Ive been reading reviews of these new bolt carriers with the nickel boron coatings.  Most are very positive, except one or two cases ive read of the coating flaking off.
Anyone with have experience with them?

Im using a Fail Zero bcg.  No problems so far.  Even shooting suppressed, the assembly wipes clean with just a paper towel.  To satisfy my OCD I still keep a light coating of CLP on it, although im sure its not quite necessary.

All depends on what you are expecting out of the (substantial) increase in cost.

No coating can substitute for fluid lubrication in a firearm.

Many will say they are the greatest thing ever, others will say they are not needed.
I bought one and ran it hard, it cleaned up easily.
I bought MANY phosphated BCGs and ran them hard, they too clean up easy.
Granted the cleaning is easier off NiB coated parts, but since I use good lube usually, it really don't matter to me.
I abuse my guns and sometimes shoot a little lube on mine- problem solved.
I'll spend my money on something I feel makes a worthy improvement.
It's only money...
I do like NiB coatings on my LPK parts though!

If you got the money they are nice. But regular BCG are going for cheap right now @ $109. Cannot really beat that.

sucks the big thread on it has been archived, and for some reason i can't pull it up.  

I'll type out my thoughts on it for the thousandth time.

I am posting this so I can have another easy thread to link to when people ask this question.  

I have run both phosphate coated ones and NiB coated ones.  Phosphate BCG's will run fine with lube as usual.  NiB coated ones will run fine with or without lube as well.

The two main suppliers of these are Spikes in the form of their Enhanced BCG's and LPKs, and Fail Zero direct.  Fail Zero is the outlet from which UCT Coatings coats things with NiB.  Fail Zero is the ONLY company out there coating things out there in "NiB" it is a patented process and they call it EXO coating.  

Both of those main companies BCG's are provided by AO (same people who provide to the .mil) and are MPI and HPT'ed individually.  Both companies offer a life time warranty and both companies have proven to be stand up people who will stand behind their products and support the communities.  

There are other companies out there who are getting things coated by FZ, but most of them are no names with no name parts... you can coat a no name part and it is now a slick no name part.

Lets see what else -

Here is a DoE test on it - http://failzero.com/action-reports/26-failzero-outperforms-legacy-systems-in-dept-of-energy-live-fire-tests.html

There are actual DoD tests out there supposedly, but the .gov owns them and is not showing them off.  Supposedly the numbers from the test according to FZ fall here -

  50,000 lube-free rounds on AR-15s.
  15,000 lube-free rounds on M9 pistols.
  18,000 lube-free rounds on carbine rifles.
   23,000 lube-free rounds on machine guns.

As a personal note im not suprised by these numbers... but at the same time i bet it was cleaned sometime there.

Here is a overview of the company

A Brief History of FailZero and EXO:
UCT’s founder and inventor Ed McComas, developed the first generation of Nickel Boron coating over 30 years ago. It was first adopted on Pratt and Whitney F100 engines and has been flying on them for 25 years. He has since remedied the early deficiencies of Nickel Boron and evolved the coating to its current Generation 5 configuration. Early generations of Nickel Boron contained only 1-3% Boron and had relatively high percentages of Thallium which co-deposited. The microstructure was porous and the bath stability was inconsistent. With Generation 5, UCT has resolved all of those problems and moved the Boron content to an optimal 6%, which is materially important because after heat treat, the coating is essentially 100% Ni3B (patented 2001). Additionally, UCT has wrapped ISO and Six Sigma processes around every step in the coating process, including all chemistries and baths. Thus, the finicky generation 1 coating is now a stable, repeatable and transferable Generation 5 Nickel Boron trademarked EXO Technology. It is 40% harder than Hard Chrome and has a very low coefficient of friction. EXO is being used successfully across many industries including oil and gas, forestry, and defense. It is now specified on the Army’s new 81mm and 60mm mortar tubes, infil/exfil hoists for Blackhawk helicopters and several applications on the DDG1000 for high load, low lubrication applications.

After the Jessica Lynch story and the issue of guns jamming in the desert due to sand/dust adhering to oil in the weapons, Ed decided he could replace all legacy coatings, and the need to oil a weapon, with our coating and his vision of the “greaseless gun” was born. He worked for 6 months with Mike Rock (Rock Creek Barrels) to convert a Rock River Arms AR into the first greaseless gun. He coated all of the metal parts and worked with Mike to determine coating thicknesses and surface finish requirements to operate without oil. The success of this effort led to the greaseless gun patent in 2004, Application of Nickel Boron Coatings to Firearms. This Rock River AR now has over 60K rounds on it.

