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I don't think Bill A sabotaged the Grendel with magic dimensions, as we were getting a better flow of parts before the industry went nuts. Perhaps demand still exceeded supply, but it wasn't nearly so difficult to get barrels and bolts. I'm guessing the industry is still focused on 556.
From my small view of the world, it seems that the general AR supply has caught up with demand for the most part. AR's are in Walmart, and a LGS must have 50+ that don't seem to be moving too fast. And yes, there are segments of the market that still have extended wait times, but it seems they are the same segments where as wait times existed before things got crazy.
So if the AR supply has caught up to some degree, and we're still not seeing availability of parts for smaller segments (like 6.5G bolts), I'll assume that the industry must be planning for the next potential episode of market spikes, and will continue concentrating on 556.
Anyone have better inside info, or perhaps a different perspective?
Drifter
bwaites Wrote:It's not as simple as it seems.
1) produce bolt
2) find supplier to produce PROPER extractor
3) peen bolt
4) send bolt out for heat treating (hope heat treater knows what he is doing)
5) inspect bolts on return
6) polish and clean bolts that pass inspection
7) send bolts out for surface coat (ion bond, hard chrome, ceramic coat, whatever)
8) inspect bolts on return, toss those that don't pass
9) bevel ejector edge
10) wait for proper evtractors, wait some more, and some more....
11) polish extractor edges
12) assemble bolts with ejector/extractor assemblies
13) toss out of spec assemblies after assembled
14) sell remaining bolt assemblies, find you barely have enough for company production
15) order more parts, cut more bolts
Oh yeah....hire people to assemble bolts!
Hope that you find someone local to do heat treatment and coatings...I'm guessing that isn't real easy in rural Iowa!
LOL
there's a reason only a few companies produce bolts.
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Pointing fingers won't get us anywhere and I won't take part in it.
I will say this my gut tells me we'll see our barrels from Lilja and bolts from MF before anyone who's ordered a barrel from Satern in the last 12 months, because of supply issues outside of their control.
If anyone waiting on a Satern barrel wants to get in on the Lilja Buy, nows the last chance. You'll likely be able to easily sell one in the case both arrive sometime in the next 4 months.
"Those who sacrifice liberty for security, deserve neither." Benjamin Franklin
Bill Alexander
Unregistered
Tedward Wrote:A.O. is currently the big manufacture of Grendel Bolts and I was told they will not be producing any more for some time.
Complete utter crap in all the details in this sentence.
Bill Alexander
Unregistered
Tedward Wrote:I was told some dimensional differences Bill A put on them purposely so nobody could copy the bolts. Maxim confirmed that without me saying the #'s. I feel Bill A. is the biggest reason for the distribution NOT occurring on the Grendel's and all of the hold up's.
If you cannot measure a bolt correctly you are a complete utter retard.
I have more to do than screw about with dimensions on a bolt that anyone with half a brain can track easily with a CMM.
Grendel is SAAMI, anyone can make the stuff, how is it my fault.
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Tedward Wrote:A few steps might be missed but good explanation.
If the bolts that Maxim makes pass the tests Precision Firearms is going to put them under he might become the new source provider. A.O. is currently the big manufacture of Grendel Bolts and I was told they will not be producing any more for some time. This comes from a long time Grendel Developer that worked very close with Bill A. and pretty sure he knows what is going on with them. This is an ongoing issue with the Grendel apparently, so the way things look, Maxim might have a good foot in to help out the Grendel Bolt Dilemma.
I know that Maxim make bolts, carriers, extractors and other internal parts for some major companies as there machinist for several years. He even told me a few hidden secrets found on the AA Bolt I sent him. I was told some dimensional differences Bill A put on them purposely so nobody could copy the bolts. Maxim confirmed that without me saying the #'s. I feel Bill A. is the biggest reason for the distribution NOT occurring on the Grendel's and all of the hold up's.
Also apparently the development of the cartridge was a big cluster as everyone didn't get paid for there work and everyone is still fighting over who did what. Bill did not do it alone.
So I hear.....But everyone has there side to the story but I keep getting more evidence that I am hearing info from a good source.
I didn't intend it as a primer in bolt production, I was just trying to give people an idea about the difficulties with making bolts, and doing it very tongue in cheek. Its a pain in the rear!
