I honestly hope I'm not breaking any rules, and I hope these users is still around.
Today, I was installing my barrel (this is my first build) and I stupidly decided to vice my upper without a vice block (I was trying to save some money... Something I STRONGLY recommend AGAINST).
Well, I got the barrel in, but I also managed to bend my upper, to the point where my BGC wouldn't slide in freely. This was rather upsetting, as you might expect.
So, rather than trashing it, I decided it couldn't hurt to try fixing it. After about 15 unsuccessful minutes, I decided I should probably look to see how many people have successfully done this. My first few searches turned up a lot of blanks, and several people who gave up and trashed their uppers and ordered new ones. Then I came upon a post made by "Prebandanna", where he introduced "A_Free_Man". Apparently "Prebandanna" had done EXACTLY the same thing I just did. "A_Free_Man" had "Prebandanna" ship him his bent upper, and "A_Free_Man" fixed it. In the post, "A_Free_Man" explained how he did it, and it WORKED! My Bolt Group Carrier now slides as freely as it is supposed to.
So I wanted to say THANK YOU SO MUCH! to "A_Free_Man" for the instructions (found here:
http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=3&f=4&t=147940 ), and thank you "Prebandanna" for sharing your experience!
Hope you read this, I'm indebted to you both.
-Exdc
P.S. As soon as I finish my build, I will post pictures