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Judging by your name I would assume you are in Kentucky. Are you near Louisville?
Post pics of your brass. I am guessing everything is fine, but hard to tell w/o pics.
Here is something you need to know about Bushmaster (older ones for sure) and your local bubba gunsmith (who doesn't know AR's). Bushmaster chambers are well-known to be non 5.56 (i.e. .223). So chances are that gage was correct.
You don't want to use those gages on true 5.56 chambers (like Colt) for example because you will get false readings.
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Yes, and it's bullshit. Just like the B MP markings which are supposed to indicate Metallic Particle inspection. Except Bushmaster pubicly admitted that they only batch test.
They are snake oil salesmen just like DPMS, Oly Arms, and the others. If you have access to a 5.56 Chamber checker it will more than likely fail.
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You have to realize that this particular forum tends to consist of more serious AR users, who don't have much good to say about cheap, low quality weapons, even when made in large quantities by allegedly respectable companies. Your BM is worth only slightly more than what you paid for it.
BTW - If you do a little research here, you will find Iraqgunz is a professional armourer, who has a close aquaintence with large quanities of BM rifles, and the associated problems of civilian contracters trying to successfully use them in a war zone.
Those primers look normal, they are no where close to being flattened. Don't listen to snobs or worrywarts on the internet. Your rifle is fine and as you say, functioning without issues. Buy lots of ammo, shoot it a lot, and enjoy.
There is plenty of info on Youtube and on the internet regarding maintenance, as well as upgrades if you decide to change something down the road.
Your brass looks fine but I personally would not shoot any 5.56 ammo out of it.
An interesting topic, with some interesting info. Sort of sums up/answers some of the questions I had about an older 'hand-me-down' mutt, Bushy upper/Oly lower from the early/mid-90's. (It's not the first time I've seen this opinion, either, this is just the first day I've been able to post.) My dad told me he was never comfortable with shooting 5.56 from it, and wasn't sure if it would pass headspace testing with a gauge. We used a .22LR conversion kit in it for the majority of its range time. I thought it was just because of the savings, vs. firing hundreds of rounds of 5.56 through the Colt (also handed-down to me) every time we went shooting. I recall the few times we had fired 5.56 from it, we had all kinds of jam/feed failure problems. Now I'm thinking twice about it, even after some minor repairs...
After acquiring it via a sort of 'early inheritance' and stripping it down, I found that the gas key, despite being 'staked,' was quite loose. I thought maybe that was why we had problems with it before. So I tightened it up, and really staked it, but have been hesitant to push my luck with this rifle. The more I read on it, the more I think I may just keep using it with a .22LR conversion kit, for cheap plinking.
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[QUOTE=BuzzkillKY;1017661]With the understanding that it's a plinking rifle and not to be relied on, find someone with a Christiansen 5.56 chamber reamer and get it reamed out to 5.56, then you won't have to worry about it. This removes the chrome, which would ordinarily be a bad thing, but for a plinker it doesn't matter. That will fix the overpressure problem and make it safe to shoot 5.56 through it.
Why don't you save your money on gages, find a gunsmith with a 5.56mm gage and have him check it? At least then you'll know what you're dealing with.
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Pics please
You checked it with a headspace gage, which isn't the same. This is the chamber gage- http://www.m-guns.com/tools.php
But, there is no need to check it because I can almost guarantee based on my experience with hundreds of Bushmasters that they do not have true chambers.
If you put a .223 NO GO gage in there and it failed, then it most likely is correct. You are the one who needs to decide what to do. We can lead a horse to water, but.....
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Take it to Mr Smith as already mentioned and have the headspace and chamber checked or send it to Adco and have them do it. Don't guess, get it professionally checked out by someone who knows what they are doing.
And it's not about snobbery or having the best money can buy. Let me see if I can put this in guitar terms.... (although since yours was a gift it'll be a little different). More often than not Bushmasters, DPMS, Olympic, etc are priced close to, the same as, or more than quality rifles like Colt, BCM, and Daniel Defense. It would be like if a friend if yours who was new to guitars bought a Fender Squire Stratocaster. Not a bad instrument, but let's say he only paid $50 less for it than a full out American Strat. Or what if he ended up with a Sears knock off? That's what we run into in the AR world often....
Like I said get yours checked since you aren't sure of the history of the gun and have concerns over its safe function. Then get a Bravo Co bolt ugrade kit, and have the bolt carrier group and castle nut properly staked if they aren't already (the probably aren't). This should ensure reliable operation. Then shoot the gun.
If you are serious about using the platform in a defensive role seek some professional training. If you are just going to plink some paper targets every once in a while, you should be fine from there.
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Sounds like you are trying to find a problem where none exists. Your primers are not partially flattened, they are fine. Also, do you have any actual evidence that you have chamber problems? The only thing you mentioned in your original post is that your rifle is functioning without issues...
I sold off my ole' BM carbine to a co-worker for plinking, recommending that he find somebody with a 5.56 chamber reamer and get it seen to so that he can shoot pretty much any ammo he picks up from wherever.....
He did so, and kept the material it took off so he could show me. It was a distressing amount that made me very glad I never tried to shoot 5.56-case ammo through it. Up until that point, I was at the point of being able to intellectually acknowledge what I'd read up about their chambers and what the WTBn guys had to say, but that pile of shavings was a pretty visceral lesson.
That'd be a Ned Christainsen chamber reamer I'm thinking of, right? Are there others? Good/Bad/Ugly?
Buzz, for castle-nut staking and other boilerplate AR considerations, check the stickied threads in either the AR GD or AR Technical subforums; specifically, the ones marked Knowledge Base Threads. You'll find ALL SORTS of stuff that you may not have been aware of regarding your AR, and that you'll probably be glad to know, now.