UCT worked with the DoD over the next few years to demonstrate the coating on M4, M249, M9, and M24 platforms. It wasn’t a smooth development program and we made several mistakes along the way, but we achieved success in the end. The coating has undergone every imaginable ASTM wear and friction test, and the standard hot, cold, sand/dust, salt fog and endurance and reliability tests at Aberdeen Test Center. In every recent solicitation from the Government, there has been an objective requirement to operate lubrication free. They realize the importance and understand the advantage of being able to operate in the desert without having to lubricate your firearm. Other advantages such as extended life and reduced maintenance have now been demonstrated as well. Skepticism about our claims is understandable and people are quite surprise when they go to the range and shoot. The coating does allow firearms to function reliably without wet lubrication. Think of the coatings as a "permanent lubricant" that is applied to the substrate. It comes down to higher reliability in harsh environments (sand/dust, cold, suppressed fire, frangible ammunition, ocean, jungle etc). Our Troops deserve it, our LEOs deserve it and consumers should have access to it also.

In January 2009, UCT Arms released its FailZero brand of greaseless tactical upgrades. After working with AR and M4/M16 platforms for years, we reduced the number of parts that had to be coated in order to run without oil. We selected a mil spec quality vendor who provides components to the Military for the M16 and packaged a coated bolt carrier group and a coated hammer into our FailZero Basic AR15 Kit. We have dropped this kit in over 15 different types of AR platforms with complete success. We also offer an extreme duty kit which also includes a coated upper and charging handle. This configuration will far surpass 30K rounds down range. We have developed three legs to our business: OEM coating services, FailZero kit development and sales, and upgrading firearms for LEOs and consumers. We are a small but growing company engaged in a grass roots effort to introduce this technology to the firearms sector. Our goal is to be the firearms coating of choice.

Our competitors:

Electroless Nickel Teflon – EXO is almost twice as hard as EN Teflon, we achieve a better bond, and our lubricity is inherent in the material, not an additive designed to ablate away. OEMs are converting to EXO from EN Teflon due to chipping, spalling and flaking issues.

Hard Chrome – EXO is 40% harder than hard chrome and much more lubricious. An EXO-EXO wear couple is much better than a Cr-Cr wear couple. The EPA continues to reduce exposure levels to hexavalent chromium during its processing and is targeted for elimination.

PVD coatings such as IonBond – PVD coatings are line of sight coating that cannot get applied to IDs and complex geometries as well as EXO. EXO grows uniformly on every surface. PVD coatings are 1-2 microns thick, EXO is typically applied at 12 microns on firearm components. PVD coatings are typically a harder than EXO (dependent on the PVD chemistry used) but not as lubricious and have not run extensively without wet lubrication.

Paint on, bake on topcoats (Duracoat, Cerakote, Dry Film Lubes, etc) – We typically do not compete with these paint-type coatings but they can be applied on top of EXO for cosmetic (color) purposes and adhere well to the EXO microstructure for that purpose. Typically they will come off of wear surfaces to expose the EXO underneath. We use these topcoats on our Extreme Duty kits to get a tan or black color on the upper receivers.

here is a reply from them in regards to more specific testing info

We (and others) have conducted many tribological tests to compare EXO against Hard Chrome, anodizing, and phosphate as well as other coatings. During our M249 development with the Govt, we tested against the legacy coatings (Cr, MnP, and anodizing) in a bevy of ASTM tests. Specifically, E384 Microhardness, D522 bend, D4060 taber abrasion, D2625 method A and B Pin on Vee, G99 Pin on Disk, G77 Block on Ring, G133 ball on flat, B117 Salt Fog. This series of tests ran the legacy coatings oiled and EXO dry. The results and data are Govt property (unreleasable), but suffice it to say that we showed a better wear resistance than lubricated MnP and anodize by a wide margin and similar results to lubricated Hard Chrome. I say similar because in some tests EXO dry was better and in some tests just a bit worse. These test are accelerated of course and are meant to compare different coatings against each other under the same conditions. When that is done, either both dry or both lubricated, EXO beats Chrome in these tests.

We have also been tested in a number of other applications. The Army selected EXO for its new 81 and 60mm lightweight mortar system. Tests were conducted against MnP, black chrome and black nickel and EXO came out on top. BAE conducted several tribology test series prior to selecting EXO for high load, low lubrication applications on the DDG1000 (I wish they'd build more). The Navy has over 1000 panels in test at their corrosion lab in Key West right now. We've done fretting wear tests in SBIRs for the Air Force, and another round of ASTM tests for Messier Bugatti and Praxair Surface Technologies, who now has an exclusive EXO license for aerospace applications.

