Hello, I'm mtdawg169 and I'm a parts snob.

[Wallace's]

Well, not to dog pile on PSA buuuut......My buddy recently bought a complete PSA MOE lower and one of their 18", rifle length gas, PSA railed uppers. He finished it with their non-logo "premium" BCG's and regular CH.

We went to shoot it and it would weakly eject a case, and then short stroke, not feeding the next round. My initial thought was → new rifle, lack of lube, and we have a problem. I ended up soaking it in EWL, but the bolt was still extremely tight in the carrier. To the point it took good effort to push the bolt in, and you had to pull the bolt out by hand as "flinging" it, even super hard would not send it back forward. This had me concerned as I knew it would repeat the same problem, but we fired it again. I got it to feed maybe 3-4 rounds before it would lock up again. This happened several times. I put my known good BCG in his upper and it ran fine, put the new BCG in, and repeat of same problems.

My best guesses were somehow bad rings (out of spec) and or a out of spec carrier/bolt. I highly recommended that he request an RA and get it replaced or refunded, but instead, he soaked it in motor oil all night in hopes that would fix it. Hand cycling it afterwards, it was a tad easier (possibly just perception) to move, but not nearly enough to reliably cycle. Still has it like that too...

 

[mtdawg169]

Well, not to dog pile on PSA buuuut......My buddy recently bought a complete PSA MOE lower and one of their 18", rifle length gas, PSA railed uppers. He finished it with their non-logo "premium" BCG's and regular CH.

We went to shoot it and it would weakly eject a case, and then short stroke, not feeding the next round. My initial thought was → new rifle, lack of lube, and we have a problem. I ended up soaking it in EWL, but the bolt was still extremely tight in the carrier. To the point it took good effort to push the bolt in, and you had to pull the bolt out by hand as "flinging" it, even super hard would not send it back forward. This had me concerned as I knew it would repeat the same problem, but we fired it again. I got it to feed maybe 3-4 rounds before it would lock up again. This happened several times. I put my known good BCG in his upper and it ran fine, put the new BCG in, and repeat of same problems.

My best guesses were somehow bad rings (out of spec) and or a out of spec carrier/bolt. I highly recommended that he request an RA and get it replaced or refunded, but instead, he soaked it in motor oil all night in hopes that would fix it. Hand cycling it afterwards, it was a tad easier (possibly just perception) to move, but not nearly enough to reliably cycle. Still has it like that too...

The carrier bore may be out of spec. The rings will break in over time as they wear down to fit. But that carrier will probably eat up gas rings at an accelerated rate also.

 

[TapcoFan]

The carrier bore may be out of spec. The rings will break in over time as they wear down to fit. But that carrier will probably eat up gas rings at an accelerated rate also.

I had that happen to me with one of my CMMG rifles. FWIW, PSA is like playing russian roulette. most of the time you will be fine, but once in a while you get screwed. I am currently going through the CS process with a PSAK47 and I have spent several hours (actual hours) on hold and dealing with CS. I bought the rifle in January and I probably won't have a functioning rifle in my possession until at least April.

 

[Wallace's]

The carrier bore may be out of spec.

This is my best guess as well, I am sure he will get tired of the issues and replace it, but frustrating he is trying to make it work.

 

[BattleSausage]

Recently, I had a new PSA Freedom Melonite upper and new premium BCG that I could hardly shove the bolt into bettery, even after checking gas tube alignment. I found that the cam pin was a TIGHT fit in the carrier. Out came the emory cloth, cleaned and lubed it up, cycled the action a couple hundred times, cleaned it off and lubed again, then took it out to shoot. It shot and locked open fine.

I think that I don't normally experience any failures BECAUSE of the stuff that I check/do before I even head to the range. I look at it as the price of doing business with PSA. And like I said before, I enjoy the process.

I'm starting to wonder if the lack of staff or knowledgeable staff that leads to these issues is how they sell stuff so cheap. With the proximity of manufacturers like FN, I can see how they have an edge in procurement already. Add to that the possibility of taking overruns or blem'd rejects and low staff/qc folks and it'd make a lot of sense. I haven't see anything personally fail from them abnormally from a materials aspect, tolerance and assembly errors are a whole different story however.

 

[cmshoot]

The PSA's I see in my classes have been hit-and-miss functioning-wise, but I rarely have the time to go through a student's carbine to diagnose what the problem is.

 

[mtdawg169]

Summary: PSA is inconsistent. Ranging from functional to pretty awful. I think we've covered this one pretty thoroughly.

So, let's move on. I did not intend for this to become a PSA bash session. But they certainly needed to be discussed.

So, Who's run across strange issues, what type and what brand?

