What parts have you broken...

[alamo5000]

I am now somewhat obsessed with having backups of backups of stuff but I am hoping to get some feedback/input from the collective group here. Eventually I am going to have a spare entire BCG for each rifle. One down, one on the way, and one to go on that, but I am thinking about more granular or other parts as well.

My main question is this: On an AR (doesn't matter if it's 5.56/300BLK or even bigger calibers) which components have you personally broken and or witnessed being broken (or just flat out worn out)?

I basically want to compile a list of the most commonly broken/worn out parts and start collecting an 'oops kit' of my own making with pins and rings and whatever other doodad I might need.

It can be anything. Have you ever worn out a trigger? Broken a firing pin? Broken an extractor? Or anything else not listed please make notes below.

I want this to be real world so I am looking for actual experiences or witnesses instead of just a generic recommendation of a kit that I might not ever use.

[MoxyDave]

I had an epiphany about this many years ago: just have 2 of everything, and you're covered. If it's worth the hassle and expense to order or build XYZ, it's not much of a stretch to just get/build 2 instead. Covers you from crap being out of stock when you need it, too. I do this with everything now. Instead of owning 10 coats, I have 2 really nice ones ... and so on. YMMV ...

[Uffdaphil]

I have multiples of every part just in case. A bolt extractor spring is the only thing that has gone bad. A Sprinco upgrade fixed the problem. More common is out of spec new parts. A bad bolt catch, AR10 charging handle and too fat Fail Zero cam pin come to mind.

[alamo5000]

My problem now is everything is OOS and if they are not they are charging double the price (pretty much).

I am building a 'kit' for three rifles...

So far my 'want' list looks like this:

I will have an extra full BCG for each rifle (once I can find stuff in stock)

Extra firing pins and all the retainer pins and such for a BCG

Extra extractors and springs and such.

Extra gas rings (I think I already have some but not sure)

Extra cam pins

Not sure what else I should get, over time of course. If it really gets down to brass tacks I can easily cannibalize parts from other rifles (in an emergency that is). That said I still want to get a stash built up of commonly worn out/broken parts. Even if "I" never use them I want the ability to help other people out if they were in a jam.

[alamo5000]

I had an epiphany about this many years ago: just have 2 of everything, and you're covered. If it's worth the hassle and expense to order or build XYZ, it's not much of a stretch to just get/build 2 instead. Covers you from crap being out of stock when you need it, too. I do this with everything now. Instead of owning 10 coats, I have 2 really nice ones ... and so on. YMMV ...

I am somewhat of the same school. If I had 10 poverty ponies that's one thing... but I don't. I have (several) that I really like. I don't believe in a thing such as 'too many guns' BUUUUTTTT on the other hand unless you're a billionaire or have access to free ammo shooting all of them just goes on rotation. I have one in particular that I haven't shot in over a year. With that in mind I will probably build a new upper for it in 6 ARC once components are more readily available.


I have multiples of every part just in case. A bolt extractor spring is the only thing that has gone bad. A Sprinco upgrade fixed the problem. More common is out of spec new parts. A bad bolt catch, AR10 charging handle and too fat Fail Zero cam pin come to mind.

I would definitely like to have this but money is tight-ish at times. Also when I see some of these 'fix kits' from brands or names I don't know it makes me second guess myself. A spring is one thing, but an extractor needs to be up to snuff.

[gatordev]

Alamo, I know you say you don't join other forums, and I can understand that, but you might want to go over to the AR15.com EE. There is so much stuff for sale, and as long as it isn't a designer brand of something that's very unique, the prices are reasonable. Another option is to go to a known, large vendor and backorder stuff. If you're patient, it will eventually catch up to you at normal pricing. Brownell's is a great resource for that, as is DSG.

As for bits and pieces, grabbing Colt or LMT parts usually doesn't have a down side. Between Brownell's, G&R, and LMT, supply gets updated somewhat regularly.

[alamo5000]

Alamo, I know you say you don't join other forums, and I can understand that, but you might want to go over to the AR15.com EE. There is so much stuff for sale, and as long as it isn't a designer brand of something that's very unique, the prices are reasonable. Another option is to go to a known, large vendor and backorder stuff. If you're patient, it will eventually catch up to you at normal pricing. Brownell's is a great resource for that, as is DSG.

As for bits and pieces, grabbing Colt or LMT parts usually doesn't have a down side. Between Brownell's, G&R, and LMT, supply gets updated somewhat regularly.

I am patient for sure. I don't need or have to have the stuff 'right now'. I am really talking about say over a six month to a year time frame (or whatever) just building up a 'prepper kit' for this stuff that may or may not sit on my shelf for five years (or longer) untouched.

The question is rather 'which parts' are more prone to breaking so I can start slowly shopping as I see stuff. I am not really price sensitive for stuff like that but paying double or triple is not cool.

