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Any ammo issues with Saint AR

He says he hasn’t fired it, so I doubt it's the gas block...but the rest is solid advice.

And I’m gonna add something, here (not aimed at you, @BangBang ; more just a general observation)...

I NEVER use live rounds for non-firing function checks. This is precisely what dummy rounds are designed for.

Jacking live rounds into/out of your chamber is a one-way ticket to a UD (Unintended Discharge—covers both negligent and “accident”)...maybe not this time, but some time down the road.

Additionally, it prevents damaging live ammo which, right now, is a very precious commodity.


$6.09 is mighty cheap insurance to prevent it...and they really aren’t that much more expensive than live rounds right now, anyway.

Sorry, I didn’t realize he hasn’t fired the weapon appreciate it. Also good point on the love round. I have read many times folks running rods down the barrel to force a round out.
 
Personally, I feel that armscor ammo is weak sauce and of low quality.

I would guess that SA will ask the ubiquitous "breakin" questions. Be prepared with a round count on that firearm.

My suggestions would be as follows ...

1- Clean & lube that puppy
2- start a log noting what ammo (brand, case, grain & bullet) and how many rounds fired.
3- consider cleaning more often in its early days. Say, every 50 rounds and note that in your log.
4- try to mix up the different brands

Good luck and keep us up to speed. (y)
 
I am running into the same issue. I have never been able to fire the weapon. I have tried to rack a round 3 times and each time I have to mortar the round out. It sucks. I have never fired the weapon, however, it seems to have been fired at the factory. I cleaned and oiled the weapon before I went to the range and got a bit of blackness in the CLP when cleaning it. I do not know the manufacturer of the ammo I am trying but it is .223. I am going to try 5.56 and other .223 brands on Thursday. There are some markings on the feeder ramps. Maybe some brass from the factory rounds? Markings from feeding wrong? I have attached the photos. There is also a bit of scarring on the tip of the rounds, photo attached.

Does anyone have any ideas? Could it really just be a certain type of ammo? Does tolerance stacking play that big of a problem? A friend also bought the SAINT when I did last month and has had no issues. I do not know what ammo he is shooting.

It looks as it could be chambering a bit off maybe? Would a specific type of ammo cause this? Buffer spring not feeding it enough force? It seems to be jammed in there pretty good for that when it gets stuck. Any ideas?

Thank you all so much. Very disappointing but it is what it is. Cheers!

***Update***
My buddy and I tried cycling a few different brands of 5.56 and .223. Surer then ****, they ejected and re-red. Unreal. Aside from using an M-16A4 and M-4 in USMC, I have never owned my own AR. Would have never thought this to be an issue but it makes sense. I just don’t like it. Lol It is what it is. It will be a fun rifle and will work for what I need it to(providing it fires, but the rounds ejecting are already promising).

Note to self though, buy a better rifle that is capable of handling all ammo for my “Everyman for himself” rifle.

Thank you for the help all! I really like the idea of a shooting log for the rifle. Cheers!
 
***Update***
My buddy and I tried cycling a few different brands of 5.56 and .223. Surer then ****, they ejected and re-red. Unreal. Aside from using an M-16A4 and M-4 in USMC, I have never owned my own AR. Would have never thought this to be an issue but it makes sense. I just don’t like it. Lol It is what it is. It will be a fun rifle and will work for what I need it to(providing it fires, but the rounds ejecting are already promising).

Note to self though, buy a better rifle that is capable of handling all ammo for my “Everyman for himself” rifle.

Thank you for the help all! I really like the idea of a shooting log for the rifle. Cheers!
It’s not a matter of “ Better” rifle. I don’t think anyone here would make the claim that my $800 VI Witch Doctor is a better rifle than the Saint, yet of the 5 or 6 different types of ammo I’ve shot through it so far ( including some really cheap steel case crap) all have fed and ejected perfectly.
 
^ AGREED!
My AR15 is a DPMS, $400 on sale gun. Heck, my scope cost almost $300. It has never failed to eat anything that I feed it. Brass or steel.
A short search on Youtube shows that some others have had trouble with their SA's eating certain ammo.

If it were me, I'd feed it what it likes and keep a round count. And down the road, if things didn't improve then I'd talk to SA.
Just saying. YMMV. Good luck & keep shootin!
 
