Learned a few lessons today. About three magazines in and I get a failure to feed, try locking the bolt back, and it's obviously broken. Bolt catch is sheared and falls right out of the chamber. I clear the rifle and think to myself for a second, do I need the bolt catch to keep shooting? Nah...

Load another mag, and after the last round the bolt jams about halfway. WTF? I forgot this thing has that flimsy little last round lever that ties into the bolt catch to lock the bolt back. Well it didn't fare so well without the bolt catch to shield it.

The rifle is an RRA upper on a DDLES lower, under 1k rounds, and I had just gotten 15 round mags to play with and was shooting CCI aluminum cased FMJ. I took it home, bent the last round lever back, and was able to get upper separated. I think the lever is salvageable, I bent it back into place and it seems to hand cycle fine.







Now what I'm debating is if I need a 9mm spacer. I think I might pick one up from Spikes (yea I know the quarter trick). Unless I'm retarded, is there any reason this wouldn't help save my bolt catches in the future? I think the one that sheared was from a PSA kit.

I have a DDLES lower and a 9mm upper and my bolt catch has broken
twice in 500rds.

I have a 40 & 9MM upper on a DDLES lower and I've never broken a bolt catch. I was using a Slash 45 buffer & Wilson extra power spring. Right now I have the JP Captured spring unit in it.

Are either of you using any sort of spacer to limit over travel on the bolt?

QC10 sells a replacement and an upgraded last round bolt hold open that will work with your ddles build.

I took mine out. IMO, for my use having a LRBHO isn't needed. Or is the hassle of works sometimes. Sometimes not.