Wake,
The lightening cuts were removed because the purpose they served (to keep the ABC/R's weight close to that of a factory bolt catch) is now performed by the v2's new thinner upper paddle. The deletion of these cuts has netted us no cost saving
ABC/R v2's upper paddle is 10% thinner overall, and the upper 50% of which is tapered additionally to clear wide billet receivers.
The pics below show the difference between the 2015 design, and 2017 v2 design:
The 2015 original design has a rather thick upper paddle, it is really much thicker than necessary. Militarymoron had suggested in 2015 to taper the upper paddle, which was done in 2017's v2 revision. V1 and v2 weigh almost the same. Neither v1 nor v2 was meant to be a lightweight bolt catch, we only wanted them to not be grossly overweight as to cause problems for the bolt catch spring.
The lightening cut in the lower paddle sometimes was controversial, some argued a stick or small rock could get in through the hole and render the bolt catch useless. While we've never seen that happen during the v1's 2 year production span, we concluded it was best done away with, it's not a debate worth having. In any case, we were able to achieve almost identical weight saving by streamlining the upper paddle, there's no need for either lightening cuts.
2017 ABC/R v2 also has upgraded coating. 8620 heat treated ABC/R v2s are black nitrided, they have a lush, deep black finish. Limited production 17-4 SS ABC/R v2s are not coated, but finished in either polished, or bead blasted surface.
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