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"smokestacking" problem with wasr-10


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Hello,

I just got my wasr-10 out to the range the other day and it is having a so called "smokestacking" problem as my girlfriends dad explained to me...where when u go to chamber a round the round gets half stripped out of the mag and then the bolt loses grip on the back of the round and proceeds to push the round either partway into the chamber or tottaly vertical in front of the chamber. Ive already looked at all the basic info and as far as i can tell the gas block is not "canted" it seems perfectly straight. I am howerver in NJ...yes i know that sucks..lol...so i am having to use 10 round steel magazines. Im not sure if this could be an issue or not. I compared these mags with one from my saiga(i know theyre different but was looking at how the rounds seated in the mags) and noticed that the rounds in the saiga mags were seated frimly against the top of the mag, where the 10 rd ak mags u sort of had to push the front of the round down sometimes to get it into the same position. Could this be a problem with the follower? If these rounds arent seated in the mag correctly then the bolt wouldnt be able to sufficently strip the round out. But then again why would i be the only one seeming to have this problem as I have searched the internet and have only been able to find info about the "canting" problem and the idea to replace the mags...I bought 4 of these 10 rounders and all seem to have the same malfuntion. I was however able to get one of them to fire 2 rounds without jamming by pulling the mag back towards the pistol grip while firing...hence bringing more of the round up into the bolt face and the bolt being able to strip the rounds from the mag correclty. The magazine is however seated well in the recieiver as i know another problem pointed out is the sloppines of some of century arms workmanship in making the rifle hi-cap so i dont believe this to be the problem. Any ideas or fixes would be greatly appreciated as i would like to get back to the range and successfuly fire the gun without it jamming.

Thanks in advance.

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Thats unusual... Mine was great right out of the box.

 

Heres my recommendations... and my thoughts...

 

The follower is hanging up inside the mag body. I had that happen on some 30 rounders... I took the floorplates off, took the springs out, and made sure there was NO CORROSION on the mag walls, and I also sanded the followers SLIGHTLY... I also lubed the mags up... not normally a good thing, but I needed to get them to free up... and I can CLEAN THEM afterwards, as a lubed mag will get gummy over time... graphite or dry lube is a better bet... but as I mentioned, I wanted a quick fix, and I planned to go back after and clean them an dry them, so it wasnt an issue. Chances are, you will find there is a spot weld out of whack, or the follower has a small burr on it or something simple and dumb thats causing you grief... get rid of it, make sure it slides smoothly all the way to the top in the mag body, and I think your problem will go away... :up:

 

 

Good luck.

 

:smoke:

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thx alot will try this....seems like it could def be a fix....anyone else had this problem?

 

Sounds like your mag catch is too short and the rear of your mag is to low. Short of putting in a new catch (a pain), or thinnning the selector stop (even more work), you could use the old JB weld (original formula) and bond a small shim to your mags where the catch clicks in. This is the easy way to cure excessive for and aft play. I converted my WASR myself and was very conservative when fitting the catch -- my mags are rather difficult to remove but have been 100% so far.

 

To see if this is your cure try slipping a piece of cardboard inbetween the catch and mag, or hold the mag tightly to the rear like you mentioned above and let it rip.

 

Before you do anything however make sure you aren't riding the carrier forward, just pull it back and let it slam home. WASR's need the swift kick in the @$$ to work reliably.

 

Yes. You are right. NJ does suck. I'm stuck here myself while the wife is in school here. As if growing up here wasn't punishment enough. At least I get a couple weeks or two back in NC around the breaks.

 

Just reread your post. Is your WASR using the single stack mags or has the mag well been opened up for the double stack mags? If it is a single stack version Century didn't screw up -- You can blame the Romanians. :cryss:

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that is exactly what it looks like is happening except the magazine does not rock back and forth an excessive amount...and some of them dont rock at all.....heres the thing thats odd...when there are no rounds in the mag it looks as if the bolt comes cleanly over the top of the follower and just barley clears it...how it should to strip the rounds out....but when the mag is loaded the bold just barley grabs a round or completely misses the round altogether!!!!....i have watched this by slowly working the bolt back and forth to see where and how much of the round the bolt will grab....it just amazes me that it looks like when the mag is empty it looks as if there is no isssue but when its loaded its a complete clusterfuck.....i have also tried sanding the inside of the mags and the follower as stated before and that didnt help the situation :(.....right now im in the process of converting one of my saiga mags to fit the wasr to see if that will work....im all out of ideas beside that.

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Forgive me I'm on my way to work so I have not read this whole thread the trouble is stove pipe jams mine did the same thing you need to first open the hood remove the bolt carrier then incert a magazine now look at the mag it should fite tight agianst the stopper (that is used to keep the mag from going in too far. If it's not tight and will rock up and down. You'll see it when you pull back on the mag. What I did to mine was to soft solder a piece of steel to the magazine catch to bring the mag up to the proper location so the bolt can strip the round correctly. Hope that helped gotta go.

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thx for the info...i think i will try this if my little experiment with the saiga mags does not work...the other 10 rnd mags do seem to fit fairly tight in there and seem to butt up against the stop in the reciever...but im starting to get desperate here..... so ill try anything....thx again for all the help :)

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  • 5 weeks later...

just as some follow up for this it looks as if im going to have to bring the gun to a gunsmith and have them remove the spacing plate under the front of the trigger guard where the mag snaps in...there is a def 1/8 of an inch of movement of the magazine up and down when it is locked in place and rather than placing jb weld on all the magazines id really rather eliminate the problem on the gun....this movement of the last 1/8 of an inch should fix the prob, i think and the magazine should be stripped of rounds by the bolt with no problem......

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