Has anyone one run into any issues with ammo jamming in their Saint AR's? I've had issues with 1 brand only, thought it was a fluke type of thing but at this point have decided to avoid that brand altogether. I've never had any issues with any other brand, just this one brand. It is Armscor 55gr FMJ and bought it because it was on sale at a local farm and ranch store. Armscor has been great to work with. The round gets jammed and won't fire, and I have to "mortar" the round out. Not my favorite thing to do. I've noticed that this style of their ammo that the neck of the casing is slightly thicker than the other brands that I have like Frontier, Winchester and Federal, thus probably getting stuck in the chamber.
I had a problem with a batch of primed lake city brass. It wouldn't go into battery. It turned out I was mislead by the reloading shop that said it didn't need to knock the shoulder back. I haven't had any other issues. It might have just been a bad batch.
 
***Update***
My buddy and I tried cycling a few different brands of 5.56 and .223. Surer then ****, they ejected and re-red. Unreal. Aside from using an M-16A4 and M-4 in USMC, I have never owned my own AR. Would have never thought this to be an issue but it makes sense. I just don’t like it. Lol It is what it is. It will be a fun rifle and will work for what I need it to(providing it fires, but the rounds ejecting are already promising).

Note to self though, buy a better rifle that is capable of handling all ammo for my “Everyman for himself” rifle.

Thank you for the help all! I really like the idea of a shooting log for the rifle. Cheers!
I have had Colt, Daniel defense and other rifles fail to fire or some sort of “normal” malfunction. I have had issues with high quality match grade ammo, high quality makers like Lake City and everything in between with ammo and gun.

little things as others described in ammo is , IMO, the issue.

the military and most LEO agencies dont buy “just any old ammo maker” ammo for a reason. The use a few trusted suppliers of quality on contract. Also why every agency teaches failure drills with weapons. Like the USMC did with you.
 
I have not had any major issues (aside from a few random glitches with PMC ammo during the break-in period) with my few months old Saint. Even though it seems to shoot PMC fine now, I stay away from it unless no other option.

That being said, I know all of the brands of ammo I feed it (as I do with all of my guns) and I stick to the ammo manufacturers that I trust. That’s a must for a self defense firearm.

Ammo quality is a hot topic these days because the shortage has caused a lot of folks to buy whatever is available. I just had a buddy to buy ammo at a show and none of it would cycle in his $2k rifle. The same ammo would fire in a backup rifle but suffer intermittent issues. So there had to be some kind of tolerance issue with the ammo. Thats why I say if changing the ammo suddenly fixes this rifle then strike that ammo off the list and find out which ammo it likes and feed that ammo to it.
 
Interesting comments on quality of ammo during this intensified buying period. I have had considerable trouble with a new Saint Victor pistol. I was having about a 50/50 failure to extract problem. I dropped some recently purchased rounds through a case gauge to find ones that I thought passed the test. Of the 15 I test fired, 14 extracted as expected. A marked improvement. It would seem that my Saint is a bit particular on tolerances.
 
I am glad I found this forum. I am also having issues with armscor .223 55 gr ammo in my saint victor pistol. I heard some people are having issues with the saint in general, so it is a little relieving multiple people are experiencing this issue with this ammo. I also had a hunch it may be my pmag, i think it keeps happening from the same mag. Reminds me i need to number my mags! I have winchester 556 ammo that I am going to run next and I will avoid using the "bad" mag and see if the jamming persists. As a new gun owner, the round jamming in the chamber is a little nerve racking.
 
I got my Saint last year and had problems when ejecting some old surplus ammo I had. I could not eject it by hand. I thought there was a problem with the rifle so I sent it back (twice for the same problem). I had just bought some new factory ammo and tried it while talking to a tech guy and it worked just fine. Apparently the old ammo I had was badly out of specs. I was getting so frustrated that I wanted to wrap it around a telephone pole. Glad I didn't. Due to my wife developing stage 4 Cancer I have not yet been able to go to the range with it (I'm her sole caretaker now). I have mixed feelings on going to the range, but hope to look forward to it eventually.
 
I bought a Saint back in November and have fired several hundred rounds of no-name .223 & .556 through it and the only problem I had was a round that lodged in the chamber because of a bad crimp on the round. I’m new to the platform and expected some sort of teething problems but there have been none. I recently changed out the upper for a PSA upper with a 13.5in free floating hand guard (because I can) and it has also been flawless.
 
