Brand new Colt 6951 bolt catch jams in closed position

Surprise of surprises, I did not receive a call back from Eric the following day, September 14th.

I called on the 18th, spoke with Chris, and was told 30-45 days. Not being too pleased with that, I asked to speak with a supervisor. He then put me on hold, came back, and told me he was moving my rifle to the front of the line for repairs. I checked back today, the 25th, and spoke with Chris again. It's on the gunsmith's bench, but the he doesn't know any more that that. The 30-45 day clock started on September 12th when the receiving department finally said they received the rifle. The tone in his voice indicated he wasn't too terribly interested in answering any more of my questions. This is absurd, a brand new rifle shouldn't have these issues. There shouldn't be this much lead time for warranty work.

Being out of patience today, I'll demand a supervisor tomorrow.

As a machinist, I might just know a thing or two about manufacturing and quality control. There have been enough out of spec receivers that Colt admits it's a problem. This means two things. The first is that whoever the operator is running the CNC equipment making the receivers has issues with making the part correctly and should face corrective action up to and including termination. Second, somebody in quality control is signing off on bad parts being released to the assembly department and needs to be disciplined as well.

I don't think I'm going to be buying another Colt product. The company that should be the gold standard for AR-15s and 1911s appears to be one big joke.

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Originally Posted by Kilroy08

Surprise of surprises, I did not receive a call back from Eric the following day, September 14th.

I called on the 18th, spoke with Chris, and was told 30-45 days. Not being too pleased with that, I asked to speak with a supervisor. He then put me on hold, came back, and told me he was moving my rifle to the front of the line for repairs. I checked back today, the 25th, and spoke with Chris again. It's on the gunsmith's bench, but the he doesn't know any more that that. The 30-45 day clock started on September 12th when the receiving department finally said they received the rifle. The tone in his voice indicated he wasn't too terribly interested in answering any more of my questions. This is absurd, a brand new rifle shouldn't have these issues. There shouldn't be this much lead time for warranty work.

Being out of patience today, I'll demand a supervisor tomorrow.

As a machinist, I might just know a thing or two about manufacturing and quality control. There have been enough out of spec receivers that Colt admits it's a problem. This means two things. The first is that whoever the operator is running the CNC equipment making the receivers has issues with making the part correctly and should face corrective action up to and including termination. Second, somebody in quality control is signing off on bad parts being released to the assembly department and needs to be disciplined as well.

I don't think I'm going to be buying another Colt product. The company that should be the gold standard for AR-15s and 1911s appears to be one big joke.

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I have to agree, but I have loved my older Colt rifles, and it's a sad state of affairs. I just got back from vacation, and I had my rifle waiting in a shipping box, unrepaired of course because I found the turnaround estimates absurd. I am going to break down the lower, pull all components and give it all a thorough cleaning, reassemble, and replace the bolt catch/spring/plunger with a new set, then oil on the springs, clean the bore and upper quickly, and take it out Friday morning to test. If it's still jamming, I'll try a Tubbs .308 buffer spring with heavier/longer Kak buffer, and try again. If that doesn't help, I'll send it back to Colt on my dime to have it inspected and repaired properly, then write it off completely...I won't care if they send it back fixed or not. In the mean time I'll use my old Colt 6450 to compete, and research something more reliable and make the purchase. If I ever get the gun back in working order, I may either put it in the safe, make it a range rifle, or sell. What a crock of shee ite.

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Originally Posted by boss281

I have to agree, but I have loved my older Colt rifles, and it's a sad state of affairs. I just got back from vacation, and I had my rifle waiting in a shipping box, unrepaired of course because I found the turnaround estimates absurd. I am going to break down the lower, pull all components and give it all a thorough cleaning, reassemble, and replace the bolt catch/spring/plunger with a new set, then oil on the springs, clean the bore and upper quickly, and take it out Friday morning to test. If it's still jamming, I'll try a Tubbs .308 buffer spring with heavier/longer Kak buffer, and try again. If that doesn't help, I'll send it back to Colt on my dime to have it inspected and repaired properly, then write it off completely...I won't care if they send it back fixed or not. In the mean time I'll use my old Colt 6450 to compete, and research something more reliable and make the purchase. If I ever get the gun back in working order, I may either put it in the safe, make it a range rifle, or sell. What a crock of shee ite.

