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Thread: BCG coatings/finishes. What works, and what have you tried???

  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by silviacrazed View Post
    Was the young MFG bolt the national match variety? They are made with more material than a standard carrier. I have one in a SBR and it's been fine. I get the feeling they fit snug, but after a while it wears down the anodizing inside the upper and runs smooth.

    Sent from my Galaxy SIII
    I used to run the YNM carriers and those things chewed up the inside of my uppers pretty good. Wore channels into the uppers. Mil-spec is mil-spec for a reason.

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by silviacrazed View Post
    Was the young MFG bolt the national match variety? They are made with more material than a standard carrier. I have one in a SBR and it's been fine. I get the feeling they fit snug, but after a while it wears down the anodizing inside the upper and runs smooth.
    No it was not the NM version (I did address that in one of the posts).

    Yes, from what I understand, Young's parts are high quality but I can't say if they are TDP/Colt quality.

    I only bought the Young BCG (and the FZ BCG) during the last gun-buy madness because nothing else was available. I will probably never buy another coated BCG again as long as a Colt, LMT, BCM, or DD were available.
    Last edited by Dave L.; 01-13-13 at 00:45. Reason: add text.
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  3. #43
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    Had very good luck with the FailZero in SBR/suppressed/FA/high volume usage/combination thereof applications (as all of the above burn lube like a bastard).

    However, outside of those particular niches, I can't say your average end-user would experience any tangible benefit aside from a, 'warm and fuzzy feel good'.

    This is one of those things that I refer to as an, 'aspirational' product for most people. However, for those within a particular niche, it does indeed perform better.
    Dave Merrill
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  4. #44
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    I have had great luck (thousands of rounds, multiple rifles) with NiB BCGs as well. I still have my BCM BCGs as backups, but until I have some sort of catastrophic failure with a NiB BCG, I'll continue to use them because they are easy to clean and have way less friction going on inside my uppers.

    I have experienced the tolerance issue with one of my WMD BCG's cam pin, as mentioned above. It was a simple fix and I have never experienced a failure with that BCG. I'm sure it would have worked out of the box fine, but I wasn't comfortable with the cam fit.
    I do think WMD needs to pay more attention in that area. That may be why they test fire each BCG they ship 5 times before packaging it up. This particular one had not been test fired. Must have been during a time when they were "spot" test firing - I think they test every one now.
    I have nothing bad to say about WMD - they've done a bunch of great work for me on various parts.
    I also like hard chrome as a coating - I think it's easier to clean than NiB, actually.

    In the end, do whatever the hell you want. If you don't feel comfortable with anything other than a phosphate BCG in your rifle(s), there's nobody forcing you to buy into anything else.

    I think what pisses off many here (myself included) is when NiB is marketed as a lube-free solution. While there have been many cases of success, I would never run a rifle without lube, no matter the coating. Carbon buildup is carbon buildup. When things get hot enough, long enough, carbon still sticks to everything. Throw in multiple cooling/heating periods with additional buildup and some debris and I think you'd be back to square one maintenance. Lube helps to prolong use between maintenance intervals.
    Last edited by Brahmzy; 01-13-13 at 13:26.

  5. #45
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    I know i might get flamed some for resurrecting this post, but i think if you have the money in the budget, absolutely WHY NOT go for fail zero, nickel Boron it one of the other super coatings for the BCG? Especially the bolt, it leads a hard life with all the heat pressure and fouling, especially on GI weapons that are not and can not be kept range style clean! I read the post where they e were asking for feedback from the GI's in the current middle east live fire exercise, one guy said they were well aware of cleanliness issues with the BCG but all they dared do on patrol was sometimes pop out the whole BCG, ASSEMBLED, wipe it off and relube - no tearing down the BCG in the field or on the march, of course, since this could be suicide! In such situations i think a coated bolt would be an advantage, run smoother and maybe a little when you needed you'r weapon the most.

