All my fired brass will not F/L resize

[VEC2]

Just got off the phone w/ Alexander Arms. Talked w/ Bill Alexander for a while. Went through the build parts, Ammo parts, how the gun shot and cycled. He thinks its an oversized chamber at he base. I am sending the upper back to him along with some brass examples. He will replace the barrel and my blown up brass. wow How's that for customer service! He is very nice to talk with. I will report back after factory service and I have a chance to cycle some rounds through the new parts. I will use the same loads to test that I used to bulge the cases originally.

[NugginFutz]

I've said before, and I'll say it again. THAT is how you do customer service. Not by blaming ammo manufacturers, complaining about standards not being reasonable, etc. I really admire companies that own their products - warts and all.

[SG4247]

That is good to hear.

Sounds like very reasonable ownership of the product to me.

I cant see early unlocking. Just about has to be an oversize chamber.

Really need to scrap/quarantine the all brass from that chamber.

[bwaites]

The brass is swollen, but no band is formed until sizing. That pretty much rules out early unlocking. Early unlocking creates the "Grendel Belted Magnum" look BEFORE any resizing. I can make lots of it running hot loads of XBR under 123's.

This is a different issue. Where has this rifle been since 2008 when it was built?

[sneaky one]

Sounds like the high pressure shows up -before it unlocks-- like a stretch the case early situation. Something is amiss. Then the reload station shows the problems.

Then the brass is crushed into a small spot- -ends up like bwaites 's magnum belted rounds. Bad chamber.

[Bwild97]

Even if the chamber is oversized, it should easily rechamber fired cases, sounds to me like it's just on the verge of too early. The bulge in the cases do not apear to be uniform in shape, like an over sized chamber would produce. They kind of look like they were fired from a Glock type chamber, bellied out, but not uniform.

It also looks like the chamber could be short from the breech end, not enough support at the case web.

Regardless, im glad that Bill A. is taking care of this!!

[cory]

I've said before, and I'll say it again. THAT is how you do customer service. Not by blaming ammo manufacturers, complaining about standards not being reasonable, etc. I really admire companies that own their products - warts and all.

+1

[VEC2]

I am really looking forward to finding out what the problem is. If its as simple as an out of spec chamber then good. If its complicated by the gas system timing then not so good. Finding an adjustable gas block for the Overwatch is problematic due to the barrel's diameter. I'll quiz the AA tech on the rifle gas system being "marginal" on a 24" barrel. Anything else I should ask AA? There is a lot of interesting info in the Grendel Reloading Manuals.

[bwaites]

I have a 28" with rifle gas. It truly is marginal. Rifle gas on 24" should not be. I'm interested in this too.

[VEC2]

FAST Service

So I UPS'd my upper back to AA last week and AA said they would call me to let me know when it got there. Stephanie of AA called me at about 0900 this morning saying they got my package and the tech would call me in a week or so. Wellll, at 1100 I get a call from Rick, one of the technicians, telling me that he and Bill are done with my gun and they will get my brass and ship my upper back to me. They replaced everything on the upper except the BCG and the upper receiver, polished the chamber and test fired the new parts. Two hours - wow. I was so taken aback at the promptness that I forgot to ask him about the gas system and its potential role in this issue along w/ other things. So I had to call him back, I explained to Rick that I had posted my issue on this forum and that some of the replies were aimed at the gas system. In my specific case the chamber was terrible, should not have gotten out. Not effected by the gas system. Generally speaking though, AA has spent a lot of time ensuring reliable gun operation. A base design parameter is reliability. Bill has juggled other design parameters to ensure reliable gun operation. We talked about bullet weights, loads, BCG weights, springs, gas port position, buffer weights etc and as far as they are concerned the system should work well as designed. I asked if the 24" barrel Overwatch gas system was "on the fence" as far as reliability goes he told me no. Their guns as sold are a balanced system. I am assuming that I could as a reloader push the gas system too far, but using AA published, factory vetted pressures, I ensure that I stay within the gas system's limits. Looking forward to getting my parts back and shooting. Talked bit on break-in and Final Finish. I told Rick that I have used it on two AR's. A Bushmaster Predator and an inexpensive carbine kit and was pleased w/ the results. I also told Rick that I have talked to Superior Shooting Systems (SSS) about using their TMS (Throat Maintenance System) product on the factory lapped AA barrel. The TMS kit is a portion of the Final Finish system. It uses the 2 finer grits of the Final Finish system. He (SSS) said it would work well, Rick said it should be ok. So I am just waiting for the AA paperwork to catch up to my parts. AA will call me when the gun and brass are ready to ship. May also order a few bags of brass too.

