Originally Posted By JerDerv:
I was reading this thread (
https://www.ar15.com/forums/AR-15/FoldAR-Product-Updates-Release-/124-743568/) and i was shocked to see they have had rampant failures of the Faxon lightweight gas blocks. This is especially concerning to me because i just received my Faxon 14.5" barrel from AIM with the pinned gas block. This was to be my trust worthy go to AR and now im just not sure...
Please clarify.
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We ordered a total of around 1,250 gasblocks from Faxon in late 2018 in batches of 250. These were the low profile non-adjustable version in .625 and .750 diameter.
It was only the last 250 of each the .625 and .750 that we had the cracking issues.
On all 1250 of them we saw stretch issues, which didn't necessarily lead to failure, but would require a properly dimpled barrel in order to really stay secure.
My best guess is that they outsourced the final batch we received (Nov/Dec2018) and didn't verify heat treat or material spec.
The way we distinguished between good/bad batches... bad ones had 10-24 threaded set screws and good ones had 10-32 threaded set screws.
The bad ones would sometimes crack in half simply by applying marginal torque to the set screws during installation. Some would crack in half after first found fired, some would crack in half before for 30 rounds, and some wouldn't crack in half after 30 rounds, but who knows when they might. We stopped using them as soon as we saw a trend.
I don't generally have a problem with Faxon products, but we decided to stop using their gasblocks and that was the only type of part we ordered from them for production.
I have had some barrels and BCGs from them for a few guns here and there and everything else has been fine, or above par.