These are companies that produce BCG’s for the DOD as well as companies like Bushmaster, Stag, Armalite, Remington, LaRue, and many more.
None of these companies are the tip tier AR companies that we've been talking about.
Maybe not. But people have been extolling the virtues of 9310 steel as if it's only a top tier bolt material. And the article states that it's become the default steel for even rack grade AR bolts.
I worked as a toolmaker my whole life. All the magic with steel was ironed out a long time ago. Unless you get into something really exotic, all tool steels are priced pretty much the same and the heat treating process for all of them involves about the same level of complexity.
Also, with the advent of CNC machining it's a fairly straight forward process to make multiple objects that are dimensionally identical while holding very close tolerances.
"Parts is parts". But there's always going to be people who respond to hype.
There's a huge amount of hype in the AR-15 market. They're modular,..the firearm equivalent of a lego set.
