Question on Black vrs. Chrome BCG

If there was a real advantage to chromed bcg the military would have adopted it. They look cool and I doubt they would hurt anything unless headspace changes

I'd keep the phosphated DD BCG, it's a quality unit. I have one in my DDM4V3 upper and no problems at all. Just remember that the specs of the BCG are much more important than the exterior plating. There's some chrome plated crap out there so be glad you have a quality BCG, not a chrome plated turd!

As far as DD's chrome carriers, I think they're for their Ambush Arms hunting division. The ones I've seen have SA carriers and I'm not sure how good the bolts are. Unless they've raised the bar I'd stick with your milspec unit.

BTW, nice upgrade going from the Ruger to DD! And don't worry about white glove inspections any more, your rifle will run just fine with limited cleaning and lots of lube.

I assume you're referring to the Nickel Boron BCG's rather than the Phosphate coated ones which is what you have.

As you stated, the NiB BCG's have one major advantage over the phosphate ones and that is being able to clean up to a spot free shine. I have NiB BCG's and Phosphate BCG's. I'll be honest with you..... Save you're money.

They have no proven operational advantages. The only thing they have proven is that they clean up easier and are for perfect for those who treat their AR's like a blinged out safe queen rather than a tool.

In all honesty, you don't need to pass a white glove inspection every time you clean your rifle. It won't help anything and is just a waste of time.

Just so the following and I promise that your BCG will last decades.

Disassemble BCG.

Poor bowl of solvent.

Put the bolt, firing pin, carrier and cam into bowl.

Let sit for 1 minute and start pulling pieces out one by one.

Wipe the solvent off of parts.

Prior to assembling the BCG, cover the bolt with a moderate amount of Mobile 1, cover firing pin with a light film of Mobile 1, cover cam pin and hammer pin with a light amount of Mobile 1. When you're covering the bolt with oil make sure your gas rings get some oil.

After assembling the BCG, apply a moderate amount of Mobile 1 to the carrier. It should be oiled enough that it looks wet but not so much oil that it's dripping off the carrier.

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Disassemble the bcg spray it down with some non chlorinated brake clean wipe it down and oil it. That DD will run and run even with some junk in it. No reason to spend extra money. I use Mobil 1 on mine and clean and relube every couple hundred rounds.

The secret to a clean bolt carrier is soaking. Whatever cleaner you use, soak the carrier over night. Brush, clean and rinse. Running it a little wet also makes cleaning easier. My DD bolt gets a little crusty - but cleans up just fine. I stopped counting after thousands of rounds.......but my DDM4V3 Middy is a real work horse.

You think you are anal about your BCG (you are) - don't worry. I used to worry about throat erosion and wearing my barrel out, I mean I think I had a fixation........I eventually got over it! My barrel shows no signs, so I stopped checking every 100 rounds. :banghead:

At one time there was a justification for chromed BCGs. When I was at Aberdeen Proving Ground there were guys still there that tested the original M16 back in the 60s and they told me the chrome BCGs were more reliable in the cold room for functioning.

Now we are comparing apples to fried apples in that 95% of the after market AR parts won't meet the drawings for original M16 parts. One of my friends was a Procurement Contracting Officer at Rock Island and his specialty was buying spare parts for the M16 systems and he told me 95% of the parts made won't meet the REAL drawings.

Basically both systems are black and insofar as the world turns that is as close it it gets to having a after market gun be the same gun the military purchased. So you have original made by Colt and FN and wannabees.

I completely understand your having it hounded into you about being clean and there are some things you can do to keep it going.

First off run over the Wally World and get 5 qts of Mobil 1 Synthetic Motor Oil which is now on a price roll back from 25.00 to 22.00. Get 0W20 (lime green cap). That should last you the rest of your life.

Lube your AR with Mobil 1 making sure to put about three drops in the vent ports on the side of the bolt. Won't hurt to put some down the gas tube.

Now go out and shoot it, when you get through and pull your bolt down put some Mobil 1 on it and let it sit awhile and come back and you can wipe most of the carbon off off with a paper towel.

Also put some on patches and swab the bore and put it up.

Don't do anything else with it and see how long it goes before you get a problem.

I put this information on the CMP forum a couple years ago and I was told a few months later than the Army MTU rifle team was using Mobil 1 to lube their rifles.

I have heard of one guy that shoots his rifle the entire season and never takes it down to clean, just keeps adding Mobil 1 to it.

Mobil 1 is good for anything with a gas system as it keeps carbon from getting hard and tends to float carbon away.

On M1 Garands I put about five drops on op rod and store it muzzle down in rack. It runs down and stays at end of op rod. About every 250 rounds I will pull the op rod and all it takes to remove carbon is a paper towel.

Also run it in M1As and basically anything that is gas operated.

I have been running it the last 800,000 miles. I run mine 15000+ and change oil and filter. The filters are always silver on the inside and the drain plug NEVER has any residue attached to it. Face it the drain plug is the lowest point in the system and stays submerged constantly and never has any residue on the end of the plug.

I have one car with 274,000, another with 227,000 and another with 116,000 now. I sold another about 17 hears ago with 192,000 on it. Just did not need four vehicles. I also run it in my Honda generator, lawn mower,etc. No carbon build up in anything.

Carbon is the enemy and Mobil 1 is the killer.

