For Future Reference

[Alleycat]

Originally Posted by LouBoyd

I've been shooting AR-15s since 1968 and have never had a bolt or barrel extension break, nor personally seen one that did. It certainly can happen with overpressure loads. but I'm not going to change out the bolts in any of my AR's nor buy these bolts for future builds. I have no doubt these are stronger bolts, but in the case of a random over-pressure cartridge I'd prefer the bolt to fail rather than the barrel extension. A bolt is easy to replace.

5.56 is not where the problem is. It's when you go to the 7.62x39, BRs, or 458 Socom that bolts like this shine. A lot of metal gets cut out of the bolt around the lug area for the case head. They do brake. If your running a 5.56/223 It's probably a non issue for most people.

[mstarling]

I have the ITS Super Bolt in my high performance 5.56 and 6.8 builds. Beautifully made. Seem stout!

Don't have that many rounds on either ... I expect they will last longer than I live.

[LouBoyd]

Originally Posted by mstarling

I have the ITS Super Bolt in my high performance 5.56 and 6.8 builds. Beautifully made. Seem stout!

Don't have that many rounds on either ... I expect they will last longer than I live.

I have M1S bolts in my 6.8 SPC and 6mm PPC rifles. They're as cheap as they come but I expect they'll last longer than I live too. I see that ITS mentions they make barrel extensions too. That would be of more interest to me. I'd much rather blow the lugs off a $40 bolt than a $400 barrel though I've never done either. The only cartridge I have any interest in pushing beyond normal AR-15 bolt thrust specs is the 458 SOCOM but it has a 308 size boltface. LR-308 or AR-10 actions make sense for that cartridge.