Any advantage to buying an expensive one?

BCG takes all the stress and does all the work.

I've had good luck with the PSA Mil Spec Premiums with the MPI tested 158 carpenter bolts.

Some bolt carriers are not chrome lined where the bolt fits in. You have to read the specs closely to make sure you get one that is. Quality bolts are hard to come by but they are out there.
Here is one that does not specifically say it is MIlspec and chrome lined nor MPI tested.
https://www.brownells.com/rifle-par...roup-nitride-mp-prod105377.aspx?psize=96

Here is one that is supposedly Milspec, chrome lined and MPI tested.
https://www.brownells.com/rifle-par...lt-carrier-group-prod78714.aspx?psize=96

Personally, I will spend a little more and get the Milspec and MPI tested. It's just that little extra that I think is worth the cost. You have to ask yourself, is this a plinker that would get shot one or two times a year and in not a self defense rifle or is this a battle rifle that you are going to shoot 3 gun with ? I don't do anything serious enough to warrant a Colt, BCM or Daniel Defense. But, you may.

kwg

I've seen more problems with cheap BBC's than most any other part. Good bolt carriers and bolts don't have to be expensive. Don't fall for the National Match carriers or special coatings unless you understand the coatings and want them. A regular parkerized and chromed bolt carrier will last forever. Bolts, I like them to be MPI'd after they have been HP tested and shot peened doesn't hurt.

I would believe that.

I never built one (actually I bought a parts kit in the early 90's and had a guy put it together) but that seems like an important part not to skimp on.

Spending the little extra for a known quality "milspec" BCG is worth it in the long run. You can get them pretty darn cheap now days so its not like you are paying much extra if any at all. However, I wouldn't spend significantly more on some of these "boutique" BCG's with whatever new slick coating is the craze this week. A standard phosphate M16 BCG will do fine.

Here's an example of a BCG NOT to buy.

https://www.midwayusa.com/product/3...-spec-ar-15-223-remington-556x45mm-matte

Notice how it's "Machined to mil-spec", but not really a Mil Spec item. Take a look at the negative reviews, and how many are due to total failures.

I have an AR stoner BCG in a cheap build for my 10 year old. As noted in the reviews, the machining is very rough, and I've experienced light strikes with it. It's fine for for now as a range plinker, but, at some point, it will get replaced with something better.

My Grandson is building it. He is a freshman in college. He does a lot of shooting and has a couple rifles that I built for him several years ago. He will be here a couple days during the Christmas break to load about 500 rounds. All the good brass that I have left. I'm good on 77 grain bullets. Bought a thousand during a fund raiser for the Texas State Junior shooters. I have about 15,000 primers, and I think he will need to buy powder.
This is the BCG that he thinks will be good.
http://palmettostatearmory.com/review/product/list/id/28961/

I have one. My wife's rifle was spitting and sputtering, just wouldn't run. Swapped out the cheap BCG for one of those and it hasn't had an issue since.

Thanks, I believe he will shoot a lot initially and slow down after he has to reload one at a time.

One thing I don't see discussed much is rifle extractors vs carbine extractors or springs to be more accurate. Carbine extractors take a different spring and sometimes an O-ring is added for extra bite but I've seen and heard of cases where even on a mid length gas system, it was too much. If he's running a rifle gas system, I'd stay away from extra coil springs and O-rings, there should be a blue insert on rifle springs and black on carbine.

One failure that was pretty comical to me, a guy bought a bolt carrier and other stuff off ebay pretty cheap and he was thrilled at how cheap his "build" was. He got it all together and it was a single shot. He tried many different things including an adjustable gas block before having me look at it. The gas key wasn't drilled through so no gas was unlocking the bolt. He then really started to question his "cheap" parts after that...

The only problem with a budget bolt I have had was improperly staked gas key screws. The gun began running poorly and after investigating the screws were loose. It appeared to be staked but no contact to the screws was there. It was a quick fix with a hammer and chisel (no bailing wire or duct tape was used).

To be an answer there must be a question.

So ----- as a former Marine, a former instructor for the DOD, instructor in both government and private sectors in various places, in and out of the USA I would throw out the question "What is wrong with the GI spec bolt carriers in standard ARs and M-16s"?

