SHOT Show 2014 - SRC Relia-Bolt

[Eric]

From the Sharps Rifle Company is the Relia-Bolt. I'm not sure that a proper mil-spec bolt requires any improvements, but the SRC has one.

S7tool steel, NP3 electroless nickel finish (improperly called electrodes nickels by SRC) and redesigned lugs. SRC claims improved reliability and strength.

[rob_s]

More strength by removing material?

[usbp379]

I have one of these that I hope to test tomorrow.

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[usbp379]

So my test went well in that nothing unusual or unexpected happened. The "test" was simply to shoot a magazine through the rifle. The gun worked fine with the bolt installed and I had no issues with cycling. The bolt locked open when empty.

After this, I cleaned the bolt thoroughly and note nothing out of the ordinary so far. Locking lug surfaces look normal. I will continue to use the bolt and we'll see how things develop as the round count increases.

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[usbp379]

I ran another couple mags through my rifle yesterday with the Relia-Bolt installed. The lugs are showing good even contact with the barrel extension and the NiB finish cleans easily. Almost all the carbon fouling behind the gas rings wiped off with a patch after soaking for a few minutes in Bore Tech C4 carbon remover.

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[usbp379]

Really, I can think of only twice where I've had an issue that this bolt might have helped with. One was a failure to feed that resulted in a bullet getting pushed into the case mouth followed by 25 grains of ball powder getting spilled into the barrel extension. The other instance was a blown primer that found its way into the extension and kept the bolt from rotating fully into battery.

I think I'll deprime a spent piece of brass and drop the expended primer into the extension and see what happens. Along these lines, I need to dump a scoop of H335 into the mechanism and see if the gun will still run.
Anyone else have any thoughts? Has anyone had a malfunction that might have been prevented with the use of this bolt?

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[usbp379]

Today I took a couple spent primers and dropped them into the barrel extensions of an AR with a conventional bolt and my rifle with the Sharps bolt. Both rifles were laid ejection port up and then the bolt was dropped three times using the bolt catch.

On the conventional AR, the bolt fully closed on the first drop but wouldn't close on attempts two and three. On the last attempt, I had to mortar the gun. The spent primer looked like this:



The anvil is gone and I couldn't find it inside the rifle.

The Relia-Bolt closed and opened fine on the first and second attempts. On the third attempt the bolt didn't fully close and it took a pretty good pull on the charging handle to get the action open. The primer from this rifle is here:






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[usbp379]

I tried the primer experiment live fire this morning. I dropped a spent small rifle primer in the barrel extension and then fired five rounds. The first round chambered manually but the bolt failed to close fully on the second round. Opening the bolt a couple inches and then letting it close again got it fully into battery and I fired the remaining rounds with issue.



Next I pulled a bullet and dumped the charge of ball powder into the barrel extension and upper. The charging handle was gritty and raspy after this but the bolt still went into battery and closed easily on an empty chamber. Unfortunately much of the powder went into the chamber itself and I could not get the bolt to close on a live round even after trying three or four times. I pulled the bolt and gave the chamber one plunge with a chamber brush. This cleared the chamber enough that I was able to load and fire the rifle without issue.

Granted, I would have been screwed had I not had a chamber brush in my range bag and the argument could be made that I could have just as easily given the brush a few spins to clean the powder out of the extension. Still, the Relia-Bolt works as advertised by allowing room for crud and foreign matter inside the extension.

Of course time will tell how well the bolt's new material holds up.


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[UWone77]

Thanks for the update, I was curious about this new bolt and to see how it performs.

Always appreciate your informative posts.

[usbp379]

At this point my one complaint is the price. The bolt (with extractor) is as much as a complete bolt carrier group from other manufacturers. Also, my SRC bolt's extractor only came with the o-ring insert. No spring was present. Fortunately I had a spare. While the extractor might have worked with the donut insert alone, it really needs a spring and spring insert if we're going for something to enhance reliability.

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[usbp379]

As noted in my last post, price was really my only complaint. Now I see the bolt is on sale for nearly half the original retail price. Was this to spur sales or will this be the new MSRP? Anyway, you can order here:

https://store.broadswordgroup.com/mo...Code=ReliaBolt

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[Eric]

I ended up ordering one to try out. At $80 it's priced about the same as a BCM and LMT, less than a Colt, more than a CMT and Stag. It looks like they are about sold out, 37 left at this time. The original price was a tough sell, but the reduced price-point is decent.

[skd_tactical]

Well, at that Price, I couldn't resist. I would pay that much for a bolt with that coating (or just about) by itself. This seems like a great deal.

SOS

[GOST]

That price has got me half tempted to try one myself.

[usbp379]

I ended up ordering one to try out. At $80 it's priced about the same as a BCM and LMT, less than a Colt, more than a CMT and Stag. It looks like they are about sold out, 37 left at this time. The original price was a tough sell, but the reduced price-point is decent.

Down to only 18 remaining as of 7pm Pacific on the 17th.

I think there was something like 198 when I posted the link.

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