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I disassembled the lower by taking out and cleaning the hammer and trigger as well as the bolt catch. The replacement bolt catch that I got from burnell's was clearly much looser than the OEM. The OEM bolt catch was really stiff in the slot compared to the new replacement. I just mounted my Seymour Railway optic and will test the rifle tomorrow.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

*UPDATE*

Ok, tested my reliable stock 1993 Colt 6450 9mm with Vortex Strikefire II red dot on the fixed carry handle and my repaired but new Colt 6951 9mm with a newly installed bolt catch/spring/plunger riding a C-More Railway Tactical red dot. As mentioned, once I got my un-repaired rifle back from Colt, I removed the bolt catch parts, the trigger and hammer assemblies and thoroughly cleaned up the lower with gun scrubber, replaced the bolt catch parts with new items, and lubed the rifle (lower just got a dab on the springs).

Ran the following, 50 rounds each:

Winchester white box 115g FMJ
Winchester white box 124g FMJ
Winchester 124g NATO FMJ
Winchester 90g Super Clean FMJ
Winchester 147g WinClean BEB

For each of the five 9mm variants, I used 10 rounds in 5 different magazines, all Colt branded except for 1:

1 old Colt 6450 30 rounder
1 new Colt 30 rounder bought retail
1 new Colt 30 rounder that came with the new 6951
1 old Colt 6450 20 rounder
1 new MetalForm 20 rounder (black follower)

For each rifle, I zero'd at 25 yards using the Winchester 115g to 1" or less in the bullseye (damn red dots take all sorts of adjustment back and forth, the C-more was effing ridiculous). The new 6951 had all the best groups by the way, as the older Colt 6450 is showing some wear and I would get 1 or two slight drifts at times, but nothing that bothered me.

In general, the 90g and 147g tended to have the larger groups at both 25 and 50 yards but nothing crazy (I didn't shoot 100 yards because my eyes, even with corrective lenses, can't see a target well enough at 1X), with the 90g doing better (say, no more than 1.5" groups at either distance). The 147g was all over the place at 50 but acceptable, and did fine at 25 with 2" groups. The 147g had one FTF in the older 6450 using the new retail Colt 30rd magazine (this seems to happen once a range session if I shoot the 147g).

The 124g was about as accurate as the 115g, but the 124g NATO really was tight, a nice tack driver!!! I just read up on this round and it's got a bit more pressure than 124g FMJ, so for accuracy, it's my guy. I think I'll shoot this competitively although I guess I should look up muzzle velocity. The brass was the typical dirty stuff, but not as bad as the 115g and certainly not as dirty as the 115g Brazer brass from previous outings. Never again.

The two "clean" burning rounds were just that, really clean in comparison, but the accuracy was just a little off. I'm not sure I really care that much regarding more frequent cleaning (I kind of like cleaning the rifles, frankly), but I'll keep some on hand if I need to shoot like 500+ rounds in a session, and just zero to the round at that instance.

Both factory Colt rifles did fine, the factory magazines old and new performed fine, and the one FTF is a bit peculiar, but rare enough I'm not stressing anything.

One thing: the Colt 6450 just felt better in my hands than the newer Colt 6951. Perhaps it's because I'm used to it, but it felt lighter and more balanced for sure, seemed to have less recoil overall (the spring and buffer setups are different, as are the trigger, hammer assemblies), and the profile of the heat shields/hand guards a better profile. I can't say I really liked the C-More I put on the 6951. Interestingly, the 6951's buffer spring clearly makes a "boing" sound while shooting EXCEPT the last round in the magazine when the bolt catch is held open. I wonder if that's due to the buffer hitting the spring extension spacer doohicky that came installed on the opposite end of the spring (this thing, which is not on the Colt 6450 http://www.gandrtactical.com/cgi-bin...n&key=SP400211 ). I have the Tubbs .308 spring and kak adjustable buffer to try yet, but that will have to wait until after I get some USPSA PCC practice in this week.

It's not clear if any of this is useful to anyone other than myself, since it seems you folks are far beyond my armorer skills and have built your own rifles and do your own reloads, but it's something to consider from the retail end. Regards...