A tale of two broken ARs

[Leonidas24]

The quick back story to this is that I'm now working as a firearms instructor for a major US outdoor retail company and see a lot of firearms and shooters come through the live-fire every day. I certainly have seen my fair share of hi-points, sigmas, bushies with carry-handle mounted optics, etc, that have come through in the hands of not-so-bright shooters. The same people that shoot the target carriers when they shoot faster than a round every eight seconds; that's the typical crowd I see on a daily basis.

Nonetheless I had the pleasure of seeing two ARs go down in a spectacular fashion within the past two days of working on the range.

1. Rifle: DPMS model AR15 (Oracle maybe?)

A family had brought in their two sons to shoot the family collection (4-5 guns total) and an AR was among the group. As far as I know it belonged to one of the sons, and was more or less brand new. About 15 minutes into their session and maybe 90 rds later it doubled, then tripled, then finally just emptied the magazine with one press and release of the trigger. I looked at the kid in some kind of a stupid way I guess because he was laughing when he turned and looked at me exclaiming how cool that just was.

I examined the gun and discovered that the engagement surfaces on both the hammer and trigger had some how devoured themselves, and there were metal shavings all over the inside of the receiver. I made certain to tell them NOT to fire it again until it was fixed, and recommended a good gunsmith to have a good lower parts kit installed. Grant, expect an order for an LPK or FCG to come through sometime after Christmas.

2. Rifle: Del-ton LW carbine upper assembled from a kit.

This happened just a few hours ago before I got off work today. The gun was a del-ton, assembled from a stripped lower and lpk with what I am hoping was a factory assembled upper. To further explain the situation the gun had a Tapco intrafuse plastic fore end.

My co-worker called me into the live fire range to look at an AR "that had quit working." The first thing I noticed was that the gun had fired, but had locked up before the casing was ejected and the bolt was stuck about half way in the receiver extension. The charging handle wouldn't budge it, and to get anything done with it I ended up removing the Tapco POS scope that was attached to the carrying handle. In doing this the carrying handle actually disassembled itself to a degree and fell on the floor. Fortunately the patron didn't seem too disheartened about it seeing the condition his gun was in.

Further inspection at this point revealed that the receiver extension rotated freely by hand. At that point I knew what it was. I screwed off the whole stock assembly, castle nut included, which by the way was on backwards, with absolutely no force what so ever, which also revealed a lack of take down pin and spring. There were none whatsoever, given the evidence of the take down pin falling out of the lower before I'd taken the stock off.

Thus revealing the bolt I beat on it until it finally came free and found what appeared be the A) buffer retaining pin, and B) the bolt release spring lodged in the upper. Both were shredded and mangled but it was clear that the spring DID NOT belong with the buffer retaining pin.

So far the issues that were problematic were:

a. No take down pin retaining pin or spring.
b. Hand tightened castle nut, on backwards, no staking.
c. Incorrect spring in buffer retaining pin.
d. This is me assuming, but I'm guessing there's also an incorrect spring in the bolt release.
e. A freely rotating receiver extension which allowed the pin to enter the upper with a moving bolt.

Bear in mind this was the first time this rifle had been shot, so not too much damage must have been done. He has my phone number at this point, and sometime after Christmas he and I will be spending some time rebuilding his rifle from the ground up with yet another new LPK purchased from a good manufacturer/dealer (batter up, Grant.) Surprisingly the BCG was staked; however, it was a semi and I'm assuming was bought through del-ton or similar.

As much as I'd like to get him to upgrade to a better complete gun, if I can at least convince him to replace the LPK and upper I'll consider this a victory.

[kVon]

Thank you for the real-world examples. I have a few friends that are building AR's and they are getting two different opinions. Mine, the milspec if possible route and a buddy who works at a gun shop, who thinks whatever they sell is the best choice. The main brand he keeps pushing to my buddies is DPMS. I am trying to show them to BCM, LMT, Daniel Defense side of the house.

[mkmckinley]

Did the owner of the DPMS admit to tampering with the fire control group in any way?

[Leonidas24]

Did the owner of the DPMS admit to tampering with the fire control group in any way?

I spoke with the dad and he said that it hadn't been messed with at all. As far as I understood the rifle had less than 250 rounds through it and was within a year old. I looked at the FCG and all the springs looked good. I didn't bother with the disconnector spring seeing as how there were metal shavings all over the place in the lower.

[ST911]

I've seen a bunch of soft discos, and a lesser quantitiy of soft hammers, on DPMS carbines in various configurations. Some with material deformation like I believe you're describing. (I think I posted some pics of them here or elsewhere. Some were obviously bad on arrival.)

[duece71]

Great post, thanks. Keep them coming.

[lamarbrog]

#2 isn't really that surprising. I've seen plenty of ARs assembled incorrectly by the unknowing. For some reason the interaction of the receiver extension, buffer retainer, and castle nut appear to be very difficult concepts to grasp for most people.

[Shabazz]

I am looking forward to more excellent reports like this.

[Leonidas24]

Great post, thanks. Keep them coming.

The company I work for primarily deals in Bushmasters, DPMS, some S&W, and can order Colts if you're willing to pony up some hard cash (1250.00 before tax). I've seen one BCM come through, a couple 6920s here and there but mostly DPMS, Bushies, Armalites, etc. They've all had issues in one way or another. Whether it was by operator error or some defect in the quality of the weapon itself. Am I surprised? No. These same kinds of people are the ones that act offended when a better handgun than a Sigma .40 is suggested when the owner's wife can't even press the trigger without her hand shaking so much she misses the target at 10 feet. This is; however, in some ways a good thing.

It gives me a chance to spread the good word about decent manufacturers of rifles, and bring in stories of how "good enough" really isn't all that good. Hobby shooters or not, if the rifle is failing on a one way static range while firing a round every six seconds at 5 yards then I'm not confident in how it performs in harsher environments.

As for the guy's improperly assembled lower: he shouldn't have been assembling an AR in the first place; much less using the sub-standard parts he was.

[thecolter]

My DPMS has over 3500 rounds through it without a problem. I've only replaced gas rings because I figured it was time.