Is this normal?? I fired 80 rounds of Barnual Brownbear out of my freshly built AR. While I was cleaning it I noticed the bolt had lots of pitting corrosion. Along the tail end the middle body part, the locking lugs and the bolt face around the firing pin hole.
At first I thought it was just carbon build up but its not. I know its not the ammo, I have shot thousands of rounds of wolf in my AK’s, and thousands of rounds of corrosive ammo in my AK’s and I know pitting corrosion doesnt just build up like that in a matter of hours. The bolt in question is from a NIB DD XV upper I purchased from AIM several days ago. It seems like it just happend after the range session. I had the bolt out a few days ago, but didnt pay real close attention to it. Just lubbed it up with CLP and put it back togther.
I’ve shot LOTS of Brown Bear through my DoubleStar and the bolt does not look like that. That looks to me like the bolt would almost have had to be that way when you bought the gun. I can’t see the ammo causing that in a range session.
That looks like 1) a really poor casting - but maybe not cause the area of the U-shapped valley doesn’t look like the rest of the bolt, or 2) the gas tube, gas key, barrel maybe had some junk in them from manufacture and as you were firing the rifle the junk was blown into the gas key, resulting in the junk being sprayed back up inside the carrier and all over the bolt as it was operating back and forth?
What does the inside of the bolt carrier bore look like? That will tell you if there was junk in there grinding on the bolt (and bolt carrier bore) or if maybe the bolt itself just came that way?
That’s some pretty heavy corrosion pitting. I find it hard to believe that this is the result of firing 80 rds of corrosive ammo in a brand new weapon.
I defently dont think it was an ammo issue, The inside of the bolt carrier looks fine to me, as does the outside. I am going to contact DD on Monday about it. I purchased the complete upper from AIM, along with another complete BCG so I have the new BCG in the rifle. Another thing is its missing the O ring on the extractor spring?
thats gotta be a bad park job… too much acid in the solution, would be my guess. how it got into your carrier is the question… i’m sure DD will swap you for it, if you can get ahold of them.
even if it where corrosive ammo, I shot 80 rounds this morning at around 1030am It was around 1230 or 1 when I cleaned the rifle and found the bolt pitted, unless there was acid in the in the ammo, corrosive ammo is not going to cause pitting in that amount of time. The extent of the pitting on that bolt looks like it was used and abused for months on end with out being cleaned lol.
This is the first time the rifle has been fired. Every thing I purchased was from a vendor so to my knowledge it was NIB and never fired.
DD is probably still figuring out production on their bolts… now that i think about it, i have a DD bolt with a funky park job. it’s not pitted, nothing like yours… it’s just got a weird rough texture to it, primarily on the tail.
There’s no way your bolt should look like that, under normal circumstances.
Also, you may want to consider waiting for the vendor/manufacturer to respond (or not) to your issue before posting anything more about it than what you have. Give them a chance to resolve your issue. I think that you’ll find DD very responsive.
Is AIM an auction house of some sort? That acronym stands for AOL Instant Messenger, to me. Reason I ask is that somebody may have swapped the bolt prior to your purchase. You said NIB, but…well, was it still sealed? The DD website does not show that they are selling the XV upper, so unless it’s just not on the website and you got the upper from somebody else’s rifle purchase, I’d hazard to guess it could be used, and used by an idiot.
The chances that a bolt from DD would be in that condition are pretty slim, and statements have already been made about your low round count.
I think that this AIM entity should be your first contact.
Wow,seems corrosion on bolts is becoming rampant as of late.
Yeap,there have been some cases in the past where corrosive primed ammo made it into a non-corrosive ammo box from Russia and China.Ive personally had corrosive primed 7.62x51(Norinco),7.62x39 and 7.62x54R from Wolf and Barnaul in the past.How do I know it was corrosive?The amount of corrosion on the parts,I also tested the primers on steel plate and also found that CLP is helpless against such corrosive compounds as it develops under a film of the CLP.For years I treated all the cheap import ammo as corrosive due to my experiences.Guess I will return to my old ways is this is the case.
Quib,
Do you remember back around 2002 when some folks were having corrosion on bolts and cam pins?
At that time some folks thought some of the SA surplus was corrosive…cant remember the details.
I have also seen some improperly done park cause pitting like that.In some cases the corrosion will continue until properly neutralized.Namely some older Remington 870 receivers.
Ive also seen some folks corrode parts like that by soaking them too long in some of the common water based cleaners,or failing to get the parts completely dry after soaking in said water based cleaners.
Other than that I have no idea whats going on here.
The Spare DD BCG I purchased has the rough surface on the tail also, but looks nothing like the one in the picture. The middle raised portion also has this “rough” looking surface to.
The inside of the carrier looks fine as does the outside etc. Im thinking BKB is probably right about the park job. I wasnt sure what kind of finish that is on it. or if they finished them at all. I still dont know much about the AR platform lol im an AK guy my self
I wasnt bashing DD at all nor was I trying to, I would not hesitate to purchase another Upper, BCG, Lower or any of there other products they offer. I think they are a great company.
I was trying to figure out if the bolt was supposed to look like that after firing such a low round count. Or it was actual pitting corrosion which would/is a bad thing to have on something as the bolt.
AIM is an internet vendor website. Im pretty sure they are an authorized vendor of DD rifles and parts because they seem to sell alot of there stuff. www.aimsurplus.com check them out. I will be calling DD on monday, if they tell me to take it up with AIM surplus I will call them I have faith in both companies so like I said im not trying to bash any one etc.
I dont even know if they make corrosive 5.56 lol. I have a boat load of corrosive 5.45 though!