All that finish wears off more than polishing eventually anyway.
Considering that the sides of the key wear far more than what top-layer of the finish I removed, I wouldn’t worry. The shiny sides of the key in the photos were still black after polishing, which is probably better described regard the LMT gas key as buffing; the gas keys are already nitrided by LMT and the shiny surface you see was born by several thousands of rounds of wear in an anodized upper. Phosphated gas keys are far more rough and even then, the heat treat of the metal lies UNDER the phosphating.
If you’ve ever seen the sides of an old Army M16A1 BCG, their carriers have had their finish well worn on their contact surfaces…no phosphating to be seen…and I’ve never seen a function issue in one of those due to the finish, or lack thereof. We have many hundreds of them in daily use by patrol deputies in my agency via the 1033 program.
I have buffed several LMT gas keys (at least 4 gen 4 carriers and one gen 2 carrier; all appearing to be MIM), all of which have at least a thousand rounds in the various guns they are used in, and no excess wear has been seen. I’m just shy of 5k rounds on the one in the picture and I polished it immediately upon receipt.
Seems like a waste of time and effort to me.
Just shoot it. Who gives a shit if its “butter” smooth. As long as the weapon functions (which any quality gun should) then what is the point?
You are introducing pre wear areas that may change the way the carrier and the upper wear. Keep in mind, the upper is Alum and the carrier is Steel, so which do you think is going to take more wear? The carriers are designed that way for a reason. Don’t dick it up for some superfical modification.
IIRC this was originally done to help with varying power ammo and the a5 system to make everything more reliable.
You have obviously not been paying attention to the multiple Vltor A5 threads where this process was recommended to address specific situations with regard to weapon setup.
Feel free to not polish anything on your gun. Your comments are duly noted.
This guy.
Don’t forget to add the hello Kity paint job and Rhinestones while your at it.
So just so we understand this… This is needed so you can use the A5 system , which was touted as being the most reliable system available?
And amazingly, the stock milspec RE and H2 buffers just keep on ticking on any builds I have seen. Solutions looking for problems.
Law of unintended consequences always seems to prevail durring these times.
I think you need to utilize the search button prior to posting things like this.
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This post is fukking absurd and embarrassing for this site. Although the H2 and USGI spring are a great combo most of the time if you run a carbine system, they’re still not as good as the A5 or Rifle system.
I’m not sure where you are getting that this is needed to run an A5. I’ve never done this mod, but I understand the point. It’s simply skipping the break in of mating surfaces. Nothing more, nothing less.
Smooth mating surfaces are a small factor in separating a quality gun from a mediocre gun. It’s not a coincidence that a Colt RE is mirror smooth on the inside where as many aftermarkets are rough and chattery. And that most Colt Carriers have that nice satin finish instead of the LMT grit job.
Markm is dead on correct on this.
This. The same result can be accomplished by simply putting healthy amounts of rounds through the gun. Some people prefer not to wait for that to happen (or sadly may never shoot enough for it to happen). If someone prefers to grab a Dremel and expedite the process I don’t see why not.
Personally though I prefer to put at least a couple hundred rounds through a gun before polishing anything. Probably completely unneccesary but it gives me peace of mind knowing the surfaces mated to each other on their own. Then I simply polish the areas that show wear.
Since the polishing is internal, intended to reduce friction and improve already excellent reliability, what does this have to do with external shit such as a paint job and rhinestones? Sounds like if you did this, you are concerned that next thing you know, you might be into the homo shit common on TOS…
The guy above me is the one who said it was a needed mod to run the a5 reliably, not me. I was basing my response off what he said. Polishing it is not the same as mated wear from firing. Like I said you can run into the law of I intended consequences by trying to take short cuts.
Depends what your definition of smooth is. It’s its rough enough to cause gouging or induce malfunctions, then Yes that’s an issue. Most times, it’s novice and new owners who want shit to look pretty and sound perfect who get hung up on superficial issues. Zero issues with RE s that are “rough”… As I said…shoot the shit let it wear naturally and worry more about hitting your ****ing target than stupid shit that has little to no bearing on the function of the weapon system.
If lmt carriers are so bad…why not just buy a colt off the bat?
New shooters who don’t know their asshole from a hole in the ground are the ones who pay the price for this silly shit.they read it and think it’s required or needed.
