[sentinel]

I Was at the range last Sunday getting rid if the last of my Adcom crap ammo when much to my dismay the front part of the charging handle went flying off the rifle when I let the charging handle snap forward from the locked open position. I called Bob at FNH USA and after explaining the incident to him he said he was putting a charging handle assembly in the mail this afternoon.
Though I'm a little disappointed that this happened I am very pleased with the level of customer service that Bob and FNH USA have provided.

Has anyone ever experienced the charging handle breaking a second time ?

 

[Promoted Pawn]

Mine hasn't broken, once. I've heard of this only once before- maybe it was you?
This is the second time?

 

[sentinel]

This is the first one for me. If you scroll down to "Broken Charging Handle-FS2000" you will see that this has occurred with two other members: USAF_GroundRat and homeyclaus. So far it's seems to have occurred only once in their carbines. If you look at the initial post by USAF he put also posted a few pictures.The location where his charging handle broken is the exact same place mine broke.

 

[ShipWreck]

Yes, I thought I had heard about it 1x myself.

It doesn't seem to be too common of an occurrance, but can happen - it always sucks when something like that happens to you.

 

[Xlegionaire]

Hmm interetsing any ideas on why this is happening? I have more then 2 cases of 5.56 through mine with out a glitch but will be watching for this now.

 

[sentinel]

When I spoke with Bob he stated that the first few thousand units were packaged improperly which may have contributed to the charging handle possibly becoming damaged during shipment :-? , the serial number on my FS2000 is 0056XX. In looking at the pictures that USAF_GroundRat posted and also seeing pictures posted by martyr's broken charging handle on the fiveseven forum and knowing that my charging handle broke in the exact same spot as theirs...maybe the location where the front part of the charging handle is pined onto the rest of the charging handle is an area that can receive too much stress for a piece to be made of that specific type of polymer. Or perhaps that attachment point may be susceptible to side stresses that one may apply the the charging handle when pulling the handle back and up to the locked open position.
What I do know for sure is that I don't really know why it broke, so I'm only left to guess as to why. It appears that these are rare occurrences as I have only read about three others experiencing the same breakage, two on this forum and one on the fiveseven forum. I have no doubt that if this were a design or manufacturing issue that FNH would take appropriate measures to correct it. These are pictures of my charging handle.

 

[Promoted Pawn]

Well, thanks for showing.

 

[sentinel]

These are pictures of the broken FS2000 charging handles from the other carbines I spoke of previously, Notice the similarity?

 

[Promoted Pawn]

Yeah, exact same spot.
The lug at the very front of my FS2000 stock broke and a couple other guys posted pictures of broken lugs from the same side of the weapon, all broken at the same angle.

To look at this positively these are not random problems- that is the FS2000 is not constructed of plastic that could break at any point at any time. It has a few occasional weak points have been exposed and hopefully future runs of the weapon will have quality control measures to assure against these faults.

It's a shame that the rifle made it into production with these imperfections, but then again I don't expect perfection from a product that is so radical.

Have you gotten the replacement?

 

[sentinel]

No I haven't received it yet. I spoke with Bob on Monday during which he said he was going to put it in the mail that afternoon. If it doesn't come in today I'll call him this afternoon. I look forward to getting this part, even with it's faults I really like this carbine.

 

[slow10ker]

broken charging handle

Are the serial numbers of the guns close together? The whole serial number wouldn't have to be posted. Maybe within 500 of each other.

It appears to me that either a tooling or material change is probably required. (Production runs one a small part like this are usually pretty large.) And, if mine's within 1,000 serials of any of these I think I'll go ahead and order one...


thanks,

jeff

 

[hcpookie]

It would not be a stretch to consider making these from metal.

You know the "extended" P90 charging handle that First Son Enterprises makes? Perhaps they could be convinced to make some "extended" metal FS2000 charging handles...

http://www.fseusa.com/

 

[elcid11]

I think I figured out why it is breaking guys.

DO NOT HK SLAP THE CHARGING HANDLE.

I am not saying that is what you are doing, but the charging handle was not designed to be slaped down from the hold position. If you do that, you will put way to much stress on the handle piece and the angle that it is suspended when in the hold position facilitates a breakage.

That is all.