Just finished putting together my first upper today. The problem is  it seems like the bolt is tight in the barrel extension. The more I work the bolt manually, the better it seems to get. Is this normal for all brand new parts- they just need to "wear" together?

They can seem a little tight when new...could be it just needs some lube and a good break in. Is it tight locking or unlocking ... or both?

Something to check before shooting is the gas tube alignment...pull the bolt out of the carrier and slide the carrier into the upper until it engages the gas tube...is there any resistance there or do they slide together easily? This will tell you if the gas key and tube are aligned or not. If there is resistance there then you have a problem...could be canted gas block or canted barrel. A canted barrel can also cause drag on the bolt when locking and unlocking from the extension.

It may also be the fact you said its new. Some rifles (mine included) had a tight BCG in the chamber lugs. I manualy worked it and put some rounds through it and now it operates fine. You can try the above, sounds like good advice. If its not that then just work it cause it will "polish" itself and the locking lugs on the BCG and chamber will get nice and smooth and fit better.

It goes into battery fine, but when I go to manually pull the bolt back, sometimes it "sticks" and needs a good, sharp pull to the rear. When I eyeball down the top of the upper receiver and along the rail, the top of the gas block looks perfectly aligned with them. I'm hoping that the parts just need to wear a bit. I had to fight the urge to take the rifle out yesterday and just run a mag or two through it. I'll try your suggestion with the bolt carrier and if everything there is gtg, I'll keep cycling it by hand and Friday I'll take it to the range and burn up some ammo. Thanks.

Sounds like a plan ... good luck and keep us posted with a range report.

I tried your suggestion yesterday and the carrier slides over the gas tube with no problems so I'll just chalk it ujp to needing to wear a bit.

Then it probably just needs a good lubing and break in period ... let us know how the range trip goes.

Well, I had a VERY abbreviated trip to the range yesterday so the trip was solely for function, not accuracy. However, the gun performed flawlessly! No FTF's, no FTE's, no problems with the bolt sticking. I had intended to use solely brass cased ammo for the initial run so I grabbed two pre loaded mags and went on my way. After the second mag, I looked to check that there wasn't a round in the chamber and I see red shit on the bolt face. I'm like "What the hell! I didn't shoot any Wolf... " I look down at the ground and there were Wolf steel cases so obviously I had at one point loaded some Wolf in the last mag and finished it of with brass case. It's good that the gun ran on the Wolf- I like to shoot the AR and Wolf is cheap so it's a good combo. The BattleComp works AWESOME b.t.w. Recoil goes stright back into your shoulder with no left/right deflection.

Sounds like your GTG then ... yep going to have to get me one or two of those BattleComps ... seems like it is working really good to reduce muzzle rise.

I had the same problem today when I put the BCG into my new rifle build, but it would not go in all the way without a slight tap and would be very hard to pull out.
I'm building two AR's. Both are Mega Machine uppers and lowers w/t both having LMT BCG's.
I took the BCG out of my pistol build that is done, and put in my rifle build and shazaam, works great.
The BCG that was stiff in the rifle works great in the pistol, so I lucked out.
I didn't think it would work but it did.
Point is, the bolts must be different enough to make a difference, because the carrier went in and out just fine.
My2cents.......