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A Tale of Two Crush Washers, or Two Crush Washers One Barrel, and other AR oddities

Anderson castle nut. No threads
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Right now is the worst period in time that I have ever seen for buying an AR, building an AR, and buying ammo. QC is down across the board. I see it more in the bottom-feeder manufacturers, but I’ve also seen it in some parts from companies considered the be the very best.

Inspect what you’re buying. If you don’t know what you’re looking at, find someone that does. There’s a member here who can probably recommend a bunch of YouTube videos for you, although that ain’t what I recommend.

With ammo, take the time to visually inspect it. That doesn’t tell you if it will actually go “BANG”, but it’s a start. I’ve seen folks try and fire ammo that had no primers, or the primer was seated upside down or sideways.
 
AR pistol. High round with a CMMG .22LR conversion kit. Swapped it back to 5.56, and it wouldn’t cycle at all.

Gas tube is clogged with lead. When you hold the tube in your hand, you can feel the heaviness towards the front end.

Pulled the gas block and tube. Cleaned up lead from barrel and gas block. Gas block was fine, so I dimpled the barrel, reinstalled the gas block with new screws, and installed a new gas tube.

On a side note, there is no reason to try and clean your gas tube under normal use. Don’t spray brake cleaner down it, or try to scrub it out with pipe cleaners. Leave it be……unless it’s full of lead.
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AR pistol. High round with a CMMG .22LR conversion kit. Swapped it back to 5.56, and it wouldn’t cycle at all.

Gas tube is clogged with lead. When you hold the tube in your hand, you can feel the heaviness towards the front end.

Pulled the gas block and tube. Cleaned up lead from barrel and gas block. Gas block was fine, so I dimpled the barrel, reinstalled the gas block with new screws, and installed a new gas tube.

On a side note, there is no reason to try and clean your gas tube under normal use. Don’t spray brake cleaner down it, or try to scrub it out with pipe cleaners. Leave it be……unless it’s full of lead.
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I always wondered if 22 conversion kits would have an adverse effect on an AR's gas system. Always seemed like it could be problematic...

Sent from my SM-G781U1 using Tapatalk
 
Do your checks, and don’t take anything for granted, no matter who built your AR.

Not top of the food chain, but Aeros are generally reliable.

Guy bought an Aero-assembled M5 upper, and dropped an Aero-assembled 6.5 Creedmoor upper on it. BCG was a nitrided Lantac.

If the rifle was on fire when a round was chambered, it would fire. It also had a habit of firing more than one round when the trigger was pulled.

Swapped out the factory-installed brand new trigger, and the issue went away. I haven’t got my hands on the parts yet to diagnose.
 
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