In all my years of gunsmithing and shooting, and in all the shooting I have ever seen done with M-16s for over 40 years I have seen some breakages, but never one with a bolt carrier. Gas keys yes. Carriers....NO!

So spending more on the carrier is supposed to remedy what problem? What is the question to which an expensive carrier is an answer?

We are going to have to talk about your "Bubba's Armory" skills. Ya gotta use the right materials......(grin)

Question was about the Carrier group, not just the carrier.

And to answer your question, there is nothing wrong with a GI spec bolt carrier group. The problems arise from commercial products of lesser quality.

It depends a lot on what you consider expensive. There's certainly a difference in a $175 and $100 BCG. The difference is much smaller between a $175 and $275 BCG.

What all parts have you seen break? I'm curious about trends in manufacturers and the timelines when they occurred. Thanks.

The failures I have seen most are gas key screws loosing and in a few cases, breaking. If the key gets loose for any reason the gun will short cycle and fail to function. Easy fix, but some men don't know what to look for.

Next would be oblong cam pin holes in bolts that have been used in full auto a LOT, which heats them and lets them cool over and over. I have never seen one fail personally, but I had a friend in the armory that had 6 of them in a box that had cracked through the cam pin holes. These were all from un-maintained m16s that should have had the bolts and barrels replaced long before this kind of thing happens, but in some countries such maintenance is just never done. I have seen the bores on many of those rifles and the rifling is shot out in front of the throats so you can make a guess how many rounds they had fired.

I have seen 4 broken extractors. All broken at the hooks.
One broken ejector. This one broke in half right where one shoulder of the pin cut-out is.
One broken firing pin tip.

I have a friend that has an Colt AR (Civilian gun) that had one lug break off, but he kept shooting it for a few years. It didn't seem to do any harm at all. I wanted to replace it and he said he's let me sometime, but for about 2 years he just kept using it as it was.
He finally got a new bolt and put it in.

I always buy a colt or dd bolt carrier group, the gas key screws are always staked, the extractor springs are set up correctly and the traditional metal is used with the inside chrome lined, I would also buy a BCM as well I think, I have a different philosophy i guess because I am not interested in the cheapest, I am interested in the gun working flawlessly.

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.

So what should I look for in a quality BCG?

Chuckle, chuckle, after 5 pages you should have BCG overload.

Good thing he's back. Now that' he's spoken, I know to do the exact opposite.

A C stamped on the side is a good start...

What’s AC stand for? Always thought if it was staked good I was good to go?

He means the letter C.

I think he's pulling our legs

love it how everyone acts like they shoot thousands of rounds through their AR 15's......... let me just say NOT, unless you live in the west with access to public land your going to be like a 1 minute hike from your truck. ie not engaging the taliban. Talk crap all you guys want. I spend more time with my guns in the most remote country in US, actually away from a gun range. It doesn't bother me I need no ones approval. keep shooting your thousands of rounds, at your local gun range.

I do shoot thousands of rounds. Been mostly pistols this year and at the range, haven't hunted a single day and may not this year at all. I sometimes sit on my tailgate while shooting. I can't even spell tallyban.

I still like quality stuff. Why does that bother you?

Too poor to afford it?

He's telling you to buy a Colt. Makes perfect sense to me as that's what I do.

Hunting? No I'm just not interested in killing an innocent creature right now.

TWR,

I wasn't referring to you. You seem to be able to afford quality parts, so I'm sure you could arrange a hunt if you chose to.

But cowboy and truck driver can both be tough gigs. Either can be good ways to go broke.

Sometimes I'm a bit slow I guess. I ain't made of money but I can't see cutting corners on things that matter as a good thing.

Time is short and you better do what you enjoy while you can.

actually I do enjoy reading your posts CC, your entitled to your point of view and Rock River is not a horrible gun I had one for a while had to pay extra to get the barreled chromed back then, then the gas key was not staked if I remember correctly, but again it fired but it seemed slightly heavier than my neighbors Colt so I sold it and got a Colt. My thinking has evolved over time regards optics, guns, cars, tools. My philosophy is that I don't invite suspected or known trouble into my life, as we get enough trouble in our lives without doubling down on it.

