunner]

Yes light scratches

[AR15gunner]

Those are some of them, dropping in by hand has light scratches

[VASCAR2]

Those scratches are not the same as I’ve seen on my 6.5 Grendel barrels. I’ve polished chambers with a barrel mop attached to a hand drill but I used Flitz. I’m not sure Flitz would help on your chamber. I think I’d contact AA and send them a picture of your brass. I’d rather them check the chamber before I tried anything. I’d hate to try something that didn’t work then have them say I caused the damage or whatever.

[AR15gunner]

Yeh, I planned to call and talk to them and see what they say, Thanks.

[A5BLASTER]

Wow that is some serious scratching. Glad my AA barrel isn't like that.

AA will take care of you I'm sure, shipping times are slow as heck but cs has been good from what I have seen.

[AR15gunner]

Thanks hopefully they'll take care of it.

[AR15gunner]

Well I talked to AA today and emailed them a picture of the scratched cases, and the tech said the barrel needs to be honed. Sent the barrel to them today and they are covering the shipping also, so hopefully everything is going to be taken care of. On another note at least I was able to get 3 deer with it this last week.

[AR15gunner]

Just an update on my barrel; got a call today from a tech and he said he honed it but still didn't look right. He said that he's never seen anything like it before, and figures there must have been something wrong with the reamer and he was not gonna let it leave the building. Then he told me I'm getting a new barrel that he honed and test fired with 3 rounds, and said the brass looks like glass. I have to give props for the Awesome customer service from AA, I give it an A+, now just waiting for my new barrel to arrive. I'll give another update once I get it back together with some accuracy results if it's not to cold in the next couple weeks.

[rabiddawg]

^that is why I don’t hesitate to recommend Alexander Arms. Especially when Bill was there. I saw him offer to inspect a gun made by another company for a forum member.

[SDW]

Shotgun bore mop and some 500 grit lapping compound in a drill.

I'm curious. Where does this "500 grit" lapping compound fit in with the products below? These are the only kinds of polishing media I was able to find locally. No "numeric" descriptions. Just names like Emery Cake, Tripoli, Red Rouge, etc. In general, the products below are arranged from top to bottom and left to right as course to fine. Not sure which "grades" are worth messing with though.

[wcb]

Your brass is 100% identical to mine. Same scratches all the way around the case. Mine is a Bear Creek barrel though. I emailed BCA a photo of my brass and they apologized and emailed me a ups label.

[AR15gunner]

Your brass is 100% identical to mine. Same scratches all the way around the case. Mine is a Bear Creek barrel though. I emailed BCA a photo of my brass and they apologized and emailed me a ups label.

They replaced my barrel and even honed and test fired it, said something must've been wrong with the reamer. Hopefully I will be getting it put back together in a couple days, but don't know when I'll get to run some rounds through it since it's below 0 here.