On Friday I received from Valhalla tactical(excellent transaction!!) a freshly manufactured lmt ebcg.this was for my 14.5” pinned and welded colt.
I was a little Leary to spend that kind of money with all the conflicting reviews going back over 10 years,from multiple forums.i was able to find a few threads saying the production from the last couple years run fine in most 16” and shorter carbines.
I took it out and ran the following ammo through the 14.5” colt m4 barrel yesterday.
Wolf 55gr
Tulammo 75 gr
My 62 gr hornady handloads @ 2,900 fps
M193
M855
Federal 55gr brass
I fired 60 rounds of each,no malfunctions of any kind.bolt locked back with surefeed gi mags,pmags (gen 2&3) and lancer mags.
The only things to report are the 75 grain tulammo had almost no recoil,but ran without flaw and m855 felt like it had the same recoil as it did with the standard colt bcg it replaced.as the sun was setting,I was able to see a slight “flash” out of the corner of my eye,I assume from the additional gasses being vented?
The bolt hand cycled a little tougher than any new bolt I have ever used,but smoothed out nicely after the 4th or 5th magazine.
Machine work on the bolt was beautiful,the bolt itself showed plenty of evidence of being test fired.
The carrier showed no evidence of even being in an upper.machine work was evident on areas that had no contact with any other moving parts,the rest of the machine work was impeccable.
Gas key was of the machined type and chrome lined as well as the bore of the carrier itself.
My take away from my experience so far,was this was an excellent purchase for my 14.5” colt m4 profile barreled carbine.i wouldn’t hesitate to buy another if I had the need.the rest of my guns are mid length and seem to be ported appropriately,so thank god for my bank accounts sake I only had one carbine the could benefit from this excellently executed bcg.
I do feel it slightly lightened the recoil impulse and the carbine did feel smoother in operation.
Hope this helps other members considering what most call a waste of money or claim this bcg to be ammo sensitive.
Ymmv…
Good to know. I have two older EBCG’s in carbines already and they run fine. I also have two new Gen EBCG’s I have not used yet. Good to see it function with Wolf and Tula; not that I shoot that stuff but good to know the EBCG will still work with weaker ammo.
I have a Hodge Defense barrel I’m sending out to get the GB pinned. It is a 14.5" mid-length and gas ported to [reportedly] .074" or .075". I only shoot 5.56 NATO pressure ammo (the exception being 64gr Gold Dots I have stashed) so I was wondering if using one of my new EBCG’s in the build would present a problem.
I very rarely shoot steel,99% of the time I only buy brass(for reloading purposes).i was really surprised how well the 75gr tulammo shot…
I went ahead and ran some of the 55gr and 75gr in my 18” rifle length gas spr,they ran it also.
I was surprised about the chrome carrier key as well, considering mine from 2017 is not chrome lined. It’s good to see LMT make that change. For what its worth, the 2017 version I have had the correct carrier key screws and were not rounded. I ended up swapping mine for a chromed gas key and Neds Optimized Carrier Key Screws.
You may be the first person to ever break an enhanced bolt. At least you’re the only one that I know of. Did they give you any indication as to why it broke?
I have had failures to extract on two enhanced bolts. It was fixed replacing the extractor and the springs.
The first one was at maybe 5000 rounds, that gun saw a lot of steel case ammo and training classes.
The other was a brand new enhanced bcg in a new centurion barrel. It had consistent failures to extract (case still in the chamber) I replaced the springs and extractor and it has worked since.
The extra extractor and springs is absolutely something you need with one of these bolts. I suggest keeping it in the guns grip or something. They are expensive which adds insult to injury.
Neither removed extractors, including the 5000 round one showed much ware.
