Home CMMG Quick Tip: DON'T Ride the Charging Handle!

Quick Tip: DON'T Ride the Charging Handle!

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Here’s a problem new AR-15 shooters sometimes encounter: You seat a full mag in the rifle, pull the charging handle, and…. the bolt fails to go into battery. That means the bolt does not fully close, which prevents the hammer from striking the firing pin, and so the rifle won’t fire. What happened? Brownells Gun Tech™ Caleb Savant explains. The problem is usually caused by “riding” the charging handle forward – keeping your hand on it and slowing down the bolt / carrier group so it doesn’t close completely. When this happens, just hit the forward assist to push the bolt closed. (That’s actually the forward assist’s job!) To make sure the bolt goes into battery on the first try, pull that charging handle then keep your hand back when you let it go. This really applies to just about any semi-auto firearm, not just the AR-15.

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33 COMMENTS

  1. So I have a Ruger 556 and I took it out shot about 100 rounds and when I place a new mag in and pulled the charging handle back it got stuck. Well I tried to pull the handle back it wouldn’t allow me to do so. I also tried to put it in safe mode and it wouldn’t allow me to either. Seeing that I had a hot round in I slammed the but stock on the ground safely pulling the charging handle back and it released ejecting the hot round. Well I placed the mag back in pulled the charging handle back again and it got stuck again. Now I don’t ride the charging handle and I just pull and release but I’m not sure what’s going on. I checked to see if the bolt carrier might be broken and it appears to be fine. I’m not sure what’s going on. Any suggestion?

  2. Seen my buddies doing this (new shooters) and they think they have to ride the charging handle or it'll damage the gun. I then explain that the full force of the charging handle snapping back into place is necessary to propery chamber another round.

  3. I bought a brand new ar and whenever I pull the bolt back. The bolt won’t push the round into the chamber. It looks like the bullet won’t go up into the chamber because there is friction

  4. Isn't it nice that all these experts in the comments are leaving such great tips for a professional gun smith. He very likely could use this info in his career since he does not work for an industry staple and is not part of a highly successful yt channel with over 300K subscribers. Keep up the good work everybody. 🙄

  5. One thing i love is close to the beginning he had to correct himself about the BCG. He had to do that fast cuz he knows If you say something wrong the crazy gun people will go crazy with comments.

  6. can such a failure of the bolt to close entirely result in firing out of battery? i had a catastrophic failure last sunday, gave my gunsmith the remaining parts who wasn't able to separate the bcg from the barrel. now i'm wondering what might have caused this to prevent another gun being destroyed. i suspect a squib load since the round before failed to fire, the gun didn't cycle, recoil was low and i was stupid enough not to clear the gun and look trough the barrel.

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