Extractor Broke

[lazyengineer]

Have you taken the o-ring off?

If it has a o-ring in it remove it and see how it does.

For what it is, the only time I have had feeding issues is when I forgot to take the o-ring out of my sixfivearms/ group buy bolts.

In my experience when I take the O-ring off, I get jams from extraction/ejection failures. Or I do in my Creedmoor at least; so I'm hesitant to take the O-ring off now due to that.

[A5BLASTER]

In my experience when I take the O-ring off, I get jams from extraction/ejection failures. Or I do in my Creedmoor at least; so I'm hesitant to take the O-ring off now due to that.

Take it off and see what it does for 500 rounds.

Creedmoor is high pressure and grendel isnt, if you don't try, then you will never know if that's your issue.

[LRRPF52]

I have a conjecture theory I'm testing. I suspect grendel extractors have tight tolerance and a stiff spring (mine does) and I am wondering if they actually break on closing sometimes. I've broken 2 now, though cant say if it was on closing or on opening. So now, I am testing if liberally lube on the extractor claw, so it can more easily snap over the rim, helps. So far so good, but not very many rounds. Or that may have nothing at all to do with it, just a test.

Anytime I see an O-ring over the extractor spring, I remove it. That was a band-aid for the M4A1 in SOCOM when being shot with the KAC QD Suppressor, because they didn't have any way initially of dealing with the additional gas pressure in the system with all the excess dwell time.

The AR15 works best with a relaxed extractor and ideal timing of the cyclic rate. If the cyclic rate is too high, adding power to the extractor only puts more stress on the extractor. It's better to treat the cause than the symptom, with the main symptom of excess cyclic rate being failure to extract.

When the bolt is trying to rotate and unlock while there is still substantial residual pressure and obturation of the case against the chamber wall, a lot of torsional loading is placed on the extractor and bolt lugs. This is regardless of what cartridge you are shooting, and has been a known problem in the short barreled blasters especially. Adding buffer weight and dialing in the gas ports helped address that problem with the 10.25" 5.56 NATO CQBR uppers.

Anytime I see someone breaking extractors, I want to know more about their gas system, their gas port location and size, barrel length, are they shooting suppressed, hand loads with slower-burning powders and long projectiles, etc. I also want to know who made the extractors and their familiarity with the AR15 TDP.

If it's a company doing high volume, low price point, I say look elsewhere for a good source of parts.

[LRRPF52]

Yesterday my extractor broke at the range. I was shooting American Gunner. The rifle has less than 200 rounds thru it. Is american gunner a problem or is it probably just a bad part the came with the barrier defense upper. The good news is I had 2 spare extractors at home. Is there a source for a reliable and durable extractor or are the generally all about the same.

Are broken extractors a common thing for Grendels. I have never had an extractor break on a 5.56 though a guy next to me at the range last week had one break.

What barrel, barrel length, gas system length, gas port diameter, and bolt are you using?

[Lastrites]

Diddlyv, mentioned a Barrier Defense upper, from their site I would assume;
Upper includes a 16" M4 contour Chrome Moly non-chrome lined barrel with 1-8 twist and chambered in the desired Grendel 1. Carbine gas system, A3 billet upper receiver with forward assist & ejection port cover, barrel & receiver have matching M4 feed ramps, M16 Bolt Carrier Group with proprietary 6.5 Grendel bolt, charging handle, matching Flat Dark Earth 15" free floating KeyMod hand guard, low-profile micro gas block, & A2 flash

[PVBoom]

Diddlyv, mentioned a Barrier Defense upper, from their site I would assume;
Upper includes a 16" M4 contour Chrome Moly non-chrome lined barrel with 1-8 twist and chambered in the desired Grendel 1. Carbine gas system, A3 billet upper receiver with forward assist & ejection port cover, barrel & receiver have matching M4 feed ramps, M16 Bolt Carrier Group with proprietary 6.5 Grendel bolt, charging handle, matching Flat Dark Earth 15" free floating KeyMod hand guard, low-profile micro gas block, & A2 flash

So its a type 1 then.

[VASCAR2]

So its a type 1 then.

No, the chamber is a non SAAMI 6.5 Grendel chamber. Anderson manufacturing sold barrels with a Grendel 1 chamber that shoots 6.5 Grendel ammunition. The Anderson Grendel 1 barrel has been used in the Wolf Performance uppers and a few other vendors. The barrels I’ve seen advertised with Grendel 1 chamber supposedly used a .135” bolt whereas 6.5 Grendel bolt has a .136” bolt face depth (Type II) with a tolerance of +or-.001. I recently saw where Wolf has released another batch of 16” 6.5 Grendel uppers for $399. I guess Anderson recently manufactured more 6.5 Grendel barrels, they had been absent from the market place a couple of years.


https://barrierdefense.com/65-Grendel-AR...GrNT15.htm

Anderson’s web site still list their 6.5 Grendel barrels and uppers as unavailable.

[FLshooter]

I have some acquaintances at the range that have had broken extractors. And I’ve heard plenty guys on different forums say they had broken an extractor. How come that never happened to me? And I’ve got 10’s of thousands of rounds through some of my AR15’s.Maybe I need to shoot more?

[VASCAR2]

My broken extractor was due to an over gassed 16” carbine length gas 6.5 Grendel. I watched which ammo I shot in this upper till I finally fixed the issue with an adjustable gas key from Rubber City Armory. A Friend also had an extractor fail with an over gassed 18” Satern/Liberty mid length gas system SS barrel from Brownell’s. My Friend installed an adjustable gas block which resolved his issue.

[lazyengineer]

Take it off and see what it does for 500 rounds.

Creedmoor is high pressure and grendel isnt, if you don't try, then you will never know if that's your issue.

The good news is as you say, removing the O-ring had no negative affect on gun extraction and reliability. Gun ran just fine.

The bad news is it didn't help, and within 30 rounds, I broke another extractor. Not having a good run with Grendel extractor's - this is starting to add up; as that's now my 3rd broken Grendel extractor.

[FRB6.5]

@lazyengineer by chance have all the broken extractors been nitrided?

[gwtx]

@lazyengineer... Was the problem ever resolved? I replaced a worn extractor with one from BlackRifleArms about a year ago. I haven't shot it a lot since then, maybe 300 rounds. So far, so good. The BRA extractors have a good following.

[lazyengineer]

@lazyengineer... Was the problem ever resolved? I replaced a worn extractor with one from BlackRifleArms about a year ago. I haven't shot it a lot since then, maybe 300 rounds. So far, so good. The BRA extractors have a good following.

So far I guess OK - I haven't fired it a lot of late, but did fire it some and it hasn't broken again yet. We'll see.

[gwtx]

Thanks for the update. Hope it's fixed.

[lazyengineer]

Thanks for the update. Hope it's fixed.

Ran another 100 rounds through the Grendel this weekend; with the o-ring off the extractor per advise here. I did leave the little rubber "buffer" inside the spring coil. It ran very well - so the advise does appear to be working so far

[Texcl2]

I broke an extractor yesterday on my nitrided aim bcg. My rifle has thousands of rounds through it and was over gassed. The bolt is several years old. The ironic part is I had finally just installed a new adjustable gas block and was adjusting it when it broke, lol. The thing I love about aim bolts is they have a lifetime warranty, if anything breaks they send you a new part free of charge, it was like $79 for the whole bcg. I’ve owned a bunch of them and this is the first one to break anything. I have an old Cason 7.62x39 bolt that has an unbelievable amount of rounds through it, almost all steel cases ammo. It has never had a hiccup.