The GRENDEL bolt isnt really the GRENDEL bolt at all. Its the BEOWULF bolt, which existed long before the Grendel did. There are a ton of people who had Beowulfs before Bill introduced the Grendel. I was laughing too hard at the "hidden secrets" part of that to intially respond.
There aren't any secrets to a bolt. Anyone with decent machining facilities and the ability to measure tight tolerances can set themselves up to make bolts. Making consistently HIGH QUALITY bolts is tougher and is why so few places make such a large percentage of the bolts. Heck, just getting the heat treat right is a lesson in frustration, from what I've been told.
LOL about A.O.! The cartridge has been SAAMI for a while now, so its simply market forces determining what goes on. Its a niche cartridge compared to 5.56 and so its at the back of the line to get stuff done.
The development of the cartridge had lots of players, and its been really well documented by David Fortier in a published article, http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_2_453/20214...endel.html.
J. Guthrie did one too. http://www.shootingtimes.com/2012/11/16/...t-to-have/
You'll find that all the essential details agree....It was Bill Alexander who found Lapua to make brass, and Bill Alexander who paid for the tooling, and Alexander Arms who started production. That there may be hard feelings somewhere along the line is unfortunate, but an unfortunately real part of doing business today.
So...the simple truth is that the Grendel bolt existed before the Grendel, because the Beowulf existed first. There are no magical secrets to making bolts, just good drawings and measurements, patience, and the right machining and treatment facilities. Having Maxim making bolts is going to be a great addition and we are all excited about it.
OOPS....looks like Bill beat me to it, I had to get some work done while this was up and being worked on too!
You seek escape from pain. We seek the achievement of happiness. You exist for the sake of avoiding punishment. We exist for the sake of earning rewards. Threats will not make us function; fear is not our incentive. It is not death that we wish to avoid, but life that we wish to live. - John Galt
trying not to look completely ignorant here, but who is A.O.? Maybe Im having a brain uh what is it, fart. Yes, a brain fart!
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Bill Alexander Wrote:If you cannot measure a bolt correctly you are a complete utter retard.
I have more to do than screw about with dimensions on a bolt that anyone with half a brain can track easily with a CMM.
Grendel is SAAMI, anyone can make the stuff, how is it my fault.
Thanks for clearing this up Bill and I will admit I'm the utter retard and not the machinist or developer. Maxim is doing a fine job making the bolts for us an I hope that they will be able to keep the supply coming to get more of the Grendels out there. It is a great cartridge and if people like Lilja and Saturn can pump some of these barrels out with bolts it will help expand the use of it and will become more common. I know the barrel making process is long but if the other piece of the pie is available it sure will be nice...
I'll end on this and we are moving forward.
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I heard that Bill Alexander was conspiring with a secret organization called SPECTRE particularly an individual named Ernst Stavro Blofeld together the conspired to halt the production of Grendel bolts such as to corner the market but the plan was thwarted by a British secret agent causing Bill Alexander himself to be unable to acquire Grendel bolts for some time cheek and mate
if we are going to spread gossip and make stuff up it should at least be outlandish and fantastical...
Punctuation is for the weak....
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09-20-2013, 11:20 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-20-2013, 11:25 AM by Tedward.)
mongoosesnipe Wrote:I heard that Bill Alexander was conspiring with a secret organization called SPECTRE particularly an individual named Ernst Stavro Blofeld together the conspired to halt the production of Grendel bolts such as to corner the market but the plan was thwarted by a British secret agent causing Bill Alexander himself to be unable to acquire Grendel bolts for some time cheek and mate
if we are going to spread gossip and make stuff up it should at least be outlandish and fantastical...
I was told by Loather Walther, Woody, he will not be able to produce any more Grendel’s and his orders will not be filled once he uses the 80 bolts he has. He said A.O. (who ever that is) is the main manufacturer of the Grendel Bolts and they are not running any more this year and it might be 10 month till they do.
I mentioned we had a company (Maxim Firearms) making the Grendel Bolts for us on the Forum and he might want to look into getting some from him if that is his hold up. TRYING to keep the barrel manufactures moving.
He went into how you can’t just make a Grendel bolt, and I said why? Stupid question, here we go. He said you need X,Y and Z. I told him Maxim is a bolt manufacture so that isn’t an issue and they have the bolt measurement’s and he has a AA Bolt I had on sent them to get the exact measurements. He has already made a run and they are in the process so testing can be done. Then he said taking the measurement’s from an AA Bolt is bad news because Bill A. purposely made the measurements off so it couldn’t be copied. I said why would he do that since he is the manufacture and it is now SAAMI and public? He said the lugs are off by .002 and there are +/- .000 tolerances in front and +/-.002 tolerances in other places. Without the knowledge, you can’t just copy it.
