If your bolts are so superior why settle?The only bolts in over 20 years I have had fail were Y/M, they broke at the cam pin hole. I've seen a few bolts from the largest producer of civilian ARs in this country that looked like the lugs were compressing, further inspection showed they were very soft. I know someone who built a grendel using a 7.62x39 bolt from the same company, after several stiff rounds the cases started taking the shape of a belted magnum, he checked and found the lugs were .008 shorter. I believe those bolts to be 8620 and not heat treated properly.
I checked into Carp 158 4 years ago, found out that all of the material was allocated to 2 companies that had DOD contracts to supply Colt and FN.
I ran shear tests on the carp bolts and ours, for all out strength our lugs are stronger. Fatigue test depending on the heat treat process also showed an improvement over the 158 bolts. I designed the bolts with a large radius on 3 sides of the lugs for a reason. There are other factors that are important other than just looking at the specs of the material. Some 9310 bolts on the market are or were too hard and brittle, the surface will develop cracks.
I've only made about 15000 bolts in the last 3 years, don't really need to push the sales, it's more to supply the rifles we build. There has not been 1 single bolt broken in 556,6.8 or 7.62x39.
There are some Fed teams using our 6.8s I have no doubt our bolts will last longer than any other 6.8 bolt on the market.
Something is going on with the 7.62x39, a couple of companies are testing heavily and asking for quotes on tens of thousands of bolts. It seems ours held up under full auto fire better than the rest.
As for the 556s it's too easy for us to buy Carp 158 bolts complete from a DOD contractor for less than it cost us to machine our bolts. I need our machine time for other projects, and I am dialing in our machining process on a new alloy that is apx 40% stronger than Carp 158 and 9310. It takes time to figure out the correct carbide grade, coating and chip breaker to turn out parts quickly.
I don't plan on making 556 bolts again unless we can't buy enough to supply our own builds just like what happened with the 6.8s, time will tell.
You menion stopping production on 5.56 bolts because you can get "inferior" bolts cheaper.
Doesn't make much sense to me.



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