02-25-2014, 04:11 PM
cst Wrote:can someone explain to me...when a bolt is sent to say lilja for it to be chambered off of...say a typeII bolt from LBC or AA etc...what if that bolt breaks...you can simply just buy another brand typeII, drop it in, and wont loose any accuracy?
In other words..then whats the point in sending in a bolt to have it made to chamber that? As long as you have a consistent typeII or I bolt to the chamber you should be able to interchange bolt brands ... correct? and not loose accuracy..? Liljas site says that they dont guarantee if another bolt is used with their barrel since its headspaced with a maxim...
The terms "Type I" and "Type II" are BHW internal identifiers for them to distinguish between their original bolts (made long after Grendel had been on the market), and their move to make more compliant bolts with AA Grendel/Beowulf bolts. The main difference is the bolt face depth recess, but there are other dimensions to a Grendel bolt that set it apart from others as well.
At least 3 different machine shops have come online in the last year making bolts out of 9000-series alloy to address the challenges faced, and AA has used 9000-series for the hard use bolts for years now. Over the 12 years of 6.5 Grendel presence in the market, there have been very few AA Grendel bolts broken, and the ones that were had been installed in upper receiver that weren't square, and or used with above maximum pressure hand loads.
A lot of shops had been providing an after-market 7.62x39 bolt for 7.62x39 AR15's, but almost every one of these models had bad metallurgy, and the trail of tears of broken "7.62x39" bolts is long and wide. None of these shops cared to look at Colt's Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation on the first 7.62x39 production AR15, which Colt did in the 1980's...none but Alexander Arms that I'm aware of. There are some legitimate engineering challenges with making the AR15's 5.56 bolt work with 5.56 pressures, let alone deal with an enlarged bolt face without an enlarged bolt diameter in cartridges like 7.62x39, 6.8x43, and 6.5 Grendel.
Just as the military went to Carpenter 158 for the 5.56 NATO M16/M4 series, AA found the metallurgy that would produce a long-lasting Grendel bolt. I know Maxim Firearms submitted their Grendel bolt to an engineering team, and worked back and forth with reputable manufacturers of the 6.5 Grendel to do everything to get the bolts right, and everyone seems to be trucking along well so far.
My standard AA bolt has been pushing along since 2009 now, and I shoot a lot. I have bins full of 6.5 Grendel brass, even aside from the brass that I have re-sized and is ready to load again. As long as you purchase components that are meant to work with each other, from reputable sources, you will be good to go. This axiom is also very true for a standard 5.56 AR15, and there are places I won't touch with a 10ft pole when it comes to AR15 parts in any caliber.