Woody tries to make it sound like rocket science so I said the lugs should be the same as a .556, 7.62x39 ect. and the only difference would be the head space and inside diameter. Then he said the extractor was modified in length and the pivot points were also moved.
Anyhow there is apparently hard feeling in the industry on his side as far as the Grendel and if the tolerances are off because it originated from the Beowulf that’s fine too but .
[FONT="] I wasn’t making up a story or spreading gossip, just passing on what I was told. And I did confirm with Maxim that the measurements were off spec. as Woody said.[/FONT]
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Tedward Wrote:I was told by Loather Walther, Woody, he will not be able to produce any more Grendel’s and his orders will not be filled once he uses the 80 bolts he has. He said A.O. (who ever that is) is the main manufacturer of the Grendel Bolts and they are not running any more this year and it might be 10 month till they do.
I mentioned we had a company (Maxim Firearms) making the Grendel Bolts for us on the Forum and he might want to look into getting some from him if that is his hold up. TRYING to keep the barrel manufactures moving.
He went into how you can’t just make a Grendel bolt, and I said why? Stupid question, here we go. He said you need X,Y and Z. I told him Maxim is a bolt manufacture so that isn’t an issue and they have the bolt measurement’s and he has a AA Bolt I had on sent them to get the exact measurements. He has already made a run and they are in the process so testing can be done. Then he said taking the measurement’s from an AA Bolt is bad news because Bill A. purposely made the measurements off so it couldn’t be copied. I said why would he do that since he is the manufacture and it is now SAAMI and public? He said the lugs are off by .002 and there are +/- .000 tolerances in front and +/-.002 tolerances in other places. Without the knowledge, you can’t just copy it.
Woody tries to make it sound like rocket science so I said the lugs should be the same as a .556, 7.62x39 ect. and the only difference would be the head space and inside diameter. Then he said the extractor was modified in length and the pivot points were also moved.
Anyhow there is apparently hard feeling in the industry on his side as far as the Grendel and if the tolerances are off because it originated from the Beowulf that’s fine too but .
[FONT="]I wasn’t making up a story or spreading gossip, just passing on what I was told. And I did confirm with Maxim that the measurements were off spec. as Woody said.[/FONT]
I was just having fun as this thread has moved from updates for satern barrel production into industry conjecture, I believe that you heard it from a guy but that guy was not a bolt manufacture so it was not realy his story to tell and his story is kinda bs because even if AA bolts had some sort of magical proprietors dimensions they can still be copied as they had to be made by some one originally unless Grendel bolts are manufactor by the demon Grendel him self locked away in a dungeon in Virginia and the shortage has been because Grendel coughs a cold and its not like bill can just take a captive demon to the doctor, I mean there would be questions and paper work and obama care doesn't cover demons
Punctuation is for the weak....
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Did Woody say when he might ship any barrels?
appleseed-kdc
Unregistered
Tedward Wrote:Then he said taking the measurement’s from an AA Bolt is bad news because Bill A. purposely made the measurements off so it couldn’t be copied. [/SIZE][/FONT]
Didn't this statement raise any sort of Red flag with you ?
If you have a good, new bolt, you can copy it exactly, dimensionally. (The more bolts the better, to see if there are any variances, but I digress).
Or do you think that when you try to measure, in some inter-dimensional magic, the bolts re-sizes itself as you try and measure it to fool you ?
I mean really.
ADD: if this was really said, it would appear to be an excuse that someone didn't have the technical capability and expertise to make the bolts. Its easy to blame someone else when YOU fail to succeed.
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The dimensions are not magic or secret, but the tolerancing could differ from the 5.56 standard. Just measuring a bolt and then copying to +/- could get you in trouble if the tolerances should be 0/-0.002. The sample bolt could also be at the far ends of acceptable tolerance range.
Does the SAAMI spec specify the entire bolt an extractor, or just chamber and head space?
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Walter Wrote:Did Woody say when he might ship any barrels?
No, thats where the issue came in. He has BO from January and will be doing 80 units. I told him if I'm at 81, I can send him a bolt... and off to the races he went. He will start shipping in Oct. and if mine isn't coming the order will be canceled for credit.
