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Posted: 8/24/2026 8:54:32 PM EDT
[Last Edit: alrashid2][Edited]
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Hey guys, thanks for the help. Will try to keep it short and sweet. Just built a brand new AR Pistol. Ballistic Advantage 11.3" Hanson barrel with pinned gas block, carbine gas system, in a BCM upper and a PSA Pistol lower. This will be a mostly dedicated suppressor host, but want it to function without a can too. All of this is happening with a suppressor on. It now has over 200 rounds through it. Has never once failed to feed a new round, and when taking slow, single shots it performs perfectly. I found at the end of my range session today though that it will intermittently fail to lock back on empty with multiple magazines. It's only doing it every 2-5 mags or so. I've confirmed it's not a single mag, as I've tried 4 different mags, different styles (PMAGs, aluminum USGI, etc). This has made it somewhat frustrating to troubleshoot as my local ranges don't allow for rapid fire so I am testing this out back, where I am able to shoot but think I'm starting to piss off the neighbors... I'm trying to figure out where to go next. Gas port appeared centered on barrel top when I installed and my gas block is centered on the barrel. Tried running a borescope and just see a black gas port hole - seems like the light isnt bright enough to shine through and show me the inside of the gas tube. I will say this barrel has shocked me, as it being a short barrel and having a carbine system, I thought I would have needed an H2 or H3 buffer; however, I'm running an H1 and am getting ejection patterns at 2 to 3 o'clock with a suppressor on. Only a few other issues I could think of that could be causing this: The gas block is leaky, as my barrel and handguard are turning brown every 50 rounds or so. I made a separate post on it on another forum, and was told that was normal. Attached a photo anyway. Another thing I've noticed is that my ejection seems a tad inconsistent, though I'll admit I've never paid this close attention before on other rifles so not sure if this is normal: ejection pattern ranges from 2 to 3 o'clock, and the distance varies. Sometimes as far as 9 feet away, sometimes they eject out just 2 to 3 ft away. Maybe that is normal? The last thing I noticed just a bit ago is that the bolt catch is just barely catching the bolt. On my other ARs, it looks like the bolt catch covers most of the bottom bolt lug - on this build, it's just covering the bottom quarter of the lug. I swapped bolt catches with 2 other rifles, and even threw a new spare catch into it, and they all were on the lower end of the lug. Thinking maybe this is a lower that is slightly out of spec or not milled quite right, I took my bolt catch and ground about 0.08" off the nub that hits the lower when pushing the catch. After doing that, the bolt catch now raises higher, and is completely covering the bottom lug, and even in some cases sticking up beyond that. Still operating fine with dry fire and manual action but obviously haven't had a chance to shoot again yet. I've also read that Hanson barrels from Ballistic Advantage tend to have undersized gas ports. I was told by BA they tune their Hanson barrels with a standard spring and carbine buffer, but I assume that is unsuppressed? Also, despite the issues, the thing feels very gassy, so I'd hate to drop to a Carbine buffer and make it even more gassy... Any other ideas here? Kind of bummed as this is my one AR I didn't want to be a range toy but instead my go to defense rifle. So really getting frustrated as I've never had so many issues trying to troubleshoot an AR. If the issue persists after my bolt catch modification, the only other thing I can think to do is try out a Carbine buffer, or keep shooting and hope the gas leak self seals and maybe fixes this problem... Thanks for the help all. Edit: just wanted to jump ahead and state a few of the obvious things I've already checked:
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Joined:
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