LMT Bolt Damage

[Neeglik]

Has anyone ever had any experience with small dings or gouges on the face or lugs of a brand new bolt (especially one from LMT)? I purchased a 10.5 LMT upper recently. I took it shooting and cleaned it. Now I'm noticing two very small gouges/scratches. One on the lugs and one on the face near the extractor lip. Neither appear to be deep.

I know I'm probably not painting the best picture, so I'll try to get a photo up asap. I'm just wondering if it's normal, and more importantly, if it is safe to keep shooting.

Being an LMT, I'd like to think that quality control would have picked this up before it left the factory. I did shoot about 200 rds through it. Mostly reloads of my design, mixed with some mags of mil spec stuff my friend had brought out. The gun functioned flawlessly. We got it real hot, real quick. I doubt that our shooting caused the damage, but I don't want to rule it out until I get some feedback.

Any help would be appreciated...

[rob_s]

Just to be clear, you bought a complete 10.5" LMT upper and a brand new LMT BCG that you're running together?

I'm interested in seeing the pics.

[Neeglik]

Correct. A Full Auto BCG and a complete upper. Here are a couple pics. Sorry, but I'm no photographer and I couldn't get zoomed in and keep it from being blurry.





What I'm concerned about is the mark at the two o'clock lug, on the inside. There is another mark at the six o'clock just above the extractor. It is harder to see, but there is a left to right cut on the face where the extractor sits. In the pics you should be able to see that it is not completely straight. The uneven point is the "gouge".

[rob_s]

Take the picture zoomed out enough to get the focus, and take it at the highest resolution possible. Then crop the photo down to get the detail you want without resizing. If your camera has a "still life" setting (on Cannon point and shoots it's indicated by a flower) use that so the camera focuses on the center and is trying to take a relatively close shot.

I really can't see anything in the pictures you posted. It looks like the camera focused on the bolt holding the vice down, not the bolt in the carrier.

[Stickman]

The SONY DSC-T5 should have some form of Macro setting, I believe Sony calls their macro setting "Magnifying Glass", and the camera can shoot up to 1cm from the object.

If you get rid of the background, and place the Bolt Carrier Group on a white piece of paper, you should be able to get a very large, and very clear image of the bolt face. Try to fill the frame with the bolt when you take the picture, and like Rob_S commented, use a high resolution.

[militarymoron]

one of the problems with shooting so close (1cm) to the subject is that you could end up blocking the light on the subject. stay about 6" away from the bolt head, making sure it's lit nicely, zoom in if you have to, and switch from multi auto focus to center auto focus (and center the bolt head in the screen), so it doesn't focus on the background (which is happening in your previous pics).

[Neeglik]

I give credit to my wife for figuring this out, but here's a better pic...



Let me know what you guys think...

[rifleshooter]

Looks like it's a problem with your bolt hitting the bbl. extension locking lugs. I would call LM&T and arrange to ship it back for them to fix the problem.

[Neeglik]

So would that be a problem with the bolt or the barrel extension?

[rifleshooter]

There is a timing problem with the rotation of the bolt as it enters the bbl. extension of the bbl. It's a complex matter that LM&T are the best ones to address the problem.
The bbl. extension might be out of Spec. then it could be a bolt and cam pin problem also the machining of the carrier could be off.
As you can see it's not something someone can just look at and make a snap judgment as to what is causing the nicks.