Sorry to resurrect - but I'm having failure to eject on my new Saint Victor AR 5.56 pistol. Sounds like people are mainly blaming ammo - but I've never had an AR have these types of failures and I've shot a ton of cheap ammo including steel cased ammo through my colt & ruger ARs. I only had a couple of different brands of ammo when I shot the victor but I experienced failures w/both (both were brass). (also - I'm shooting pre-covid ammo ;-) )

Although I did clean & lube it before I shot it, I didn't disassemble the BCG.... going to do a thorough cleaning and try different types of ammo again. I hope it functions because I really enjoyed shooting it... However, firearms that malfunction do not bring me joy - so I will not keep one.
 
Sorry to resurrect - but I'm having failure to eject on my new Saint Victor AR 5.56 pistol. Sounds like people are mainly blaming ammo - but I've never had an AR have these types of failures and I've shot a ton of cheap ammo including steel cased ammo through my colt & ruger ARs. I only had a couple of different brands of ammo when I shot the victor but I experienced failures w/both (both were brass). (also - I'm shooting pre-covid ammo ;-) )

Although I did clean & lube it before I shot it, I didn't disassemble the BCG.... going to do a thorough cleaning and try different types of ammo again. I hope it functions because I really enjoyed shooting it... However, firearms that malfunction do not bring me joy - so I will not keep one.
I’m sure your Rugers and Colts were rifles, as compared to the Saint pistol.

AR pistols can be very finicky when it comes to feeding...you will likely have to play with your adjustable block to find the correct tuning, and if you like to change up loads (go from 55gr M193 to 77gr SMK’s, for example) don’t be surprised if you have to retune for reliability.
 
My Saint Victor has been flawless, not to say there may be issues with some.

I just checked my gas block and it’s not adjustable. I know someone in another thread said they are. I went and looked at the manual when that thread was active and I believe it said that “some” models have an adjustable gas block. Wonder if it’s just the Edge models? Like I said, I just checked mine and it’s not.
 
I'm no AR expert, but if I was guessing I would say Hans was right. Usually if you have a non adjustable gas block it's going to be slightly overgassed to alleviate feeding problems. Slightly overgassed isn't an issue for me personally and both of mine are non adjustable gas blocks. Recoil just isn't an issue with a 5.56. If I build an upper I would put an adjustable gas block on it though. They're easy enough to adjust.

If yours is not adjustable I don't think it's a major operation to change it to an adjustable. You might play around with buffers and springs too.
 
Has anyone one run into any issues with ammo jamming in their Saint AR's? I've had issues with 1 brand only, thought it was a fluke type of thing but at this point have decided to avoid that brand altogether. I've never had any issues with any other brand, just this one brand. It is Armscor 55gr FMJ and bought it because it was on sale at a local farm and ranch store. Armscor has been great to work with. The round gets jammed and won't fire, and I have to "mortar" the round out. Not my favorite thing to do. I've noticed that this style of their ammo that the neck of the casing is slightly thicker than the other brands that I have like Frontier, Winchester and Federal, thus probably getting stuck in the chamber.
Yes I had a bad double feed on 2nd mag. I ever shot . It took some time to clear and wasn't easy,there was 1 in the pipe and another jammed by BCG . I finished the clip and haven't shot since. The next trip to the range I'm going to shoot the wolf steel case ammo I got at the gun show. People be alert at gun shows,I wasn't. A table had a box saying brass 223 so I grabbed a few brands to try out in my Saint victor,well when I got home I realized I had 2 boxes of steel cased ammo. What a dick move. owell live and learn. If this gun doesn't run steel it's not worthy, I'll post the results next time.
 
I've shot limited amounts of steel out of all the ones I have ( 1 Witch Doctor off the shelf and the others I built with BCA uppers) and never had any issues, but my buddy has been out with me twice, only shoots steel and both times his got jammed up at one point or another. He's a cheap bastard. I tried a mag or two of steel case out of each of mine just to be sure they run it, but I would never buy the crap. And I certainly don't consider handling steel cased ammo well a prerequisite to whether or not a gun is worthy. I would think ( though, again, I am no AR expert and might be totally wrong) that to handle steel cased stuff reliably and under all kinds of extended circumstances the chamber would have to be a little big and tolerances a little looser.

At any rate life is too short to waste my time and money on steel cased ammo.
 
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