Broken Grendel Bolt

[Buster]

Yesterday I broke a lug (next to the extractor) on a bolt on a 4 year old factory built AA Overwatch with approximately 2500 rds of factory ammo and 100 reloads (30.0gr/CFE223 using 123gr AMAX) through the pipe.
Lug broke after shooting 5th round of factory Hornady 123gr AMAXs.

I've got an AA Hard Use Bolt coming next week.
Just a fluke??

[mongoosesnipe]

its a wear part, a 2500 round service life isn't too bad....

on an unrelated note 2500 rounds of factory.... what are you doing with all that brass...

[Buster]

its a wear part, a 2500 round service life isn't too bad....

on an unrelated note 2500 rounds of factory.... what are you doing with all that brass...

That's what I was thinking too.

I give most of the brass to #1 son, but I will be posting for sale really soon some de-primed, cleaned and polished, once fired Hornady brass..

[LRRPF52]

What lot # on the Hornady ammo?

Your hand loads of 30.0gr of CFE are around 40,000psi.

[LR1955]

Yesterday I broke a lug (next to the extractor) on a bolt on a 4 year old factory built AA Overwatch with approximately 2500 rds of factory ammo and 100 reloads (30.0gr/CFE223 using 123gr AMAX) through the pipe.
Lug broke after shooting 5th round of factory Hornady 123gr AMAXs.

I've got an AA Hard Use Bolt coming next week.
Just a fluke??

It is unacceptable for a bolt to shear a lug at that low a round count. Unless you were hot loading which apparently you weren't.

[LRRPF52]

Mark said that he had customers reporting broken bolts with a certain lot of Hornady ammo, so it might be something we need to nail down and let Hornady know about.

[762n40]

I've had things come unglued when a case ruptures. How did those 5 cases look the day bolt broke ?

[Buster]

Cases looked no different than any of the other factory rounds that went through this unit.

[Buster]

To my [pleasant] surprise, I was contacted (through this forum) by Bill A. about this issue.
After a VERY informative phone call today, we decided the best thing to do is to send in the complete upper for inspection/evaluation. Bill A. even offered to arrange pickup on his dime, which I declined due to time constraints on my part. He also promised a one day turn around time once he receives it.
Talk about awesome customer service and going way over and above call the duty!!
Why would any one not want to do business with Alexander Arms....

I'll share with y'all part of his philosophy that he shared with me; "It is anomalies like this that teach us most about what we are doing. Very little is ever learnt from a weapon that works perfectly."

I'll let y'all know what the finding is...

[LRRPF52]

Over the years, there have been several members on the forum who reported having barrels replaced that weren't even from AA.

Bill asked them to send in their complete upper so he could get them squared away, which he did by replacing their unknown parts with known critical components from AA.

[Buster]

Got this unit back today. Results were:

Bolt shows machining error on edge of lug chamfer. Crack propagated from very sharp edge.

Awesome customer service!

[biodsl]

Awesome and amazing. Four years, 2,500 rounds and some hot factory loads floating around out there. How easy would it have been for AA just to duck on this one? Very.

Good on you, Bill! Thanks for the Grendel and for being such a stand up guy.

[am4966]

Imo AA and especially Bill is a stand up guy.

[Slappy]

Excellent results. You just do not see a company going out of their way anymore. Glad to hear there are a few out there that still think that great customer service is the way to go. And a GOOD ON YA to Mr. A for helping out. People really do appreciate gestures like this one. WAY TO GO SIR, very nice indeed. BANG BANG!!

[Daveyboy]

I have some factory 123amax's that have primers that are looking a bit flattened. The lot number is 3142157, so 189 away from the OPs lot. Interesting to see his bolt was damaged in what I would consider a pretty low round count.

[LRRPF52]

A lot of my Hornady factory ammo produces flattened primers, because I'm shooting from a sloppy gas gun, not because they are running excessive pressure.

Look at mv as the first sign of excessive pressure if you aren't seeing cratering, piercing, blown primers, weird case stretch/bulging, splits, etc.