He has no tracking of names and where you place on the 80 list so really don't know how he is tracking anything.
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mongoosesnipe Wrote:I was just having fun as this thread has moved from updates for satern barrel production into industry conjecture, I believe that you heard it from a guy but that guy was not a bolt manufacture so it was not realy his story to tell and his story is kinda bs because even if AA bolts had some sort of magical proprietors dimensions they can still be copied as they had to be made by some one originally unless Grendel bolts are manufactor by the demon Grendel him self locked away in a dungeon in Virginia and the shortage has been because Grendel coughs a cold and its not like bill can just take a captive demon to the doctor, I mean there would be questions and paper work and obama care doesn't cover demons
Yes your right, off topic.
What started this in relation to the topic was Woody said he spoke to Steve Saturn and they will not be using Maxim for the bolts and have no ETA on the delivery. I do not know if that is true so did not post that. If you want to check with Steve or Deb to confirm you can. I'm not going into every barrel suppliers issues of bolts. Hopefully when I get my bolts from Maxim they will work as I predict. I have Grendel and Beowulf barrels with hundreds of rounds I'll be testing mine with and Precision Firearms has more barrels and ammo than I do and will probably be testing with live rounds as well.
Bill Alexander
Unregistered
In this industry there are parties who seem to revel in interfering in other peoples business. They have no information so they throw out wild claims with the hopes that someone will correct them with information that allows them to gain insight into that persons business. But one must fill the time after good loosing all that Larue business
Grendel went to SAAMI and was signed off, some people should get over this.
Tedward, I was unduly harsh, I apologize. You have an inquiring mind.
On bolts. There are several areas of the regular 5.56 bolt that we changed in our design work to make the bolt compatible with the larger rim. Depth was one, base diameter of the lugs was increased as the face diameter is larger. Extractor geometry is different so the extractor slot and pivot point are set up to match as the rim is bigger. This simplistic engineering to adapt the 5.56 bolt to Grendel and Beowulf.
"Grendel bolts are manufactor by the demon Grendel him self locked away in a dungeon in Virginia and the shortage has been because Grendel coughs a cold and its not like bill can just take a captive demon to the doctor, I mean there would be questions and paper work and obama care doesn't cover demons"
Illness of the demon is our biggest problem, I have been trying to recruit a number of smaller name demons to fill in but the immigration process is problematic as they are basically a conservative group that the administration does not smile on. Then there is the EPA. Have you ever seen the MSDS on Brimstone!
appleseed-kdc
Unregistered
dmsims21 Wrote:The dimensions are not magic or secret, but the tolerancing could differ from the 5.56 standard. Just measuring a bolt and then copying to +/- could get you in trouble if the tolerances should be 0/-0.002. The sample bolt could also be at the far ends of acceptable tolerance range.
Does the SAAMI spec specify the entire bolt an extractor, or just chamber and head space?
Which is why I also said this "The more bolts the better, to see if there are any variances, but I digress"
Sigh !!!
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09-20-2013, 03:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-20-2013, 04:01 PM by Tedward.)
Bill,
Thanks for your response and no apology needed. I value your comment's and I'm glad you are on this forum reading so when someone like myself is told something, you can clear the air correctly, not hear say. When I hear something, I want to find out the truth and me putting it out on this forum was not malicious, but I wanted your response to get the facts, and you did that for me.
All of your above notes are well taken and make sense so hopefully the bolt dilemma can be resolved and get us out in the woods or range shooting so this isn't even a topic of discussion.
Again thanks for reading this forum, being part of our groups discussion and clearing the air!!
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Bill Alexander Wrote:"Grendel bolts are manufactor by the demon Grendel him self locked away in a dungeon in Virginia and the shortage has been because Grendel coughs a cold and its not like bill can just take a captive demon to the doctor, I mean there would be questions and paper work and obama care doesn't cover demons"
Illness of the demon is our biggest problem, I have been trying to recruit a number of smaller name demons to fill in but the immigration process is problematic as they are basically a conservative group that the administration does not smile on. Then there is the EPA. Have you ever seen the MSDS on Brimstone!
nuff said as confirmed by the man himself the demon is ill
its probably a virus that just needs to run its course could be the feinsteinac*nt virus just needs to run its course hopefully it will die soon but it is sure to be replaced by some other horrible plague bloombergotchalism or bradyorrhea
Punctuation is for the weak....
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