At any rate try the shoot and lube thing. We only cleaned M16s every 600 rounds or at the end of the days firing. i.e. shot 600 cleaned, if only 20 more rounds fired that day it was cleaned again. The most important thing is clean bore while barrel is hot before the carbon hardens up.

Carbon and diamonds are similar. Diamond dust is used as an abrasive thusly if you leave carbon in your barrel it gets hard and follow on bullets will embed the carbon in bullet jackets and you now have a barrel that is having metal removed by the hard carbon if you fire it dirty/cold.

Ballistol. Hmm....never worked for me.

Mix Hoppe's #9 and Kroil. 50/50.

Thanks for the replies. Nickel boron? Maybe..regardless, I was referring to the silver BCG.

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I put an NP3 BCG in one of my AR's. Its definitely easier to clean but it doesn't all just wipe away as some claim. The bolt especially will still require some scrubbing if you really want to get all the carbon off.

Theoretically, a nickel boron BCG should increase reliability, at least in regards to grime induced failures, as carbon is much less prone to sticking and it provides less friction. Of course, the vast majority of civilian users will never notice a difference in performance. Some of the high end AR makers have gone to nickel boron coated BCG's and mechanically speaking I can see the advantage.

The black DD bolt carrier is chromed where it matters...where the bolt rides in and out.

I clean mine with Ballistol only and it works fine

The old lazy man's way.

I pull the BCG, spray it down wet with something called 'Blaster LMT'. It is a spray lawn mower tune-up concoction and stinks, I use it outside only. Put the BCG aside and clean the rest of the weapon.
Returning to the BCG, take it apart, wiping as much of the now soft and crumbling carbon away. Drop the parts into a plastic cup of Mobile One. (This is when I go inside.) Then pull each part out of the soak and brush with a copper/bronze brush. Now the lazy part. I ordered over the internet a battery powered sonic cleaner for dentures (this thing is el cheapo and shipping cost more than the cleaner). As I brush each part, it is dropped into the teeth cleaner, all parts in, cover with Hoppie, two new AA cells, turn it on and walk away.
By the next morning two things will have happened. The batteries have ran down and every bit of carbon has broken up
Pull everything out and put the BCG back together. I run mine wet with Mobile One.

No scraping tools, no brushing for hours, just clean.

It only matters whether a BCG is chrome lined on the inside, where the bolt rides. All the even halfway decent ones are.

They have no proven operational advantages. The only thing they have proven is that they clean up easier and are for perfect for those who treat their AR's like a blinged out safe queen rather than a tool.

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Well I guess mine's a blinged out safe queen, because I really appreciate the chromed BCG and even the stainless cryo'd barrel. Of course I'm not out in one of the 'stans using them like the "tool" they are. I just use mine for 3 gun, and I like it so much it's the rifle I almost always pull out for a trip to the range plinking, or short range prairie poodle shooting. And luckily, I can maintain mine properly, since I'm not out in the field using them for what they were designed for. With the chrome BCG and stainless barrel cleanup is a really quick and simple task, that's worth it to me since I do clean my centerfire firearms after every shooting trip.

I'm really not sure how many of the posters here have any real world experience with "Milspec". Being milspec absolutely has nothing to do with being the best. When I was in the Navy in the 70's it didn't mean that, and when I was lead engineer for the cruise missile support for McDonnell Douglas in the 80's it didn't mean that. Does anyone here think the USAMU shoots rach grade milspec rifles and pistols, or uses milspec ammo for their shooting? In case you're confused, they don't.

Since for the vast majority of us on the boards won't be using our AR's in firefights high in the mountains of Afghanistan, or the deserts of Iraq, we could look at competition to see what the best rifle for us might be. I shoot 3 gun several times a year, and to be honest I can't recall a single instance where a milspec rifle won any competition. My "blinged out safe queen" has run 600 rounds a day multiple times with never a failure of any kind, that seems good enough for most of us. And here is my current favorite upper, an RRA ATH with 18" cryo'd stainless barrel and chromed BCG:



It works for me, of course I'm not crashing in doors or butt stroking bad guys with it on a regular basis, but perhaps others are. Honestly, I don't begrudge people that want milspec rifles, and I wish they would quit trying to demean people that couldn't care less about milspec rifles. I shot plenty of milspec M-16A1's when in the service, and personally wouldn't trade any of my current AR's for a milspec gun, just doesn't meet my needs.

Browningguy, you miss the whole point about milspec, if you're going for a specialty AR, well then sure - go for parts that work for you in that application. But for patrol type ARs that may be used for self defense, milspec parts set a fairly high baseline that most "comspec" ARs don't meet. When you examine closely and see a particular brand cuts too many corners, well then a milspec AR looks real good in comparison. Often the price is comparable too which begs the question, "why pay the same for an inferior gun?"

And the BCG is a good place to look for cut corners. Look at the important specs first before worrying about the external finish.

"MILSPEC" is simply a known baseline. It's not necessarily good or bad, and I've seen both after 20 years in.

It gives you a known (supposed) level of quality to compare other manufactured articles to. Even that's not all that accurate.... I spent a number of years investigating fraud against the gov't with regard to manufacturers NOT meeting military specifications... that was aviation related though and had nothing to do with guns. I would not bet my bottom dollar that even "milspec" guns meet the real specs.

Chrome BCGs are much easier to clean and look prettier. Both positives in my book.