Bushmaster has absolutely no time for customers after the sale. My brother bought a carbon15 for his 8yr. old, it was supposed to be a Christmas gift. We took it to the range before giving it to my nephew to be sure it functioned properly. After 32rds. of PMC .223, the rifle cracked above the rear of the pistol grip. It was cracked all the way through the left side right behind the take down pin (wish I would have taken pics.).
He called BM and explained what happened but the BM employee on the phone had no time for him. He had several excuses of what we did wrong with the rifle and it was not the problem of BM. The guy said they have been making the rifle for quite a while and never heard of anything like this happening before. He actually asked my brother if he ran it over or dropped it trying to do a torture test… Long story short, he went back and forth on the phone for weeks with no help from BM.
He took it back to the gun shop where it was purchased to show them what happened after less than 50rds. The shop owner actually replaced the rifle with an M&P plus some cash and said he would take care of the broken rifle(not sure what he did with the BM).
I know I will never buy anything from BM after this incident. They didn’t have a care in the world that their product failed and wanted to hear nothing of it.
This is in no way a statement contradicting the general consensus that BM is in fact a bowel movement of the AR world as Doc pointed out, however it was my first AR as I did not know better…
Never had a problem with it. And their CS sent me out a standard height front site pin when I put a BUIS on the back and could not get it to zero due to the FSB not being standard height.
Having said that, the idea of a plastic upper (and lower for that matter) makes me cringe.
Just to let you know, BM has seen that movie before (in regards to you needing a taller front sight post). In fact, ALL BM AR’s need this IF you use a non-adjustable rear sight.
So what is crappy is that they don’t just install it from day one, but let people shoot hundreds of rounds trying to zero their guns. :rolleyes:
I figured it out after only about 20 rounds tho… thanks in no small part to this forum!
Yes, they should just install an F-Marked FSB and call it a day or include the taller post. I just don’t get it, they do this (I think) that they can use their shorter than standard removable carry handle sight. Why not just make everything spec. height? Why invent their own crap standard?
Because Bushmaster is better than Milspec. Just ask all the elite tier-one secret ops green beret SEALs using them in Iraqistan.
The manager of my local gunshop swears it’s true.
Grant,
On day one of a recent Patrol Rifle class we put on at work one of the guys brought a Carbon 15 that had never been fired, fresh out of the box. He had, however, dry cycled the action a good bit. His had the same issue as the one your friend brought you, and the mouth of the carrier key was SMASHED from bashing into the gas tube repeatedly! We did what we could, but it was a soup sandwich. He borrowed another rifle for the class.
I actually threw a couple of the extra tall front sight posts in my range bag so that I can be a hero to people who are clearly starting to not have fun with their new toy.
My cousin is in the corps and came home last weekend telling me a friend of his is getting a AR that is carbon… I hope he didn’t buy a bushtrashter c15
I realize the backlash coming but, I bought an early carbon 15, early 2003 or so, the one with oval handgaurd and stainless flutted bbl, unique bolt carrier group and buttstock assembly and weighed about a five pounds . I have about 5K rnds thru it with out an issue. It fed steel case cheapass wolf, silverbear as well as xm193 without a problem. It was fairly accurate with stainless bbl, the one feature i remember was the huge muzzle flash and the blast felt by my friend next to me. It was fun to shoot, but after years of trying I got a ffl to transfer in a 6920.
I have a friend with an '06 Range Rover that has been ISSUE FREE for 100K miles now, and I say the same thing to him every time he touts their reliability…
I also have one of the Lake Havasu made Bushmaster branded Carbon 15s and it has been a great gun, if what you are looking for is an extremely light weight, light duty AR. It has never bobbled and shoots better than I expected but 2 mags (20s) in short order starts the melting plastic aroma.
I also bought a current production Bushmaster Carbon 15 for a test bed and broke the Picatinny rail off the top and the hinge off the bottom of the upper when I removed the barrel. The “Carbon” ain’t got much carbon but seem like recycled soda pop bottles.
It busted with less than 10lbs of torque on the barrel wrench with very little flex, just a snap.:mad:
It now has a Troy VTAC Alpha rail and a forged upper but if the lower snapped off at the extension from a hard look I honestly would not be surprised.
While most here have no use for plastic uppers and lowers it seems Bushmaster doubled down and used crappy plastic.
The sad thing is that the lgs near me sells a ton of those ATI lowers and tells people they’re good for 5.56 as well as .22lr. I guess that’s the only good part about the SAFE act: it will stop crap lowers from being sold to the uninformed.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know about M4C when I was making my first AR purchase several months ago, but I fell into the Bushmaster Carbon ditch when shopping for my AR. The dealer said he sells alot of them (sales pitch), so I bought one. I liked it. Light as a feather, ultra cool red dot, but started lurking around forums and read about the issues with it, but I haven’t had any as of yet. I limit it to .223 55 grain and it groups well. I’ve put over 500+ rounds and it is NOT my SHTF gun…limited to plinking. I also purchased a Rock River, which has been absolutely flawless.
With Bushmaster, some will defend it, most will kick it, but I own it so it really doesn’t matter. Best thing to do is do some research before you buy and save yourself regret later…or a post on gunbroker.com. My .02.
I made the same mistake when I got my first AR a few years ago. I was shooting it at the range and noticed the stock a little wobbly. I applied a little force on the stock to see if it’s cracked and saw the whole buffer tube shift. I figured it just wasn’t tightened, especially considering there was no staking on it what so ever.
As I tightened the castle nut I noticed the threaded ring on the lower receiver split at the 12 o’clock position.
I went home all heated, broke down my rifle to further inspect it, and realized why the buffer tube was never properly secured. You need to take off the buffer tube to disassemble to rifle. It was designed to not use a buffer retaining pin, had a non-standard bolt carrier, non-standard buffer, and God knows what else.
I contacted Bushmaster about getting this fixed, or replaced with another Carbon15 lower receiver, and they linked me to their catalog and said that if I didn’t like the Carbon15 I could always buy another rifle.
Really? A Bushmaster rifle cracked after a couple hundred rounds and they tell me to buy another rifle from them? I was pretty ****ing irate. The lower receiver was replaced with an ATI Omni polymer and is a dedicated .22lr plinker. I don’t trust that thing with a full power round.