As far as that other site, the last time I went over there they would not allow me to register. I mean at all. I don't really want to join there but despite that apparently at least at that time I was actively prevented from registering as a user. I guess at the time they had a ton of people registering and spamming the site so they shut off signing up new members (at the time). That's just a guess but it might be different now. Who knows. I will check it out again.

I did join sniper's hide a while back. They have a lot of specific topics that are up my alley so I lurk there sometimes. I've bought a couple things from there.

None of this is absolutely urgent though and I am not going to cheap out on stuff... so if it comes right down to brass tacks I will find parts from some place that I know such as BCM etc. They can't be OOS forever.

[On a side note what I think is happening is there is a bottle neck in production. I talked to one guy that (used to) offer finishing services such as nitride or whatever and he said there is a rather huge company out there that a substantial part of the gun industry uses. They have over a year backlog and stopped taking new orders and because of that he (the guy I talked to) had to suspend offering small batch nitride/coating services.]

Eventually things will catch up...

[gatordev]

I understood your original question, but you already knew the answer when asking it. The things to have spares of are the things you'd expect to break: bolts, pins, and springs. My point was to not be myopic about what might be in stock now. There are countless threads and posts on the internet about "which" parts to buy, so my point was to go to a place that has those and allows you to back order, so you get in line now.

AR15.com has a requirement that your email isn't a free email service in order to cut down on spammers. That might be a deal breaker for you, and other than buying stuff, I totally understand the argument of not wanting to hang out there long term, but I was just giving you another resource. I'm amazed at how many things that are OOS at stores but are available as lightly-used on the site when I browse through there when I'm bored at work.

[mustangfreek]

Wow..

Just carry another rifle or such

No bcg as when are you gonna break one

Just a bolt,some pins, springs etc are in the stock of my one gun. If it breaks I’m just gonna grab something else

No sense for 3 rifles with extras for all .. that seems silly

[alamo5000]

Wow..

Just carry another rifle or such

No bcg as when are you gonna break one

Just a bolt,some pins, springs etc are in the stock of my one gun. If it breaks I’m just gonna grab something else

No sense for 3 rifles with extras for all .. that seems silly

It doesn't seem silly at all to me. Not very long ago I split an entire BCG open like a banana. Fortunately I had a spare.

If you are talking post apocalyptic warzone stuff, yeah, just put together another rifle. But I'm not talking about that.

But when (not if) we go through another dry spell I want my bases to be covered.

If I didn't have a spare BCG my 300BLK would STILL be out of commission.

I'm not talking about end of the world gun battles but rather "there is a record run on firearms and I would be completely SOL if I hadn't planned ahead".

In that case why stock ammo? Why not just run down to Wal Mart and buy more when you run out?

http://www.weaponevolution.com/forum/showthread.php?11767-My-first-firearms-related-accident&highlight=

[alamo5000]

It might seem OCD to some but keeping spares of consumables is good planning if you ask me.

That kind of thinking is why I'm sitting on over 25,000 rounds of ammo while others get to sit around scratching their asses.

If I buy spare parts and never use them even once that's ok. But I will be in the position to help someone else if needed.

[UWone77]

I have a ton of spares, not because it's planned, but you just accumulate stuff over the years.

My mantra is having my go-to setups x2. One goes down, I have another, setup, exactly the same. I'll worry about getting a replacement later. Grabbing a spare rifle is easier than fixing your gun.

If your budget doesn't allow that, I'd just have some extra bolts and springs stocked. I think it's actually easier to have just a few spare BCG's and LPK's. That should solve 95% of any wear issues

[Joelski]

I have a ton of spares, not because it's planned, but you just accumulate stuff over the years.

My mantra is having my go-to setups x2. One goes down, I have another, setup, exactly the same. I'll worry about getting a replacement later. Grabbing a spare rifle is easier than fixing your gun.

If your budget doesn't allow that, I'd just have some extra bolts and springs stocked. I think it's actually easier to have just a few spare BCG's and LPK's. That should solve 95% of any wear issuesThis. I've moved beyond assembling rifles from accumulated parts (removed when upgrading to nicer stuff, so whats the point of building a rifle from a build-up of take-offs?). I have several LPK's worth of loose parts, a couple BCG's and thats pretty much it. I don't haul that stuff around when I shoot; I bring a selection of guns and if God forbid, some gucci-ass part breaks, I'm grabbing something else and keeping the bon temps roulezzing. [emoji2]

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[BoilerUp]

On an AR, in my life I've witnessed a worn out extractor and worn out gas rings on my own rifles. I recently purchased two of the BCM SOPMOD Bolt Upgrade Kits. One to replace the aforementioned worn out gas rings (on a RA BCG that isn't that old) and a second to have as a spare.

I think a spare bolt assembly and firing pin will cover about 90% of any "it broke or wore out" scenarios.

[VIPER 237]

Same thing are consumable items such as springs, gas rings, etc. so I don’t consider them broken when they wear out or fail.

