SA Friday
04-09-2019, 17:16
Today I worked on an AR-15 that the customer brought in and said wouldn't run. We have a general battery of questions we ask to try to narrow down parts in the gun and why it's not operational. In my 4 years at Bowers and the thousands of guns I've worked on, this was one of the worst made AR's I've seen. The rifle has less than 100 rounds through it and had never run according to the owner. It was now completely inop. The rifle was purchased from GT from the Tanner Gun Show within the $500 range.
The following were the parts/assembly that failed:
- Buffer tube is softer aluminum than 6061 T-6 and had twisted and stripped the threads off by the end plate, garbage
- Buffer was a single piece of aluminum and painted black, garbage
- Buffer spring was painted black, had a kink in it (how the fuck do you kink a buffer spring if it's spring steel? ), garbage
- Castle nut was not standard steel and painted not phosphate coated, not staked, and had come loose shooting the buffer retainer and spring out of the lower
- Bolt carrier group was replaced before brought to me due to excessive galling on the BCG (no further info but it was fucked up too)
- Gas block was completely loose, no loc-tite on retaining screws and they were never torqued down, gas jet marks from the port around the barrel indicated the gas block was never sealed around the port
- Gas tube roll pin hanging half out and was undersized when attempted to complete installation
- The gas port in the 16" carbine length 556 barrel (unknown manufacturer) was measured to be 0.110" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Handguard was Chinese made and all 6 retaining screws from the handguard into the barrel nut were removed BY HAND (no wrench was used, metric wrench BTW), and no Loc-tite on any of the screws
This rifle was made with the cheapest parts available with nothing in mind other than selling it as cheap as possible and making a buck. This was NOT a functional gun when sold and with the gigantic gas port size, may never be. Whomever swapped the BCG did this poor kid no favors. At least it head-spaced and didn't blow up in his face. I rebuilt the BCG, even the gas rings were smoked. That's not on the original manufacturer, but I would love to have seen what the original BCG was if this one was the better of the two.
I hate it that there are people in my profession willing to sell junk like this and prey on the uninformed. This was the kid's first rifle and he got screwed. This is NOT how we build a decent reputation within the gun community. Do NOT buy from this company. [Mad][Mad][Mad][Mad]
The following were the parts/assembly that failed:
- Buffer tube is softer aluminum than 6061 T-6 and had twisted and stripped the threads off by the end plate, garbage
- Buffer was a single piece of aluminum and painted black, garbage
- Buffer spring was painted black, had a kink in it (how the fuck do you kink a buffer spring if it's spring steel? ), garbage
- Castle nut was not standard steel and painted not phosphate coated, not staked, and had come loose shooting the buffer retainer and spring out of the lower
- Bolt carrier group was replaced before brought to me due to excessive galling on the BCG (no further info but it was fucked up too)
- Gas block was completely loose, no loc-tite on retaining screws and they were never torqued down, gas jet marks from the port around the barrel indicated the gas block was never sealed around the port
- Gas tube roll pin hanging half out and was undersized when attempted to complete installation
- The gas port in the 16" carbine length 556 barrel (unknown manufacturer) was measured to be 0.110" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Handguard was Chinese made and all 6 retaining screws from the handguard into the barrel nut were removed BY HAND (no wrench was used, metric wrench BTW), and no Loc-tite on any of the screws
This rifle was made with the cheapest parts available with nothing in mind other than selling it as cheap as possible and making a buck. This was NOT a functional gun when sold and with the gigantic gas port size, may never be. Whomever swapped the BCG did this poor kid no favors. At least it head-spaced and didn't blow up in his face. I rebuilt the BCG, even the gas rings were smoked. That's not on the original manufacturer, but I would love to have seen what the original BCG was if this one was the better of the two.
I hate it that there are people in my profession willing to sell junk like this and prey on the uninformed. This was the kid's first rifle and he got screwed. This is NOT how we build a decent reputation within the gun community. Do NOT buy from this company. [Mad][Mad][Mad][Mad]