I was curious, would a Palmetto State Armory 5.56 Premium Full Auto Bolt Carrier Group - 8779 be considered an upgrade to the bolt carrier Group in a Ruger AR 556? Thanks! 
No. Buy one anyway for your gun drawer.
I doubt it. There are plenty of top tier BCG’s out there. If you are wanting to change something for the sake of changing something, get one of them. BCM, Scionics, Colt, even ToolCraft are better choices.
Thanks for saving me from wasting $
I used to stress over this kind of thing, but then I bought two extra BCG’s and several bolts, from well known reputable quality sources. I carry a complete BCG in my battle belt, and two complete extra BCGs in my “go-bag” and three extra bolts to boot in my go bag.
Problem solved.
I train at least three times a month, professionally, and have had a total melt during, of all things, I high intensity drill involving moving, shooting and CQB at the end, it sucked to experience a total stoppage on my AR.
Lesson learned.
Things will go wrong, no matter what, at the very moment you don’t want them to.
Word to the wise and all that.
To me, an upgrade would be a BCG coated with NiB or melonite to make clean up easier or lightening cuts to reduce weight. There are other benefits to the lightweight BCG but they require complimentary parts.
Ive yet to see or hear of a carrier failure(not including gas key).
My opinion:
- Check key staking
- Buy spare bolt
3 use current bolt till failure. - Regularly inspect bolt lugs for cracking/damage while cleaning.
- Replace bolt when you see issues, or at 10krds if you want to be conservative.
Personally, I would buy a Colt, bcm, or scionics bolt.
As far as melonite, or nib. I didn’t find them easier to clean at all. The hardest part to clean on the bolt is the bore, and I didn’t find that area any easier to clean than a traditional phosphate/ chrome lined bolt.
The main advantage I see with those bolts is the reduced friction on the rails.
Personally I wouldn’t buy any PSA stuff unless I was trying to build a beater range AR for like 300$.
…what is the intended use of the weapon? Keeping it clean, or being reliable? I personally own a PSA “premium” BCG and while no malfs yet (1500-2k rounds), I bought a Tool craft for my next build. For the same price.
I use PSA Premium BCG in a couple cheap range guns. One of them had worn out rings in under 1000 rounds, but the other seems to be doing fine.
I don’t consider Nitride or NiB to be a better solution over phosphate and Chrome…for barrels or BCGs. If I were in the market for an inexpensive BCG for use on a range gun, I’d also choose Toolcraft.
I think the last BCG I bought was a Toolcraft nitrided for $70 on sale from Right to Bear last fall.
AIM Surplus also has good bcgs in just about any coating or configuration you can imagine. Lightweight nitrided BCG? Yup.
Free shipping too.
AIM also has bolt back up kits. Complete bolt, firing pin, cam & retaining pin. Not that much cheaper than a budget BCG but small enough to fit in a grip with storage. Having a complete BCG is a fast swap but I’ve never seen a carrier fail. Bolt, yes. Pin, yes.
The best bolt IMHO is the LMT enhanced bolt, I have one, nice piece and has a pretty good reputation, but nowadays I can buy more than a few good bolts for what one LMT runs these days. Colt, BCM & Rock River Arms make better than average bolts as well.
The Ruger BCG is good.
A few have mentioned Sionics BCGs and I have to second that recommendation. The NP3 coating is incredibly easy to clean and the machining is top notch.
Why are you looking to “upgrade” the bcg that is currently in your Ruger? Does it malfunction? Does it break often? If it isn’t malfunctioning or failing, I would leave it alone and buy more ammo.
On a second note, NiB, and nitride coatings are not easier to clean in my experience. At the end of the day I still have to scrape carbon off the back of the bolt, just aft of the gas rings, and I still have to scrape carbon from off of the inside of the carrier. I’ve gotten rid of most of my NiB bcgs, and replaced them with regular phosphate coated units. I find that hard chrome plated bcgs are easier to clean than NiB, and nitride bcgs. YMMV
Recently, I’ve just been buying ToolCrafts - a year or so ago everyone was scarfing up their 1B1B6 coded BCG’s because they were being supplied to the .mil as replacement/upgrade bolts.
These guys seem to always have them: http://www.wcarmory.com/toolcraft-bcg-223-5-56-bolt-carrier-group-black-1b1b6-c-158-mpi-complete.htm generally 89.00 to 99.00
These huys are apparently now hooked up with monmouth reloading, another place I’ve found good deals on ToolCraft C158 BCG’s: https://www.armorally.com/shop/toolcraft_5-56_nato_black_nitride_bolt_carrier_group/
not marked with the cage code, but dang 75.00.
If a guy is into nitride they also have Toolcrafts for 67.95. https://www.wcarmory.com/toolcraft-bcg-223-5-56-bolt-carrier-group-sbn-9310-complete.htm
That’s ridiculously inexpensive. I’ve only ran the Toolcrafts with the cage code, but for 68 bucks these would be worth a go.
During the panic a few years ago I picked up a couple of new 1B1B6 carriers at a good price from a gun show surplus dealer, only problem was one will not take a bolt, tried a half dozen Colt and FN and not one would go in. Other one would take a bolt but I was always worried they were both rejects that somehow made it to market so both are still sidelined. Kind of soured me on Toolcraft, unless PSA is lying about their Premium BCG specs they should be GTG, have not heard about problems with them.
I’ve only bought complete Toolcraft BCG’s.
I agree about the PSA, but, as you well know, your line of thinking is not going to get much traction around these parts.
I would tend to agree, I didn’t list it because the bolt is 9310, rather than the mil-spec C158.
I’ve seen claims that properly heat-treated 9310 is stronger than C158, and so on, but I don’t know.
With as many bolts as you see on the market being made with 9310 it is obviously less expensive or easier to source than the proprietary C-158 alloy steel.
People talk about nickle silicon BCG now. Anybody know anything about them? Also, someone makes a BC with the gas key as a part of the forging (or casting??) so it is not screwed on and staking is not an issue. Has anyone run into this?