I fire over 3000 rounds a year as I know that "shooting" like the man in the movie said is a "perishable skill".

Fancy yourself... Although my home range won't get much past 600, but does have access at a single point to 970, its what I have. I've not shot on a public range but 1 time in my life. I have shot on a lot of ranges at matches, but not as the general public.

Though wife and I don't shoot more than about 1000 rounds combined in a year anymore for almost 20 years of our lives we put appx 20,000 rounds of 223 down range, not counting other rounds...

So whats the most remote "country" thats in the US?

Fixed it for you.

go look at nevada sometime. in texas your never more than 10 miles from any town.

Evidently you've no clue about south and west TX for starters. Not that I care. And not that I ever said I was remote..

I"m still trying to figure out how you think Nevada is a "country"......

must not, I grew up near waco texas. I don't know anything about the state I suppose. As for nevada and it being country, ok how about driving 100 miles in a day, not seeing another person, not hearing another human made sound except for a lone jet every now and then at 35k feet. How about not seeing another light that is man made? how about driving down roads where no one has been down it for weeks or perhaps a year? Yeah just like AR 15's you don't know what the hell your talking about. its in the 600 yard deer kill category.

Rost here is a little uncle rico just for you. substitute I could shoot deer all day long beyond 600 yards with my Ar 15.

Who do you think you are by the way! West Texas is a little larger than the nev. desert. I live in east Texas and see no lights at night except the stars, moon, and some planets. It sounds as you need to be isolated. Maybe you need a Power Stroke, chuckle, chuckle.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA...... Geography is so hard.



There's a few places where you can stand and be further than 10 miles from the edge of the ranch you're on.

I almost didn't log on. I thought, "There's probably just something stupid posted. Probably shouldn't bother."


But CC made it all soooo worth it.

Comingcowboy,
nevada is 320 miles wide, Texas is 773 miles wide. I'm an Okie, but live in Texas. Been to nevada a couple or 20 times. Only goid thing about it is a lot, not all, of the people are great.

Not to mention the ability to distinguish between your and you're.

once again you guys are soo funny its rediculous. all that west texas loneliness your talking about, guess what you get to enjoy it all from the same paved road everyone else is on, because you don't own jack [bleep] of it, check mate beotch try harder next time. oh I forgot maybe you paid someone 15k for a lease that lets you enjoy someone else's property.

Checkmate?

Obviously you don't know how to play chess.

Just to satisfy my curiosity which part of NV are you referring to?

I've driven for hours over there without seeing anyone in the middle of the day. When you do see oncoming vehicles both drivers usually wave to each other. Not that they know each other, only because it's been so long since they've seen another living person. Nothing but barbwire, mesquite and a little blacktop. Hard to believe if you've spent most of your time in the Dallas/FT Worth or Houston area but there are some VERY remote parts in Texas still.

We used to hunt a small ranch east of Lubbock a ways, it was 45 sections and other than the ranch hands house, we didn't see anyone else all night long. Of course we were safe cause we were hunting from from the truck in the killing chair.

But what does that have to do with the importance of a bolt carrier?

Nevermind

It says no end it sight???

PSA premium bolt

OK, back on the tracks. Is this one good enough or do I need a gooder one? If it's not, what's wrong with it?

Grandson did this one.
http://palmettostatearmory.com/psa-...g-with-carpenter-158-bolt-516446450.html

wonder if that is an FN BCG? It "says" all the right stuff in the specs.

Yes.

These are excellent BCG's. I have two, +1 with the NB coating.

A while back someone posted a link to a guy in Las Vegas who ran one of local machine gun shoots. He purchased some of the PSA FN barreled uppers with these BCG. He said they ran like Colts, typically breaking at the pivot pin hole somewhere between 60k and 100k rounds.

Great, I ordered one for a spare. Can't go wrong at that price. I'll make sure and change it out at 59,000 rounds.

Laffin....Yep, all of us east of the Mississippi shoot exclusively at gun ranges. The silence out there must be getting to you. Perhaps you need more exposure to people to keep your perception of reality in check.