I am educating myself for my first AR308 build. The benefits of a nickel boron bolt carrier assembly seem obvious. Will I gain anything from a nickel boron upper/lower? Any advice from those more experienced than myself would be appreciated. I think I have read everything on the forum but please feel free to post links to other threads. I have never had great success with the search engine.
- Thread starter Fatorangecat
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Its slick and easy to clean. I have a NiB carrier for my .308 and its nice. Having said that, it is not needed for a accurate and reliable rifle. I wouldn't spend much extra for it.
I've been evaluating long-term performance on them, along with TiN, hard chrome, and standard phosphated carriers in extreme humidity, arctic environments since 2007.
Performance-wise, haven't seen a difference.
Perception-wise, it feels smoother when cycling the action than the others, and wipes off easier. Carbon and heat will burnish it, like TiN.
From an engineering standpoint, it's probably best to match a NiB bolt to an NiB barrel extension.
For receivers, NiB inside is a nice-to-have, and should reduce some of the wear we see, even though I have yet to see wear on a 7000 series anodized aluminum upper ever be an issue internally. That's coming from shooting AR15's since the 1980's, ten years in the Army living with and abusing M16A1's, A2's, M4's, and M4A1's all over the world, as well as an even higher shooting volume since I got out 10 years ago.
The one area I would plate NiB is the charge handle latch recess on the left side of the upper, which is a high-wear, rare failure point. I would also plate the charge handle shaft with NiB, just to avoid the anodized grinding on a new gun.
On the lower receiver, the hammer and trigger pin holes could benefit from it marginally, as I have yet to see that area wear badly enough on a 7000 series Aluminum part with Type III anodizing.
There are areas of the AR15 where metal-on-metal are meant to articulate with one of the metals having a softer surface hardness. The carrier key is one of these, so that it doesn't gall the track inside the aluminum upper.
Nickel Boron isn't anything new. The Army evaluated it for barrel bore lining in the late 1950's, along with some other unique plating, as well as ferritic salt bath nitriding (Melonite). They found that hard chrome-lined barrels held up to heat and high-volume shock force + friction better than the others for full-auto rated barrels.
Performance-wise, haven't seen a difference.
Perception-wise, it feels smoother when cycling the action than the others, and wipes off easier. Carbon and heat will burnish it, like TiN.
From an engineering standpoint, it's probably best to match a NiB bolt to an NiB barrel extension.
For receivers, NiB inside is a nice-to-have, and should reduce some of the wear we see, even though I have yet to see wear on a 7000 series anodized aluminum upper ever be an issue internally. That's coming from shooting AR15's since the 1980's, ten years in the Army living with and abusing M16A1's, A2's, M4's, and M4A1's all over the world, as well as an even higher shooting volume since I got out 10 years ago.
The one area I would plate NiB is the charge handle latch recess on the left side of the upper, which is a high-wear, rare failure point. I would also plate the charge handle shaft with NiB, just to avoid the anodized grinding on a new gun.
On the lower receiver, the hammer and trigger pin holes could benefit from it marginally, as I have yet to see that area wear badly enough on a 7000 series Aluminum part with Type III anodizing.
There are areas of the AR15 where metal-on-metal are meant to articulate with one of the metals having a softer surface hardness. The carrier key is one of these, so that it doesn't gall the track inside the aluminum upper.
Nickel Boron isn't anything new. The Army evaluated it for barrel bore lining in the late 1950's, along with some other unique plating, as well as ferritic salt bath nitriding (Melonite). They found that hard chrome-lined barrels held up to heat and high-volume shock force + friction better than the others for full-auto rated barrels.
That was informative.
I have an rguns nickel boron with about a 1000rnd. I clean regularly and very lightly oil. It seems to be the stickiest carrier I have ever used. I don't think there is anything special, if anything it's worse.
I have two LAR OPS-4 uppers that I run only with a suppressor. The first one was with a chrome carrier. The second is nickel boron. The nickel boron carrier was slick as butter when new. After shooting carbon cakes up on it and it developes a bluish corrosion. The only way to clean it is with a 3m pad with soap and water. I find it to be a real pain in the ass. The chrome carrier wipes clean with a rag. I recently got on the notify list at Rainier Arms for a Young national match bcg. It's spendy but I'm tired of the hassle trying to keep it clean.
I have the WMD carrier and upper in NibX. Seem to clean really easily, but it will take a LOT of shooting to ever know if there's an actual durability advantage. It is buttery smooth though, which is nice.
FWIW, the consensus regarding the old military testing of melonite vs chrome lined barrel seems to be that it's outdated and not applicable to current "meloniting" processes. Current melonite is probably more durable than chrome, and certainly more accurate in a good barrel. My melonite barrel shoots under 1/2 MOA with Black Hills match ammo, and I couldn't be happier.
FWIW, the consensus regarding the old military testing of melonite vs chrome lined barrel seems to be that it's outdated and not applicable to current "meloniting" processes. Current melonite is probably more durable than chrome, and certainly more accurate in a good barrel. My melonite barrel shoots under 1/2 MOA with Black Hills match ammo, and I couldn't be happier.
I have an RGuns NiB BCG in one of my M4 builds and its runs super slick, dunno what others eho are hating on the product have bash about but for me it runs smooth and I also took the extra step and polished it to a mirror finish with some flitz and its even better... NiB is a great compliment to any metal on metal surface and it cleans very easily.. I highly recommend it.
I pulled my rguns nickel boron apart tonight and will note it does clean easier. And once clean man is it slick. It just gets dirty real quick and then sticky. Very light coat of CLP. It seems to be mainly the bolt rotating in the carrier that's the issue. It is the one that came with it.
Nib is sure slippery in nature. Cleaning usually just involves a CLP soak.
Much easier than phosphate finishes and scraping carbon.
Much easier than phosphate finishes and scraping carbon.
I have an NIB BCG and it's super slick
What ever happened to chrome? Two years ago we didn't have nickel boron and thought chrome was the way to go. I handled a rguns bcg the outer finish wasn't slick or smooth to the feel. I'm looking for a new quality bcg and have decided standard or nib.
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