It took a matter of five minutes to pull the bolt carrier group from the Colt upper, strip the bolt down, rebuild it with a new Bravo Company M-16 carrier, and have it reinstalled. Moments later I was function checking the rifle, and noted the 'catching bolt' syndrome has vanished and the weapon function checks perfectly.
Not only does it feel better working the action, but I have much better confidence I won't be faced with doubling or other AR weirdness resulting from a worn bolt snagging on the hammer. In addition, the M-16 bolt is heavier (why I chose it) and will hopefully slow the cycle time of my AR down a little, taming it better for match shooting.
Just to make it even funner (Yes, I can use that word), I installed a Magpul MOE Hand Guard
while I was at it. It actually took longer to fit those tight guards than it took to rebuild the whole bolt assembly.
Final word: The Fat Man approves of Bravo Company, their products, and how they treat customers. Fast, reasonable, and good coms. Thumbs up!
3 comments:
If you want to slow it down even further, replace the buffer with a 2H or 3H. Not sure it's really worth going that far, since you're not going full-auto - or anything beyond match cadence most of the time - so trying to slow the cyclic rate that far may introduce more problems than it cures.
I run a standard-weight buffer in my A2. (Which you'll have the opportunity to lay hands on in a couple weeks!)
I just wanted to slow it down a touch. With PPU I can feel a sharpness to the recoil and it seems to bottom the bolt hard. With S+B it's fine. I'll be loading my own, but since I was replacing the bolt carrier anyway, I 'upgraded' to the heavier M-16 bolt.
Are you shooting your AR in the Appleseed? I'd like to do that, but the ouch of shooting up that much $ in two days... since I don't have any 5.56 loaded in that volume yet. My bullets from Wideners haven't arrived yet.
I believe there will be some full-distance shooting available, so I'll bring the AR, but mostly shooting the .22. I can't afford to dump a couple hundred in ammo for the weekend!
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