I'll start, I had a KAC SR15 that came from the factory with a barrel visibly off center within the rail. URX rail was threaded off center-axis. KAC replaced it quickly and the gun was fantastic after that. Ran great, shot super soft, 1.25 MOA accurate and never had a malfunction I can recall.

Just goes to show that ANY manufacturer can have an issue. How often those sort of things happen and how they handle it, tell you a lot about who you're doing business with.

Speaking of the SR15, there are quite a few features of that rifle that are NOT milspec. One could argue that there are some companies out there making improvements that EXCEED the spec requirements.

Innovations like the KAC E3 bolt, intermediate gas systems, LMT enhanced carrier & Vltor A5 buffer system are all arguably great improvements of the system.

Today, we see tons of companies trying to break into the AR market with a new gadget or gizmo. And we should always stop to ask "why"? Is an adjustable gas block an improvement? Some would say absolutely. I would say no. Same goes for suppressed carriers, Spikes STT2 buffers, certain surface treatments, and on and on...

 

[Wallace's]

Summary: PSA is inconsistent. Ranging from functional to pretty awful. I think we've covered this one pretty thoroughly.

So, let's move on. Who's run across strange issues, what type and what brand?

I'll start, I had a KAC SR15 that came from the factory with a barrel visibly off center within the rail. URX rail was threaded off center axis. KAC replaced quickly and the gun was fantastic after that. Ran great, shot super soft, 1.25 MOA accurate and never had a malfunction I can recall.

Just goes to show that ANY manufacturer can have an issue. How often those sort of things happen and how they handle it, tell you a lot about who you're doing business with.

Speaking of the SR15, there are quite a few features of that rifle that are NOT milspec. One could argue that there are some companies out there making improvements that EXCEED the spec requirements.

Innovations like the KAC E3 bolt, intermediate gas systems, LMT enhanced carrier & Vltor A5 buffer system are all arguably great improvements of the system.

Today, we see tons of companies trying to break into the AR market with a new gadget or gizmo. And we should always stop to ask "why"? Is an adjustable gas block an improvement? Some would say absolutely. I would say no. Same goes for suppressed carriers, Spikes STT2 buffers, certain surface treatments, and on and on...

• To bounce off your KAC problem, my SR15 delivered with a truly poor bolt catch and defective gas block.

Bolt catch mag follower tab broke off, and the replacement they sent was just as bad looking. Has held up thus far, but wait for it to break like the original one did. Secondly, I had constant short stroke issues with a variety of commercial and standard pressure ammo. Although the MOD 2's gas block is claimed to be a much better sealed system (index tab for 100% alignment and castle nut threaded on the barrel it self to secure the block) mine was still defective enough to cause my rifle to short stroke from a large gas leak.

That said, both were replaced swiftly and without question by KAC, but not what I expected out of a $2K AR15.

• Noveske lower (non-chainsaw) where the trigger guard roll pin tab was machined out of tolerance causing fitment issues with all of my trigger guards I had on hand. Additionally, the pivot pin hole had excess anodizing causing the pin to not fit. Cleaned the hole up with a 1/4 bit and oil. (I know you had 2 out of spec as well, but in regards to the Geissele precision ground FCG pins)

• Spikes lower where the pivot pin hole was drilled maybe .001-.002 too low causing fitment issues with all of my upper receivers at that time(6-7 or so).

• Anderson upper receiver that the rear take down pin hole was off center to the forward and up position by .001-ish. Made fitment onto any lower nearly impossible (required jewelers hammer to tap take down pin in and out)

• JARD non adjustable 2-stage trigger that was so poorly machined, it had noticeable cant in the trigger pin holes and would allow the safety to be engaged without the hammer cocked and caused the trigger to have very poor slop in the take up and break.

• Anderson and PSA lower receivers that had excessive buildup with anodizing requiring 1 or several holes to be cleaned with appropriate sized bits for roll pins to be installed. Much more frequent with Anderson.

I am sure I forgetting more, but these are examples of first hand issues that I quickly remembered off hand. Also, where is @ASH556 at? He use to work (or maybe still does) at a shop and saw all kinds of garbage roll through.

 

[freedom]

I have an Integrity Arms branded match barrel (Sub MOA Guarantee!!!) with an out of spec chamber. It was corrected with a chamber reamer, but Integrity Arms never responded to the couple emails sent.

 

[mtdawg169]

I have an Integrity Arms branded match barrel (Sub MOA Guarantee!!!) with an out of spec chamber. It was corrected with a chamber reamer, but Integrity Arms never responded to the couple emails sent.

Yep. That one did not pass a 5.56 NATO chamber guage. I can't believe they never even replied.