Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Importance of Bolt Carrier Group quality

There are 2 ways to get them to run flawlessly. One is buy a top name that seems to never have bad parts( which I pretty well assume has to have some failure rate sooner or later)

The other is buy decent stuff, at a decent price and trouble shoot if or when needed. The carrier has never bothered me much. The bolt has. And as you all know, I can be talked into trying the most expensive and the cheapest.... I've yet to have any issues on any part of the BCG other than normal wear.

YMMV.

...come to think of it , Ive never owned a BCG that failed , or didnt run well ? and I've used / owned more than my fair share. Call me Lucky I guess.

You don't need fancy coatings.

I pretty much exclusively run Colt bolts in my guns.

My spares are all Colt.

I purchased a bunch of them years back while at the factory during an armor's class and am very thankful that I had the foresight to do so.

That said, If I had access to FN bolts or BCGs, I would not hesitate to run them.

BCM makes good quality stuff as well, and people I trust speak favorably of them, but I don't have one personally.

PSA stuff is all over the map. They have all manner of things advertised, but I consider them the Walmart of AR-15s. A total crapshoot.

Every now and then you can get some good products like uppers with FN barrels, but as for the rest, who knows.

The BCG is important IMO.

I've pretty much stopped buying anything at all from PSA as I can usually get the same brand name elsewhere & by the time cost & shipping are considered, likely at or near the same price.

One can never go wrong with Colt or FN & I consider them more or less industry standard & they have been for years; I've had 2 Colts, no FN's.

As for the actual BCG's that I currently own, I have 3 from KAC (that came as complete guns with proprietary bolts), 1 BCM, 1 Noveske, 2 Rise Armament & 2 Rubber City Armory (RCA, who make the bolts for many other manufacturers/re-sellers including Noveske).

Had a headspace problem (too short) with an American Defense bolt at one time, but that was with a match chambered Wylde gun so it's entirely possible the bolt was OK, maybe just a bit snug on the barrel's chamber length. The machining & BCG fit was as you would expect from AD.

Never have had any issues related to performance or breakage with any of them..............yet.

For a few extra $$$, I will always buy a proven product from a reputable company; my next one will be from Young Mfg. & will be for a 6mm or 6.5 gun as I think that they are near the top of the heap in quality.

MM

Right now I have 3 Colt BCG's and 2 LaRue contract BCG's I think. All I will buy are mil spec.

Same here. I'm happy and willing to pay more for a stronger bolt, but I'm not as concerned about the carrier, as long as it's dimensionally correct, chrome lined, and properly hardened for durability. (They are generally case hardened BTW, hard on the surface and soft inside like a good cookie.)

If I'm going to pay extra for a bolt carrier, it needs to have some special features besides standard mil-spec, such as adjustable gas like a Bootleg carrier. I go for light weight carriers too and sometimes side chargers, but I machine all those features myself.



That's my experience as well. The only problems I've encountered were machining burrs inside the retaining pin hole, other than that I've never even broken a bolt, despite having a bunch of them and a tendency to load hot. I don't buy bottom quality parts though, and set up my rifles to avoid things like bolt failures.

The problems you listed can be worse on cheap parts. So it sounds like the answer to his question may be "yes"..... Depending on what he considers expensive. Colt / BCM BCGs aren't cheap.

I buy colt, bcm or dd I have one stag in a 6.8 which is a hunting rifle. On the other hand its all good if anyone wants to put a POS BCG into their weapon, its kind of a Darwinian thing.

you guys worry way way too much about all this. Are you seriously going to engage the Taliban in Afghanistan? The fact is the average AR15 will never see 500 rounds. Most guys are lucky to put 2 boxes of shells through a gun in a year. a freaking PTAC bolt from palmetto is probably going to be just fine and if it aint. So what, fix it!. I actually think it would be cool to break a part more often just to see something other than good operation happen. You probably should have a backup gun anyways if your that concerned about it. Frankly the bigger show stopper IMO is a stuck case where the rim gets yanked off when you try to eject it. Not a big deal if you have a cleaning rod with your, OR better yet a backup gun. The bolt carrier goes bad just grab rifle number 2, or if your 2 cheap for that you can always carry a spare BCG.

Never have a problem with my BCG's I use RRA pretty much exclusively, both in chrome and standard. If I have a problem I can just grab the other gun, OR use the BCG that is in the other rifle and keep rocking on. I do prefer the BCG to be broken in though. I like to put about 300 rounds though a BCG before I really start to like it. especially on a standard black non coated one, it really helps it slide nice and slick. Chrome isn't as big a deal on that, but I still like the chrome to see some rounds through it too.

Lol. First AR problems

I've only had one problem that was partially due to a BCG. The gun was getting sluggish and sometimes it wouldn't lock the bolt back. I replaced the gas tube and bolt and now it works fine. Neither one alone fixed it. My only guess with the bolt is that the tail got thin. I really have no idea why, but it had 10,000+ rounds on it and I sometimes would scrape the tail to clean it.

Is scraping the carbon off on the tail a must do thing? I've read that some guys say it's a must do otherwise you'll have malfunctions. Other folks say they never do it.

I don't think you should scrape the bolt tail.
When I clean it, I drop it a ultrasonic cleaner with some water & Simple Green. That strips it to bare metal.

I can't imagine that scraping takes much off of a hard bolt tail, but it just seems to me that everyone I've heard who had a problem with one, scraped it.

Well, he bought this one from Palmetto.
Premium 5.56 Nickel Boron BCG with Carpenter 158 Bolt - No Logo
I think he will be fine, but if not he can save money for another.
Carry on.

If you just want to plink tin cans or even the occasional critter, buy what you want. If it’s job is to protect you or others, it pay to buy quality. I’ve never seen a bushmaster gas key that was properly staked, I’ve seen two DPMS bolts break at the cam pin hole on the same string of fire. I’ve seen hundreds of thousands of rounds fired using colt, BCM and DD bcgs. I’ve seen one broken colt bolt and one BCM that caused problems. We passed them around because we don’t see that often. On the other hand, no one blinks an eye when a cheap one goes tits up.

Next up we can discuss making a Las Angeles tactical vest by cutting strips out of truck steel belted radials and bolting the tread strategically to a photographers vest.

Yes, you are correct!

Suddenly all of your other posts make sense.

Or at least puts them in proper context.

the cowboy is back! Well it looks like the electroshock therapy did not help him at all.