During the M4 and M249 development programs we participated in we took high speed video of the operating group velocities. This was done to help troubleshoot tolerance and function issues. When all was said and done the lube free graph overlaid almost identically with a lubricated weapon. One of the concepts that we as a company need to get across is that our coating provides "permanent lubrication" to metal substrates. Thus, the guns are running without lubrication, it is running without wet lubrication. If teflon had any wear characteristics at all it would have been the best coating ever and used on all things mechanical. Dry film lubes are better but they don't have the wear resistance required either. There are harder coatings on the market and teflon is more lubricious than EXO, but what EXO brings together is a multifunctional coating that provides wear resistance and lubricity anywhere you need it.

Regarding whether or not to coat external components, my answer would be yes, coat everything. In fact we did on our patent gun which has 60K+ rounds on it. We are building several ARs right now that will be totally coated (minus pins, springs, etc). The coating provides a very durable external (EXO-skeleton) surface that will not chip or ding as easily MnP or black oxide. Several LEOs have had their pistols coated to prevent holster wear and we have several shotguns that have been on patrol boats for over 10 months. Those were coated inside and out in order to beat the corrosion and reduce maintenance requirements.

Our process is a bath immersion process so part size is limited only by the tank size. We did a 10 foot long part for the DDG1000 and had to build a special tank for that application. Our largest tanks currently are 600 gal so part size is limited to 4 ft x 4ft x 6 ft. We are building a new automated line that will be ready by summer of 2010 that will be capable of larger parts in response to some DoD efforts that are ongoing.

Our color palette is limited right now. Matte grey is beautiful! To your point, though, topcoats do adhere well to our coating. The as-plated coating has a topographical structure that resembles brocolli under a microscope. Thus there is a lot of surface area when compared to the original substrate. Currently when we coat uppers we do offer a black but it is just a topcoat. One advantage of having the EXO underneath is that when the color starts to wear, the substrate is still protected by the EXO coating. A good surface cleaning and then a light bead blasting of the EXO surface will be sufficient to acheive good adherence of the topcoat.

Sorry I couldn't release specific data, but we usually sign non disclosures with companies that we are working with in order to protect both parties' confidential data. I am sure you can understand. If I ever get time to request release of the data from the Govt we will publish results.

Thanks again for your interest in our technology. I hope you get a chance to shoot with it.


Anyway back to my personal feelings - people who have actually used them generally seem to fall in love with them and not feel like phosphate is good enough anymore.  And people who have not used them generally tend to think they are gimmicks and "it can't be good as phosphate.... ITS NOT MILSPEC OH NOEZ!"  

I personally will only use them in the future, have only used NiB coated BCG's and uppers since I first used them... I am a consumer, not affiliated with any company that makes/uses NiB or anything like that.  I have the choice what to spend my money on, and I make that choice every time i build a new rifle.  

End of wall of text for prosperity

After much reading and thought,i purchased one.Should be here tomorrow,i can't wait!

I've used it & failed to see the benefit vs. cost increase. The only thing I was impressed by was the ability to wipe the carrier & bolt clean with a rag. That's it. I don't mind lubing phosphate parts & I don't mind cleaning them. It's not like phosphated parts are that difficult to clean in the first place. YMMV.

I've used a couple. They work just fine, are a bit easier to clean as well. I haven't seen any "flaking" issues.

I'd like to see pics of that.

Can you share the with us the "one or two cases of the coating flaking off?" Where did you read that?

interested in this as well, the "flaking" issues ive "heard" about were always attributed to actual nickel plating, or i think there was a bad batch of hard chrome's out there... but i STILL haven't been able to actually find pictures and documentation.

I've got one and love it.  Every rifle from here on out will have one.  No lube needed and cleaning is a cinch.  If your suppressed the benefits are even greater.

Have a couple of builds based on the FZ extreme kits.  That is NB bcg, upper, charging handle and hammer.  Once the stuffs gets broken it does feel pretty slick.  I still run lube on mine just for longevity reasons and I'm most comfortable doing that.  Howver it's nice to be confident that I don't have too if the situation called for running dry.  Agree with the other poster, they are also nice when firing suppressed too...

If I were in the market for a BCG that was other than Phosphate, It would be NiB.
I own Chrome ones and see no advantage in owning them, other than they clean a little easier.
And when I say a little easier, its deffinatly a little.
Go phosphate or go NiB, because of its self lubing (or hardly any lube) ability.

It appears that your chrome bolt is not properly staked! Gasp!

It may not be double staked, but it is staked. And I invite anyone to try to break the bolts loose easily.
This is the way it came from the manufactuer also. This BCG is over 25 years old, and things back then were done a lot simplier.

It was on the reviews of the BCG that Midwayusa carries.
link  (click on the reviews tab)

I call BS.I'd like to see some pics of this from anybody.

I was actually just joking, but also I couldn't the staking. The image compression on my iPhone data saver makes the staking damned hard to see.

That is an interesting stake job. Who is the manuf?