Blackthorne is the worst AR manufacturer. Personally I'd just start over and build it yourself with decent parts and skip ths junker.





You can just replace the forward assist, there is a roll pin you push out to remove it.





The carrier key is also probably not staked properly

 

bdub712,  

The best advice I can give you is post in the home town forum to see if someone around you with a lot more experience on the platform can take a look at your rig/parts.

As pointed out, the Blackthorne parts are often the bottom of the barrel/cheap/out of spec parts ever seen, and use to cobble portions of  the rig together. If someone knows what they are looking at, they can either get the parts back in spec, or tell you what needs to be replaced out the gate if they can not be saved.

The bent gas ring could be as simple as a bad install, to the gas section in the carrier being so bur'd/ out of spec that the carrier may need to be replaced out the gate to solve the problem.  Same goes for the other parts, since having a pawn shear is way, way out of the norm (short of the part being crap to begin with).

Bottom line, due to your lack of experience on the different manufacturers of the parts, you pretty walk right into a suckers bet without even knowing it.  Chances are it may not take much money to get the rig up to a reliable condition, but until the rig has been gone over with a fine tooth come to weed out the bad parts and such replaced, you will be fighting a loosing battle not only replacing the bad parts as they break, but good parts as well as the bad parts break and take them out as well.

Welcome to the site, and only wish that we didn't have to be so brutal out the gate on your first topic here.

No reason to throw the baby out with the bath water,

As stated, go to your home forum here at the site and see how close to you can take some time to go over the rifle with you.  Trust me, it will make your learning curve much shorter on the platform in the end, verses playing guessing/trial and effect by throwing money at things that my not need it.

Get your money back right now and find another vendor to buy a new upper from.

He is going to have hell getting a refund for such from them, and at best, he will just get the upper back with more crap parts that replaced the old broken crap parts, which he will want to return to you down the line.  

It's going to get nasty on his part dealing with them, and you do not want to be involved with such in any way (read still have funds with him as they give him the run around, leading to a delay on your part having a new upper).

Although Wilson Combat makes a fine product, they do mill/produce there own upper and lower receivers in house on there own CNC machines, which drives there price up over other great manufacturers that contacts such CNC work out to sub subcontractors who produce the same quality receivers at a lower price to the final seller.

Truth is, short of a few shops that have CNC machines and produce such in house (read will pay a pretty penny for them), there is only a handful of subcontracts on the large scale making all the lower and upper receivers for the most of the companies.  The receivers are made to somewhat the same spec, and depending of whom for, there markings are added, and off the parts go for anodizing.  Dimensions do vary depending on how the receiver is being made for (RRA specs such on the tighter side), but as stated, most of the receivers did start there life at the same sub contractor production shop.

Because of this, it's not uncommon to find a great receiver with an off/start up companies logo for dirt cheap from time to time as they become a player in the receiver/rifle game.  IIRQ, Mega lowers a while back where going for $70, with there uppers around the same price ( both forged).  If you broke out a mic, and measured the them against one of the known major players, short of the manufacture name, they are identical.

Note: Wilson combat is one company, and the Wilson barrels (not Combat arms) are two different companies, so don't confuse the two.