Begin with a good cleaning. I like a bore snake to clean from the chamber forward. A chamber brush is a must as is detail cleaning of the bolt. Cleaning the gas tube requires a really long pipe cleaner.... and a good spray of solvent. Oddly I never bother.
Then you can look for the problem..... (if you didn't find it when you cleaned the bolt. )
ARs run dirty. Best to clean right after shooting. It takes a lot of grime to stop one..... but cheap surplus chinese ammo can make that grime fast.
I'm pretty new to the AR myself. I've been told that they like to be run wet though. Keep the bolt lubed. I understand this can be an issue in dry dusty areas though. They seem to run them pretty dry in those areas with good results. I would certainly start with a good cleaning and lubrication.
Even with really dirty ammo I would expect a lot more than 2 mags before having problems.
One thought was that the ammo was improperly (lightly loaded) I don't think so My thinking was that if the bolt was short cycling that a spring or guide was out of place.
One thing I will say about PMC, they don't seem to crimp the bullet in place. I was shooting this winter and had a round that I though hadn't ejected properly. It was stuck with the front of the casing up near the chamber, and crushed the front of the brass. I remembered it when I was cleaning that brass last week. The primer hadn't been hit, and the bullet was rattling around inside the brass. It just pushed right back when it tried to chamber. Doesn't mean I'll never buy it again, it's usually a good price and shoots well. It does have me thinking about running it all through a crimping die though.
Reading that first link in Rick's post, two prior, was chilling. The Ares Armor raid seemed less over the top, but still the guy aiming his rifle into the store was uncalled for. Law enforcers seem to be turning us into a military police state.
Personally, I have a hard time believing that they would have been stupid enough to do what is being alleged. They were just way too high profile to go unnoticed by the BATF. They HAD to know that, and it seems they were well aware of the issues, and they knew the legal way to do things.
A company "Tactical Machining" has asserted on Facebook that Ares was in fact under scrutiny due to dimples over the pin areas of the lower.
quote:
In regards to the 80% fiasco at Ares Armor, the legality of 80% receivers, and how you can avoid the ATF knocking on your door for buying an “80% receiver” instead of an 80% receiver.
It’s not an 80% lower fiasco, it’s a we we’re selling a product that was clearly not an 80% fiasco. ATF considers any dimpling or marking of either the FCG or the hammer / trigger / safety selector as a 100% receiver. The ATF details this in the determination letter they provide you after they have approved your product. Also, the ATF considers the 3D printed lowers EP produced as once a firearm and converted to an “80%” which is a no-no because ATF has proper decommissioning standards. They print the 100% lower then print the FCG section into the 100% lower. A technicality but still “wrong” in the eyes the ATF. This ENTIRE fiasco could have been avoided by the manufacturer receiving a determination letter from the ATF saying that the item isn’t a firearm.
The approved standards for 80% receivers are pretty clear cut but manufacturers are constantly looking for easier ways for customers to complete it into a firearm. Without ATF approval you could be purchasing what the ATF considers a firearm. In the past when the ATF has changed its standards on 80% receivers it notifies all manufacturers with approval determinations and gives them the opportunity to modify their product to remain compliant. They also allow manufacturers to finish selling whatever receivers are in stock that are becoming non-compliant as long as they were manufactured prior to the determination change. The ATF is very cooperative with product determinations but if you do not receive one and manufacture products that are considered firearms they will stop the manufacturer and try to determine how many firearms were sold as non-firearms. This ATF raid was not due to an ATF crackdown on 80% receivers but a crackdown on non-compliant 80% receiver manufacturers.
Tactical Machining has a determination from the ATF stating that our 80% receivers are not firearms. Make sure the manufacturer of your 80% lower has a determination from the ATF or you could end up in the same boat.
Of course, some info is incorrect. The EP (Ares) lowers are injection molded not printed and the core is molded first, not last according to the Ares and EP.
RE: The manufacture of the EP lowers. If the BATF were concerned about the lowers being an unserialized gun that is being sold, they should be going straight after the manufacturer first, then following information on their sales to gun stores, then to the next point of sale. They have bypassed the first step, and offered Ares a deal to avoid all of this by simply handing over the records on who they have sold these to. It's pretty clear that the information that the BATF is after is to make the untraceable, traceable. It wasn't about stopping these legal chunks of plastic from being manufactured, or sold, it was about knowing who was buying them.
California is a special case to begin with as an AR-15 assembled in a standard configuration constitutes an unregistered "assault" rifle.
Imagine an untraceable ghost gun assault rifle with a flash hider, conspicuously protruding pistol grip, collapsible stock, large capacity clip, and shoulder thingie that goes up, oh my! That sounds like a recipe for spraying deadly cop killer bullets from the hip at teh children.
NSSF blog showing continuing trend of decreasing violent crime and firearm victimization despite increased gun sales and popular media and political efforts to say otherwisd (per FBI statistics):
If imposed, this would eliminate even more jobs in America. There are a bunch of small businesses related to imported firearms and their components. Thus Obama is surely to oblige.
Get your Glocks, Sigs, FN's, H&Ks, Walthers, CZ's, Steyrs, Arsenals, Zastavas, IWIs, etc., and any imported AK variants while you still can?
Most of those companies already have us based production facilities, and if they don't I'm sure they will.
Same with AK's; there's a decent cottage industry putting them together from kits here. They'll just get a lot more expensive as a 100% US made product.
Kinda like those who fear truth don't want others having a voice. Fairness doctrine? Govt monitors in the news rooms? Protections only for preferred journalists?