Things I have see are multiple broken extractors, 2 broken bolts (both were 9310) broken lwrc ambi charging handle, broken rear lug on an upper (not sure how) blown out gas tube where it meets the gas block, cracked alum gas block.

[Joelski]

Watch your round count. The guy that owns Battlefield Vegas posted his observations a couple years back on TOS, and lugs break off Toolcraft, and stock Colt bolts at around the 20k round count. Of course, for him, that could be two weeks, for others, it could be several lifetimes..

[Stone]

Yeah a heavy firing schedule makes a big difference. At every 3K rounds I swap all the springs, consumable ones that is. When you change an extractor spring its wise to do the ejector spring and ejector as well. They work together and the timing has to be spot on. At 6K rounds I do the springs again, a new bolt, firing pin and cam pin.

[Former11B]

For example when I go to a match, I take a spare rifle in case I have a catastrophic failure or one that would take a ton of time to fix.

My parts kit includes the basics: spare bolt (not entire BCG), gas rings, firing pin and basically any other spring that can be accessed fairly easily (trigger, that type of thing).

I got in a bad habit a few years ago building rifles around the spare bolt carrier groups and other parts that I had amassed that were simply supposed to be “in case of” items. Oops

[Molon]

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/28568/broken_firing_pins_002-1760313.jpg


...

[Stone]

Molon, any idea what the round count was on those firing pins when they broke?

[Molon]

Molon, any idea what the round count was on those firing pins when they broke?


Unfortunately, I didn't keep track of the point at which they broke. A few things to note; the 2nd, 3rd and 4th firing pins in the above pic are titanium. Also, I do a lot of shooting and even more dry-firing. Those pins all broke while dry-firing.

[Stone]

Thanks. Titanium is known for having "brittle" characteristics, I always wondered why they were making FP's out of it... Dry firing may be putting stress on the firing pin without having resistance such as a casing on the other end of it. Just a theory.

[MoxyDave]

Thanks. Titanium is known for having "brittle" characteristics, I always wondered why they were making FP's out of it... Dry firing may be putting stress on the firing pin without having resistance such as a casing on the other end of it. Just a theory.

It's my understanding that Titanium firing pins have less mass than steel. The idea is the lower mass creates less chance of a slamfire, since an AR firing pin does not typically have a return spring. People also believe it lowers "lock time" as well, meaning the gun will go into battery more quickly. I personally would not use one on anything but a recreational .22lr.

[Stone]

Interesting, thanks MD. Three out of four of the broken pins were titanium. Not a good average...

[Eric]

Unfortunately, I didn't keep track of the point at which they broke. A few things to note; the 2nd, 3rd and 4th firing pins in the above pic are titanium. Also, I do a lot of shooting and even more dry-firing. Those pins all broke while dry-firing.Titanium would be a poor choice for a duty type rifle and wouldn't likely provide an observable benefit. Far left FP looks like a 9mm.

[alamo5000]

I'm obviously not an expert on the subject but I have seen several instances where titanium looks like it was the failure point, or at least was what was being blamed.

From my reading titanium gets brittle at low temperature. One guy put his hunting rifle in his truck overnight with a titanium can on the end of it.

The next morning it was super cold and on the first shot a seam open up length wise on the suppressor right where the engraving was at. It split it open.

Given it rarely gets cold where I am at but if I lived in North Dakota it might be something to research.

[Molon]

Titanium would be a poor choice for a duty type rifle and wouldn't likely provide an observable benefit. Far left FP looks like a 9mm.



Did I say I used those titanium pins on my duty type rifles?

[Aragorn]

I think where it comes from matters. A couple years ago I had a conversation with Joel of V Seven about titanium fire pins. My inquiry was about how much it would affect lock time, and about pin breakage. He recounted to me a conversation he had with Bill Geissele about lock time, and that titanium firing pins were close to worthless when it came to any advantages regarding lock time. Basically it boiled down to how much firing pin acceleration are you really going to gain in that 1/8 in. of travel, under hammer fall energy, by shaving a few grams? And that you’d be better served by a trigger with a faster hammer if lock time was your actual goal.

As for breakage he told me most people were/are making titanium firing pins out of the hardest titanium available (I can’t remember which grade he specified, but he DID specify one) and that due to this they tended to be somewhat brittle. He also said his titanium pins were made of a slightly softer, much tougher grade and that out of all the ones he had sold, only one customer had reached out with a potential issue. It had chipped very slightly at the tip but was still running 100% and did not result in a sharp edge or the piercing of primers. V Seven eagerly sent him a replacement anyways.

He also mentioned they also really only made them for the “hyper light” AR crowd, but still wanted to execute them as flawlessly as they could, which definitely stands by true V Seven form.

[Eric]

Did I say I used those titanium pins on my duty type rifles?Obviously not. That was just a general note for those folks who might think it's a good idea.