Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Empties landing randomly

Well I searched for Blue's gas thread but couldn't find it, then did a little internet reading that gave me some ideas. Thought I would ask here to see if I'm on the right track.

Gun functions well, never a ftf or eject or unlocked bolt on last round. Shoots as accurate as I can hold it (i think ), but shooting it next to my other AR or a couple of my buds guns it throws brass willy nilly from about 2:00 to 4:30. The other guns vary where they toss it but usually in a pretty good pile.

I built it, for starters, it has mid length gas and an H2 buffer, the spring came with a mil spec tube so I guess it's a carbine but I haven't counted coils yet. Probably 1000 to 1500 rounds through it.

I was going to start by taking the gas block off and seeing if the hole burn seems lined up and checking for any leaky streaks around the key area, haven't noticed any. Probably buy another spring or even try just putting the carbine buffer back in it.

Is it just being picky to want the empties flying uniform or is it a good function concern?

Thanks

Who's barrel, and who's BCG you have in it?

I don't really worried too much about how my brass piles up as long as it piles up bullets on the target close together. ...and best I can tell, how the AR flings brass doesn't correlate with accuracy. Wanna try something cheap to reverse if it doesn't work? Try cutting half coils off the ejector spring. Make sure you have your spare spring in hand in case you take that too far. The folk that wanted to collect their brass easily had nice tidy piles that you could cover with a hat...but they'd also occasionally get a piece that didn't clear the ejection port.

Yes,
Ejector, extractor, and associated springs is one place to check. That's why I was curious to who's BCG was in it.

Criterion barrel, can't remember what BCG I ordered. I think it was middle of the road in cost, Spikes or something similar.

Guess I could order another bolt to try in it, or is there a spring kit you all would recommend?

I'd try trimming the ejector or ejector spring first.

I'd check the tension on the ejector and extractor. Simple to replace or just go ahead and upgrade.

I'd just spend $30 here on a blue buffer spring, new extractor upgrade kit, and ejector spring. http://www.sprinco.com/tactical.html

$40 with shipping, lol, love to play with these guns. Don't know why I waited so long to try them.

Your hold, hard, loose, canted etc. can effect the brass dispersion. I agree with ChrisF, dispersion of bullets on target is a lot more than where brass lands.

I agree with Chris too. But I'll bet even Chris has noticed that his better loads group brass well too.

Oh well. If I can't shoot 100%, it's nice to brass shag 100%

Nope. To be honest, they're mostly hitting my stool. (...not shooting the shxt).

You have to remember that the M16 was designed as a battle rifle, and it was not a good thing for brass to be piling up tidily next to a fire position. To the OP, you probably shouldn't buy a G3/HK91.

You can get a brass deflector for it

Or you could hang one of those cute little baskets on the side of it.

Consistent loads in all of my ARs (a bunch of different cartridges) pretty much always dump the brass in a neat little pile (that doesn't mean right next to the gun). The only loads that scatter brass randomly in my guns also showed a lot of inconsistency with very high ES numbers.

Of course the OP's issue could be an ejector or extractor issue too. Either way, in my experience it's not normal for a good load in a good AR rifle to scatter brass randomly.

Well I had a heck of a time with those little springs, did the crawling around on all fours with a flashlight twice. Cut off a case and used a big c-clamp to get the ejector in, that was the easy one. I do not like those little roll pins either.

Planned a test shoot Sunday but life got in the way of it. I did load a few dummies and racked them out to see if it worked OK. All good.

The load I was shooting that day was one I have loaded thousands of, 25. something grains of 335 over 55 gr. fmj and 450 primers. The other AR's we were shooting piled up the brass fairly neat.

Anxious to see if it's changed, the extractor spring I took out didn't have an o-ring and this ejector spring seems to really snap them out.

that is funny never thought of blue dart as being that knowledgeable. Sorry just don’t Get a slr sentry gas block. And set it for function. Then quit worrying about where the brass goes and shoot the gun.

I asked Blue a whole series of questions on what makes an AR run, basically everything from the muzzle to the butt.
We was very gracious and shares a tremendous amount of AR knowledge with us. I for one learned a lot.
It was a very good series and should be permanent stickies in this forum.

Blue is a CLUELESS Fhuqk.

Simply shoot/read results.

Hint...……………….

Why would anyone want a new gas block if the gun functions? Duh.

Clip the ejector spring a bit at a time if you want to tune its ejection. Have spares just in case.

Though we never did clip one to far over many years of this ( appx since 89)

The stronger that ejector spring is, the further the brass flies. It generally can bounce more etc.. and was our experience the further it tossed it the wider the pile generally.

I've not seen high ES/SD affect the pattern that I can recall, not enough for me to take notice anyway.

Untrimmed if downrange is noon, ours went to 430/500 generally and maybe 10 feet back ? Probably 2-4 steps back depending if standing, sitting, prone obviously. Trimmed would get them to about 2 o'clock and out of sitting for sure I could almost lean forward and reach them. And usually in a smaller pile.

YMMV.

If she's functioning correctly, you really don't need to do anything. Variances in ejection angle are typically due to variances in gas pressure, as gas pressure dictates bolt carrier speed. If you're too "over-gassed," you may not have a function issue, except that you're dumping more crud into the bolt carrier and receiver than normal and putting more stress on the parts than necessary. Sometimes, too much gas can cause the case to hit the case deflector (if your receiver has one) with enough force that the case bounces back into the ejection port and stovepipes. I had that condition with a recent AR. Too "under-gassed" and you either don't eject the case at all or the bolt doesn't cycle far enough back to pick up another round from the magazine. In general, the higher the gas pressure entering the gas key, the shallower the ejection angle (closer to straight ahead)... 1:00 - 3:00 ejection. The lower the gas pressure the wider the ejection angle -- 3:30 - 5:00 ejection. I prefer a consistent ejection angle of around 4:00 because I know I'm getting enough gas pressure for reliability yet no more than necessary for reliable function so that I keep carbon buildup minimized.

This is why I like an adjustable gas block. With just the turn of a set screw, I can control the amount of gas reaching the carrier. When initially setting up an adjustable gas block, just barely crack open the adjustment set screw and load 1 round, nothing else in the magazine. With the setscrew closing off the gas port, you should see the bolt fail to lock back on an empty magazine. Slowly open the adjustment screw a little at a time until you see the bolt properly locking open on the empty mag, indicating you now have sufficient gas for function. Now open the setscrew another 1/8 - 1/4 turn or so to ensure consistency. At this point, you should see your cases ejecting between 4:00 - 5:00. The bolt and buffer assemblies don't take as much of a pounding when setup this way.