So bcg in nickle boron or hard chrome

[bravo619]

Have a young mfg but wondering how the boron coated would run? Any difference?

[markm]

NiB is horrible in my experience. The one bold I had ended up looking black because NiB grabbed and hung on to carbon fouling so well. I won't buy that finish ever again. NP3 runs rings around NiB.

[Furbyballer]

NP3 is what you want, not NiB due to the flaking of the coating after some prolonged use.

[bravo619]

Awesome thanks for your help

[thopkins22]

Nickel boron can flake, and it also gets eaten alive by copper removers. I just don't see it being a good idea in a firearm...pretty much ever. It has better corrosion resistance than hard chrome though, and is generally(depending on the process,) less wear resistant/tough, and usually softer than hard chrome. It's easier to do right though.

Try as I may, I just don't see the point of doing anything other than parkerizing a bolt carrier.

Hell look at the bearing surfaces on the carrier. Nothing but four tiny little rails...not a lot of friction. The parts that matter get hard chromed(inside the gas key and inside of the carrier where the bolt rides.

Parkerizing holds oil, is moderately corrosion resistant as it is, and plenty hard enough. Any other treatment with the exception of nitro carburizing and hard chrome will wear through on those surfaces in short order.

You could probably sell me on a hard chrome bolt...but even then I dunno. I know how a parkerized and shot peened bolt behaves...that is to say a little squirt of oil or even a dab of crisco and the damn things work and work well. They're not easy to clean...but the beauty is that they don't actually need to be very clean. In fact they tend to work well even in an utterly disgusting state of filth.

[MegademiC]

NiB is horrible in my experience. The one bold I had ended up looking black because NiB grabbed and hung on to carbon fouling so well. I won't buy that finish ever again. NP3 runs rings around NiB.

And 2 lugs broke. I think I still have it laying around.

No coating will flake if done properly.
What copper solvents damage NiB? Ammonia stains it, the only way I found to dissolve it involved stuff you probably don't have, and can't buy. This was standard Ni stripper.

All that said, the base bolt is infinitely more critical than coating. I would not buy NiB. All else equal np3, Cr, park, in that order. I run parked bolts fwiw.

[thopkins22]

Ammonia stains it, the only way I found to dissolve it involved stuff you probably don't have, and can't buy. This was standard Ni stripper.

Nah, the stain is corrosion that you're seeing. It resists it better than other harsher chemicals, but its corrosion nonetheless. Perhaps not at an accelerated rate, and perhaps no worse than the etching seen in bores from the same cleaners.

Perhaps it doesn't even matter. But I don't see myself paying extra for a product when the old one worked just as well, and the new one requires special cleaning instructions to not damage it(however slight the damage or as you say staining might be.)

A quick google brought this up which shows that electroless nickel coatings are in fact corroded by ammonia. https://books.google.com/books?id=Ie...0boron&f=false

Now that doesn't mean that they're incompatible for all uses. In my old job(damn you cheap oil,) there are a number of tools we sent down hole that have electroless nickel coatings, and some of the completion fluids involve crosslinked ammonia instead of soap or guar gum etc...or in addition to it(as I said, the nickel boron has superior corrosion resistance to hard chrome.) It mostly acts both as a biocide to keep things from getting funky and as a viscosity booster. But these tools have a defined lifespan. We know how much use to expect from them before they go to tool heaven, and the corrosion resistance was more important than the toughness, hardness, and so forth of a hard chrome coating.

Whereas "most" gun owners that I'm aware of, buy guns for life. I think even those of us that buy a gun and dream about the day we shoot the barrel out have similar thoughts.

[JG007]

My sionics np3 is my favorite bcg I own

[abso]

Nah, the stain is corrosion that you're seeing. It resists it better than other harsher chemicals, but its corrosion nonetheless. Perhaps not at an accelerated rate, and perhaps no worse than the etching seen in bores from the same cleaners.

Perhaps it doesn't even matter. But I don't see myself paying extra for a product when the old one worked just as well, and the new one requires special cleaning instructions to not damage it(however slight the damage or as you say staining might be.)

A quick google brought this up which shows that electroless nickel coatings are in fact corroded by ammonia. https://books.google.com/books?id=Ie...0boron&f=false

Now that doesn't mean that they're incompatible for all uses. In my old job(damn you cheap oil,) there are a number of tools we sent down hole that have electroless nickel coatings, and some of the completion fluids involve crosslinked ammonia instead of soap or guar gum etc...or in addition to it(as I said, the nickel boron has superior corrosion resistance to hard chrome.) It mostly acts both as a biocide to keep things from getting funky and as a viscosity booster. But these tools have a defined lifespan. We know how much use to expect from them before they go to tool heaven, and the corrosion resistance was more important than the toughness, hardness, and so forth of a hard chrome coating.

Whereas "most" gun owners that I'm aware of, buy guns for life. I think even those of us that buy a gun and dream about the day we shoot the barrel out have similar thoughts.

I've stained an NP3 carrier. Is that the same sort of corrosion ? The only carrier I've never been able to stain were standard park carriers and my old Youngs mfg hard chrome carrier (which still feels slicker than snot)

[thopkins22]

I have no idea what NP3's composition is. If it is the same sort of corrosion, I do want to be clear that I don't think you've actually harmed it in any way. Just changed it.