I was reading the recent thread about problems with a Nib BCG and one post in that thread made me curious. Someone posted a comment about Nib being "more porous on a microscopic level". This made me curious so I decided to investigate.
This is a quick study of surface finish on Nib vs. black Phosphate. I took two of my BCGs and put them under a microscope and viewed them at 100x magnification at three different viewpoints. The Nib carrier is a newer Ares Armour and the BF carrier is a Daniel Defense with a lot more rounds on it's life. I looked at both of these near the back of the carrier where they see less wear. The carriers were degreased, dried, and looked at in the same place. Please note, this is not at all meant to be a comparison of brands. I'm using an older DD and a newer AA carier because this is what I have. If someone wants to send me brand new carriers and/or equally used carriers and multiple finishes to do a more comprehensive and accurate study them go ahead!
The following photos are taken from three different views. Stright on, then approx. 30 deg. angle, then on the edge of the milled groove at the back of the carrier. The angled view is to try to cast a shadow across the high spots with the microscope light to give a little better height perspective. The view from the edge of the milled groove is try to accomplish the same thing in a different way. Viewing the edge allows one to see high and low surfaces from a side profile and get a different perspective.(imagine looking over the edge of a cliff) I put some scaling on the images to help get a measure. The scale is in microns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_micrometre That is one millionth of a meter. Now...on with the pics!
Nib, straight view
BP, straight view
Nib, 30 deg. angle view
BP, 30 deg. angle view
Nib, edge of groove view
BP, edge of groove view
My conclusions:
The Nib finish appears to be a smoother and more consistent finish. There are fewer high and low variations in the Nib finish. It's interesting to see the milled groove edge on the BF carrier is not straight at all. I don't know if this is a plating uneveness, tooling marks from the mill, or something else. But in the different views it's easy to see that the Nib finish is much "tighter" and not as "porous". The scaling is a great way of measuring the high spots and confirms what the images show.
Based on what I see here, I can't see that Nib has large pores for carbon to cling to as I have read some claim, and actually the BP finish is the one with great big valleys. I think that a likely cause of many of the issues out there is due to poor plating practices. I would also like to do this again with a variety of carriers and finishes that are new. Unless someone wants to sponsor a study and send them to me to view then that won't happen. If anyone who has had issues with their finish wants to send it over I'll look at it if you pay shipping.
I hope this is interesting, fun, informative, or a little bit entertaining.
Cheers!
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