Thank You Grendel Forum members for the help.

[FW Conch]

I'd be nice if they all ended with this great of service and this much information ! :-)

[204 AR]

That's good news that they got it taken care of in a hurry!

[Bwild97]

Too bad they weren't more specific about the chamber issue.

That is some dam fine CS!!

[bwaites]

So I UPS'd my upper back to AA last week and AA said they would call me to let me know when it got there. Stephanie of AA called me at about 0900 this morning saying they got my package and the tech would call me in a week or so. Wellll, at 1100 I get a call from Rick, one of the technicians, telling me that he and Bill are done with my gun and they will get my brass and ship my upper back to me. They replaced everything on the upper except the BCG and the upper receiver, polished the chamber and test fired the new parts. Two hours - wow. I was so taken aback at the promptness that I forgot to ask him about the gas system and its potential role in this issue along w/ other things. So I had to call him back, I explained to Rick that I had posted my issue on this forum and that some of the replies were aimed at the gas system. In my specific case the chamber was terrible, should not have gotten out. Not effected by the gas system. Generally speaking though, AA has spent a lot of time ensuring reliable gun operation. A base design parameter is reliability. Bill has juggled other design parameters to ensure reliable gun operation. We talked about bullet weights, loads, BCG weights, springs, gas port position, buffer weights etc and as far as they are concerned the system should work well as designed. I asked if the 24" barrel Overwatch gas system was "on the fence" as far as reliability goes he told me no. Their guns as sold are a balanced system. I am assuming that I could as a reloader push the gas system too far, but using AA published, factory vetted pressures, I ensure that I stay within the gas system's limits. Looking forward to getting my parts back and shooting. Talked bit on break-in and Final Finish. I told Rick that I have used it on two AR's. A Bushmaster Predator and an inexpensive carbine kit and was pleased w/ the results. I also told Rick that I have talked to Superior Shooting Systems (SSS) about using their TMS (Throat Maintenance System) product on the factory lapped AA barrel. The TMS kit is a portion of the Final Finish system. It uses the 2 finer grits of the Final Finish system. He (SSS) said it would work well, Rick said it should be ok. So I am just waiting for the AA paperwork to catch up to my parts. AA will call me when the gun and brass are ready to ship. May also order a few bags of brass too.

Thank You Grendel Forum members for the help.

OK, pretty much as I expected. The 24" systems with rifle gas all seem to be fine. However, why would you use final finish on the barrel? This is a handlapped barrel, not a factory, rough machine finish. All you will do using a product like that is use up barrel life. This is your rifle, and you can do as you like, but I would shoot it enough to see how it settles BEFORE I considered using any abrasives, even the finest. All of these type products were designed for factory standard barrels, not hand lapped and finished barrels. Please shoot it, then see if it needs the product. Just my 2 cents, YMMV!

[LR1955]

OK, pretty much as I expected. The 24" systems with rifle gas all seem to be fine. However, why would you use final finish on the barrel? This is a handlapped barrel, not a factory, rough machine finish. All you will do using a product like that is use up barrel life. This is your rifle, and you can do as you like, but I would shoot it enough to see how it settles BEFORE I considered using any abrasives, even the finest. All of these type products were designed for factory standard barrels, not hand lapped and finished barrels. Please shoot it, then see if it needs the product. Just my 2 cents, YMMV!

Bill / Guys:

First, it is a pretty poor barrel company these days who would make a barrel that needs fire lapping before it can perform. So I probably would avoid such makers to begin with.

Tubb makes a bundle on a product that he says is used to get a few more hundred rounds of barrel life. When a person sees how much the Final Finish costs compared to even 1000 more rounds of barrel life, they realize that Final Finish costs more than just buying a new barrel.

Grendels ought to go 5 - 8K rounds easily before a person sees a degradation of accuracy starting at about 600 yards. Another thousand then maybe 300 yards. Get 7K rounds out of a barrel and do yourself a favor and buy a new barrel.

Just buy a quality new barrel, not a POS made by a company that refuses to put their name to it.

LR55