No it’s not. Shooting the rifle and polishing it will result in different wear profiles. You can’t tell me it’s the same because it’s not. If lmt thought it was needed they would either machine or finish the carriers to a different tolerance. You are changing the surface contact areas and area. That will change how the upper wears and how the carrier wears. It’s your shit …feel free to Drexel **** perfectly working gear for sng…but don’t tell people it’s the same as natural wear or is somehow needed or required.
How are you measuring where to take off material? How much material are you taking off? How do you know you are getting even depth? How is the surface contact with the upper changing? If you can give exact figures and then tell me you do this with a Drexel, I’ll buy you a beer.
Clearly, there are two kinds of posters in this thread. Type a) who know exactly what this instruction set is used for and WHY, and Type b) PEOPLE LIKE YOU who have no idea what they are talking about, haven’t participated in the YEARS of collective and ongoing info-sharing regard the Vltor A5 system coupled with the LMT E-carrier, and who make ASSES of themselves when they comment on a thread that they obviously have not researched (nor do they care to).
TurretGunner, you don’t even realize that you are having a completely different conversation regarding this issue from everybody else because you STILL haven’t used the SEARCH BUTTON to find out why I created this thread in the first place.
At this point, you’ve contributed ZERO additional knowledge to this thread and the mods have been alerted to your quasi-trolling behavior.
Your follow up comments seemed to imply that the A5 relablility was somewhat snake oil, and not as good as an H2 carbine. Simply not true.
If lmt carriers are so bad…why not just buy a colt off the bat?
I don’t run LMT, nor have I polished any parts… the point is that the LMT is a different design than a Colt. If someone wants the enhanced, but not the rough finish, they can smooth the mating surfaces.
There’s no metal being cut here, and no critical dimensions are being changed that won’t change as the finish rubs off with normal wear.
And yet NO where in your OP do you mention anything about the A5 system or its conjunction with the LMT carrier. Nor did you link references to it.
You are saying this is done to improve reliability (and beacuse you did not specify any peticular setup or system to run in conjnection with, I assumed the defult milspec system), which I belive is bullshit.
Lets see, you are trying to use a carrier that has been shown to be unreliable with an aftermarket RE/Spring/Buffer system (the words of people in this thread) and the solution is to take a dremel to it… And I am the one giving bad advice? Lets go back to square one and look at why the A5 is being put on the weapon in the first place, and that awsner should be rhetorical. Modification of a standard spec system/part now causes another factory part to need modification to perform correctely. Now we have two non standard modified parts inside of a piece of gear that you may be trusting your life to. And I’m the troll? LOL
I am aware the A5 is a smoother system. I have NEVER had a Carbine/rifle RE issue that was not solved by changing to a H2/H3 buffer so I see no need to runt he system. KAC already makes the smoothing shooting gas guns, so that is where my money goes.
I don’t mean to sound facecous, but what exactly happens when you polish something? Does it not chance the dimentions of the part? We could debate the degrees and if the difference is material, but I argue that if a high end weapon componet like LMT carriers needed or should be more polished or modified, would they not already do this? It would be one thing if GAP or known quanity gun builders said this was needed, another if some annonymos poster is advocating it. Or perhaps people are chosing the wrong componet for their builds if they have to modify/polish parts to get them to run at whatever is an execptable level they deem? Does it not open the possibility of other issues down the road? What happens when it starts to wear in other areas at different rates… can that not chance the reliability of the weapon?
TurretGunner,
Chill man. Good grief. This started at first on a threshold rifle. Threshold being the smoothest running rifle running the heaviest buffer possible, with a mid length gas system on a 14.5" barrel IN combination of running reliably. Most would think it wouldn’t work. It does for many shooters. Now with that gas system, with that short of a barrel, running that heavy of a buffer (A5H3/H4) IF youre trying to get this gun setup to run reliably wouldn’t a smoother surface help in function and help in being reliable AND a bonus would be smoother cycling. This ain’t an end all be all, 'Vltor A5 can’t work without it the secret sauce tactical operator polish" type of deal. Its part of a process, or PART of a SYSTEM to aid in functioning.
Ever held an E-Carrier? Some of them have the finish of the very sandpaper I used to smooth it.
If you think its dumb fine just snear at it behind your monitor and click onto the next thread.
-Jax
It’s not my fault that you’re completely clueless as to why i made this thread and that it was at the request of multiple other members in reference to the A5 system.
It’s also NOT MY JOB to spoon-feed you information so can get up to speed with the rest of us. All of your questions have already been addressed and/or answered.
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