Originally Posted by
juliet9
Having raced cars and boats for years, there is a reason crankshafts, connecting rods, pistons, etc. are forged. The stresses induced, particularly in high rpm engines, are profound, thus forging.
While you point is taken, is forging necessary? Of course not, otherwise it would have been the standard, but I am suspect to your analysis of the machining of the bolt post forging would reduce it to bar stock composition. Throwing a flag on that one. As you probably know, forging generally and vastly reduces the amount of machining necessary to get to the final result as say for example machining from bar stock.
The forging benefits aside, if that almost doubles the cost of a BCG, you gotta ask yourself what are the benefits. Geissele claims 5 times the life expectancy versus a mil-spec bolt. Why is that? Is it because of the C158+ steel? The forged bolt? Both? Which I suspect. I find the claim interesting.