When Arsenal recently announced on its website that they had just built and sent to Lew Horton a small number of ban compliant carbines specifically designed for states like New York (or in my case NJ) I jumped at the chance to acquire one of these great rifles.  My newly acquired carbine is still an infant (the date of production was September 12, 2005 according to the manual) and it’s a beauty of a weapon in every respect.  

Still I have two concerns:

1) The hammer seems somewhat scuffed after about 5 minutes of dry firing.  The gun is still, of course, unfired.  I found this puzzling because the hammer on my SLR 101 is still smooth with a slight wearing off of the finish after about 500 rounds.

2) The bolt is a gray color and is not finished in black like the bolt on the SLR 101 or other AK’s I’ve seen.  On the plus side the bolt is the standard dimensions and not the skinny bolt of the SLR 101.

Should I be concerned about these two issues?  Thanks for any suggestions.

Mine has the traditional free floating firing pin.

Any advantage of the spring loaded firing pin over the free floating one?

heard its better for commercial ammo with soft primers

The spring loaded firing pin won't penetrate soft commercial primers like the non-spring type.Its not an issue unless you plan on shooting reloads.