I took an old cheese grater hand guard off of my factory built BCM 16" upper and replaced it with a BCM MCMR-15. The upper is mated to a Bushmaster lower, with an Vltor A5 recoil system. The original configuration worked fine for several thousand rounds. Test firing after the change resulted in consistent short stroking and failure to feed with two previously reliable mags and two different commercial loads (PMC and Black Hills). I'm basing the short stroking diagnosis on the marking left on the cartridges after each failure to feed. The gas tube seems to be aligned properly with no binding when the bolt is moved forward and back. The gas block is a BCM low profile. It put it back on using good Mcmaster-Carr screws, torqued to 25 inch pounds. I re-used the gas tube, new roll pin. I'm expecting that my problem is in the gas system. The gas block had to be tapped off with a nylon mallet (not too difficult) but did not need to be tapped back on, although it needed some effort to slide it into position. I did not use any other treatment under the gas block.
The lower also had the SSA trigger replaced by an ACT trigger when I did the upper work.
Does anyone see any glaring mistakes here? I plan to pull the hand guard and double check the torque on the set screws. Should I replace the gas tube? Is it possible/likely that the trigger change is impacting this?
Also, back when I used to read a lot more, I seem to recall that some people suggested a coating of green Loctite between the gas block and barrel. What's the current thinking on this? Seems like it would make any future work rather difficult.
Thank you for any suggestions.
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