Did I ruin my lower receiver?
Last night, some of the parts I've been waiting for finally arrived and I started assembling my lower receiver. When I got to the bolt catch, I noticed it was VERY tight going into the channel of the lower. Once I got it in position, it would not move without a lot of force. First, I tried adding some CLP to the receiver and the bolt catch. No good. Then, I tried working the part in and out to see if friction could break it in. It got slightly better, but I could see that the finish on the edge of the channel was flaking. Finally, in a moment of impatience, I got out my dremel and a thin attachment and started slowly grinding at the inside of the channel. After a few passes, the bolt catch moved more freely so I installed it and tried it out with the upper off my other AR. It would only lock the bolt back about half the time. So, I removed it and removed a little more material with the dremel and tried again. It now moves pretty smoothly (still not perfect, but pretty good) and it locks the bolt back 100% of the time. However, I can't test it with actual rounds since I don't have the trigger group yet. My biggest concern is that either I removed too much material and created a weak spot in the receiver or I removed the anodizing and therefore created a weak spot that way. My other concern is that since the movement still isn't perfect, I don't know if it is going to lock the bolt back when it is moving faster during actual firing. It doesn't seem like an area where there would be a lot of stress, but I wanted to see what you guys think. I will say that I only removed a little at a time and now that it is assembled you can't really tell other than a few tiny spots of silver that are showing at the very top of the bolt catch channel.