[ungawa]

M16 issue - Weapon fires when safety selector switched

I have a lot of experience with M16s. So I have familiarity. On the other hand, I am certainly not an expert on them, and we have experts here on our forum.

This is a Colt stamped M16-A1. Supposed to be original factory machinegun.

I bought an M16, and I expect the NFA transfer to be completed within days from now. When I walked into the dealer's facility, I was all googoly-eyed and a little nervous.

None of the following involved firing the weapon with ammo, simply function tests with an empty weapon. I would cock the firearm and release to battery. When I moved the selector switch, either from Safe to Semi or Safe to Auto, I don't remember which, the weapon would fire. Every time. This concerned me, and I asked my dealer about it, and then I decided it was because I hadn't released to bolt from a locked position into a positive battery using the bolt release - I assumed I released the bolt too slowly. None of my rationalizations at the time make sense now. Understand I was a very high on adrenaline at the time. I cannot get any of my AR-15s to repeat this behavior.

The firearm is guaranteed. This does not help very much because if I want to give it back I need to transfer it back through ATF and find a new one to start over.

So, any diagnosis on this? Has it been too long since I fired an M16 and do they all sound like they fire when switching the selector? Probably not. Any idea what could be wrong with it and what it would take to fix? "Send that stuff back" does not take into account the cost and time of starting over, I may be willing to deal with a simple issue.