Does anybody know who the USA MFG is on these?     I think the bolts are made out of pot metal or something.
I've had two of 10 where the "front fell off".

One just had a sheared lug, this one didn't do so well.    It actually pinned the CAM pin to the carrier gas key and hung it up in the receiver pretty badly.
Customer reported using mid 80's south african battle pack ammo. [South African military surplus M1A3 ball 5.56mm FMJ ammo.]
Both uppers from Model 1 Sales.   Never fired.   Bolts failed on both rifles during the first 30 rounds.


2nd bolt

That would fall into the holy shit category right there.

These were their "CERA" coated bolt carriers.   I'm assuming that mean Cerakote.

I worry we will see more of this happening as people rush to get product out the door due to the panic.

I think you are correct....the frantic rush to meet current demand is going to cause QC to plummet across all product lines (in my opinion).  People are buying into this frenzie when they should be selling into it...then wait for things to get back to normal (price and QC) before buying.

Zim

I have a friend that put one of these in his new build. I don't want

him to shoot the thing. I wonder if there is an economical way to get

it checked out?

Many machine shops (especially larger ones) have the ability to do metallurgical testing.  That might be a place to start.

Are there any batch numbers or markings on these that identify them?

These bolts & carriers were machined in the US, by another KS company actually.

The source for these bolts was a new supplier for us, and will not be used for future BCG needs.  All past bolts, and future bolts currently ordered will be from entirely different supply chains.  We have in the works an "Enhanced" M16 BCG which should be coming down the pipeline soon with a very competitive price.

It does appear some of the bolts, on these Cereplated BCG's, didn't receive proper heat treating which wouldn't be noticeable by the naked eye.

We're working now with the machine shop to get replacement bolts for those that have issues, but as you know, bolts are scarce right now. Sorry for the issues experienced. Not all of them are doing it, so we have no idea how many they affected. We can't tell if it was only 20, or 50, or how many were not properly heat treated.

We do know the bolts affected were more than the batch of 600 we recently received, as other bolts received by other dealers and manufacturers have had issues arise as well.  So it's really a crap-shoot unfortunately to know which ones were affected or not.

None of the heat treating defects would have been noticed in test firing since most seem to be breaking in the 20-60 round range with factory loads.

For anyone having any issues we've setup a notification system where you can upload photos, info, etc for replacement bolts:

https://joeboboutfitters.wufoo.com/forms/joeboboutfitters-ceraplate-bcg/

^^^ Fill out this form

We're hoping to have replacements within a few weeks time.  Please utilize the above link to notify us if you have any issues.

Sorry for any of those affected by the issue.

Way to stand up, would you recommend shooting a new one or are you willing to

swap one out to be safe?

We'd like at first to see how deep this issue runs, AND how easily we'll be able to get replacement bolts.

To begin with, we want to get all the guys that experience issues to get taken care of first.

Then, if we CAN, we may work out an 1:1 exchange type program for bolts that haven't been proven bad, but could be suspect due to the batch issue.

Any of the bolts that were obviously bad out of the gate will receive a brand new replacement, without a need for an exchange.

We didn't explicitly say lifetime warranty on these BCG's. However, we'll ALWAYS stand behind any product we slap our name on, even if its a contract machinist issue that was out of our hands.

Something like this would of course never be the customer's fault or normal wear and tear. A cam pin or firing pin or something similar wearing out within a few years of course we wouldn't replace.

Edited...VA-gunnut

Do you have the means to test a bolt if a customer sent one to you? I have not seen any

collateral damage in any of the threads on bad bolts that have been posted lately, but would

sure stink to screw up a barrel or upper if the bolt came apart.



 

We're still looking into this now, and it will greatly depend on how willing the machine shop that made them is to give us replacement.

If we can get replacements easily for the "suspect" bolts, we'll replace them all 1 for 1.

If we have to get all bolts back to test the suspect bolts before getting replacements then we'll go down that road if we have to.

In a perfect scenario, we'll try to replace all new bolts that customers request us to, regardless if they've had an issue or not.

When these BCGs were sold? I got one of your BCGs (standard one) back in November, I am just curious if the which I have is from same batch (I have run ~100 rounds with no issues so far)

Totally separate supply chains. The only BCG's affected are the Cera Plated BCG's sold for $159.95. Coincidentally, the most expensive house branded BCG we've had in stock (cost and retail).

great, thanks!

Let me get out my $2000 camera and light box and take another picture of a busted ass bolt.  

Holy, shit. These things were selling for 350.00 bucks or so in the past couple of weeks.

I sold one for $425 2 weeks ago on ebay once my WMD carrier shipped... I went ahead and emailed the buyer the joebobs website form, and a copy of my invoice incase they have any problems. Hopefully, they've already used it without any problems...

I bought one of these back on 1/7 as a spare.  After missing out on the latest batch of BCM BCG's for a BCM upper build I thought about throwing the JoeBob Cera-Plated BCG in it.  Given the bolt issues I'm not going to run it and risk damaging my upper or myself until we have more info.  

JoeBob - thanks for being proactive.  I look forward to an update and more information about which batch is bad.  As I mentioned, I'm not going to use the bolt until more info is known about the bad batch or the bolt is replaced.

Show us another picture of that after a few hundred rounds. That carrier does not show any wear at all and proves nothing about the durability.

The second photo above is mine (the one with the red ellipses). This is my replacement from RCSGuns from that original batch order of 10 from Joe Bob's mentioned earlier. This is not a new issue, simply continuing the documentation of the thread.

Anyway, this time out I wanted to use different ammunition, my confidence level was low since I knew it was from the same batch. As suspected, failure after 16 rounds, Winchester white box .223 45 grain JHP.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-4L5EO66fyuI/USGQMTCfb5I/AAAAAAAAHzo/8BSHHVuL2G4/s1024/BCG2Failure.jpg

Hope that company gets it figured out what went wrong.

Oh Sob I just bought one on gun broker. Crap... I'm going to replace the bolt before disaster strikes.

I just want to say I bought from the suspected lot and had concerns before firing my rifle.  JoeBob took care of the issue in advance and has been very helpful and supportive in resolving this situation.  In this day and age to have a company step up and handle the situation early and remain courteous is awesome (as with many vendors I have found on this forum).  I really appreciate the customer service and am very happy with the outcome.  I have also noticed that this is one company that is not gouging even though there are shortages and I appreciate that as well.

Thanks again JoeBob!

My cera-plated bcg just disintegrated today after 63 rounds.  Found this thread and put in for a claim.  Good to see Joe Bob standing behind it!  

JoeBob dun did the right thing.