    In early films of Stoner doing sales pitches of his AR 10 - the AR15/M16 big brother that was simply made smaller to become the M16 - It shows Eugene Stoner himself running around with the rifle, firing it on semi and full auto, and doing a field strip and wipe down of the BCG. And an important detail, the ENTIRE BCG us chrome plated. Stoner knew perfectly well the gun would foul, and heavily, so clearly that's whye he chrome plated these parts. If the original designer thought r the BCG needed chrome plating, this indicates to me that its descendant can obviously benefit from it too!

    Let's face it lubricants are much better, but really how much better? Miracles are not sold in a bottle no matter what the vendor says. My measly two cents, if you run you're AR hard and depend on it for your life, and can afford it, get a coating. Fail zero and nickek boron are good and there is nothing wrong either with good quality chrome plate...

    After saying all that, to me the ultimate proof would be, seeing somebody put a thousands rounds through an AR, then simply wipe the carbon off the bolt tail! Show me ANY coating tough enough to do that, I'd definitely say they have got a winner! But i seriously doubt ANY if the super-slick coatings are good enough for that acid test!

  6. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by Markasaurus View Post
    Especially the bolt, it leads a hard life with all the heat pressure and fouling
    The bolt and carrier never take on that much heat. That's kinda the old piston salesman's myth.

    I've never not been able to pull my bcg out and handle it during a shoot.
    "You people have too much time on your hands." - scottryan

  7. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by markm View Post
    The bolt and carrier never take on that much heat. That's kinda the old piston salesman's myth.

    I've never not been able to pull my bcg out and handle it during a shoot.
    I guess you're right, for almost all civilian shooters Bcg plating is an expensive extravagence that's not needed. If i were an army trigger puller though, I'd sure think hard about a plated BCG, those M4's actually get red hot...a friend of mine was in Vietnam, and his firebase got attacked one night. Every single man in the camp was blasting away defending the perimiter. His M16 (A1 presumably) got so hot, he said the barrel turned red hot, then wilted down like month old piece of celery! I forgot to ask him how he got out of that mess since the rifle also jammed solid, but since he survived it somehow to tell me the story!

    You may have heard the Marines are replacing the M249 SAW with a modified M4 that fires closed bolt mode on semi auto, and fires with an open bolt when set to "auto" - probably the real answer to heat induced malfunctions. Knowing the bean counters in the navy procurement office i'd guess the bolt uses no coating, but if there ever were a weapon that needed it, this new SAW is it.

  8. #48
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    Polish the carrier rails, and you're good to go.

    I like phosphate because it retains lubricant better. And I have a NiB BC in my older KAC gun.
    We miss you, AC.
    We miss you, ToddG.

  9. #49
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    I have the standard phosphate finished bolt/carrier in 2 and a hard chromed one in another. The chromed one is much easier to clean, but that's about it. Even with all the claims, I wouldn't run an AR dry.

  10. #50
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    For the average shooter...

    I think your mil-spec BCG will work just fine. I've put a lot of rounds through several rifles over the years and only had one serious issue. That was doing full auto mag dumps, with blanks, and a Hollywood BFA. Under these circumstances, so much carbon was blown back into the chamber that it literally stuck the bolt lugs (failure to unlock). The only other way to replicate this would possibly be a can and a lot of ammo.

    I remember chrome BCGs were popular for awhile in the early to mid 80's. But then the novelty wore off after most folks found the mil-spec parts to work just fine.

    I have even experimented with KG Gunkote recently, since some mfgs insist on putting their logos all over their parts like it's NASCAR or something. I blasted the BCG to bare metal and recoated with KG flat black. I also blasted the upper (and lower) bare metal and recoated with KG coyote brown. After coating with TW2500 oil, and assembling, the BCG racked so smoothly you would have thought it had several thousand rounds through it.

    Purists will flame me for this heresy, but for the home workshop, you can't beat these spray application and heat cured finishes. Been doing them a long time and they have worked just fine for me.
    Tactical nylon gear maker.

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