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Whiskey Arms - Aluminum Low Mass BCG


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Thank you. Not worth my time or effort, certainly. I've got bigger fish to fry in this game. :-)

Your 75% of 55gr at 3000fps was pointing me toward this answer.

I will keep my JP LMOS in steel and be happy with it.

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I know I'm a little late to the party on this topic but I've been running one of the first LBC's built and have had really great experience with it and Whiskey Arms in general, so I felt I should share those experiences.

I've been running the LBC since January. So far, the carrier has about 7000-8000 rounds it including 9 matches and many, many trips to the practice range. My rifle shoots ridiculously flat and stays on target allowing me to bring my splits down.

The carrier is not showing excessive wear, as I closely followed the directions of the owner/designer Will Wallace. I'm running an 18" Lothar Walther barrel with rifle length gas, an SLR Rifleworks adjustable gas block at 7 clicks and mil-spec bolt. I run the BCG very wet and have only used Break Free CLP. For a buffer I am running the JP SCS with the lightest spring. The brass is ejecting at about 4 o'clock and is very consistent.

I only run 55 gr PMC Bronze since it was softest shooting of the rounds I tested. I usually try to clean before every match but occasionally would shoot two before I had a chance to do so, but I would always make sure the bolt and carrier had plenty of lube per Will's recommendations.

As I mentioned the rifle has run flawlessly with the exception of one double feed and an issue with the gas block set screw backing out due to fouling and over-gassing the gun before I figured out how often I needed to clean the gas block. Obviously neither of these issues were due to the LBC.

Here are some pictures of the carrier at the round count I mentioned:

post-58347-143259556027_thumb.jpg

post-58347-143259562354_thumb.jpg

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As you can see from the pics the carrier is still in great condition. The only damage is to the finish which is to be expected and there is some wear on the area where the hammer rides when it is being reset which is also to expected. To me it suggests longevity of the carrier as whole, simply because there is contact through most of the cycle across almost no surface area which means this should one of the highest wear area on the carrier. Each of the other areas are making contact in a linear fashion and over a larger area. The area I mentioned overcomes your hammer spring each time and drags any grit along with it. I also think it's worth mention that I'm running a Hiperfire 24C trigger group with the heaviest springs in it which, according to Hiperfire, yield 33% more hammer strength than average.

I did get a chance to view the carrier that Mark ran. It is in pretty good shape. It was much better than I was expecting although I wasn't expecting it to be too bad. I think the pictures made it out to be worse than it was dues to reflection of light off the bare aluminum. Comparing it to mine the geometry of the cam pin hole seemed the same.

All in all I'm extremely impressed with the carrier and will continue to run them in my guns. Will is a great guy and likes to push the edge of performance and that is apparent in the LBC and the high end lightweight rifles he builds too. He supports the sport with his products and his time and is doing all he can to help grow the sport. I am interested to see what he will come out with next.

If anyone is out at the monthly Texas Multigun, Copperas Cove, Dissident Arms and Copperhead Creek matches and run into me I'd be glad to let you try my gun and get a feel how much difference his lightweight carrier makes.

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As compared to a JP, the wear was similar. With a tuned down system, the Whiskey is a good option and Will did a good job in the manufacture of the carrier. But it is a wear item as compared to a JP low mass steel carrier. Once the surface treatment is gone, the underlying metal wear rate will increase. I also used a CMC trigger which is the hardest on a carrier and I would not use the Whiskey with one if you want to get the longest life and performance.

Grady, I can see some galling inside the cam path, where it occurred on mine. That will increase and stress the bolt slot which is why my bolt broke. The telltale wear is on the receiver cam cut-out which indicates an over-gassed condition. If you can keep it from wearing there, then I see no reasons why 10K is not probable with this carrier.

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The cam recess in the upper receiver and the cam pin path in the carrier are the highest wear areas...do you have photos of those?

post-58347-143260478872_thumb.jpg

There is no cam pin slot wear in the receiver in this one but there is some wear on the area the carrier runs but this is from an a full auto style Titanium carrier and actually how I found out about the LBC. I asked Will if he thought the wear was excessive and he told me it was indicative of uncoated titanium. So this what the LBC has been running on.

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As compared to a JP, the wear was similar. With a tuned down system, the Whiskey is a good option and Will did a good job in the manufacture of the carrier. But it is a wear item as compared to a JP low mass steel carrier. Once the surface treatment is gone, the underlying metal wear rate will increase. I also used a CMC trigger which is the hardest on a carrier and I would not use the Whiskey with one if you want to get the longest life and performance.

Grady, I can see some galling inside the cam path, where it occurred on mine. That will increase and stress the bolt slot which is why my bolt broke. The telltale wear is on the receiver cam cut-out which indicates an over-gassed condition. If you can keep it from wearing there, then I see no reasons why 10K is not probable with this carrier.

How did you have the gun tuned? I don't think I ever saw in the thread what kind of gas block you were running. It caught my attention when you said it was used as a stage gun. I assume it means people were using their own ammo? If that's the case I assume that means you had the gas block opened up so it would cycle a wide range of ammo? I figured that might be the case because, as you said, wear in the cam pin recess usually indicates over-gassing. I think establishing the operating parameters could be very beneficial. Tentatively it seems that tuning the gas system to the specific load you will be running will eliminate the wear in the cam pin recess.
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Hello, I am Will Wallace with Whiskey Arms. We have concluded the first round of measurements and testing on the LBC Mark Passamaneck had been running in his loaner/stage gun project. If you are not familiar with this project you can check it out here,https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1423870291249295&set=a.1393825330920458.1073741828.100008790128239&type=1&theater . While the barrel had a custom gas port setup for a JP Rifles LMOS weighing 6.25 ounces, it did not have an adjustable gas block and with the LBC coming in at 3.9 ounces this makes for an over gassed setup. At around 4700 rounds his bolt broke, which he replaced after inspecting the LBC for damage and shot another 500 rounds or so. After later inspection he observed a “crack” had started in the new bolt and an “elongation” of the cam pin slot. After getting the carrier back we have inspected, measured and run a few tests. The CMM report shows the cam pin slot is still within MILSPEC. He saw some wear in the upper receiver that was normal and some that was due to being over gassed. Because of their design and heat treating bolts breaking isn’t unheard of, especially with over gassed systems. This problem is why so many manufacturers have worked to make improvements to bolt design. At this point we know the problems met where a result of not following the recommended use and not having the required adjustable gas block. We are proud of the fact that the carrier is still running, with a good amount of life left, despite being run in a setup designed for failure. We are putting it back into rotation in a correctly tuned system and will see how many more rounds we can get out of it. If you follow the recommended setup and maintenance you will get an excellent life from the LBC, but if it takes several thousand rounds to figure out it is over gassed you can be comfortable knowing that you probably haven’t destroyed the thing.

The LBC is a high performance part that does wear more than the mid and standard performance steel carriers. As with any high performance part having the proper setup and maintenance schedule is required to achieve the longest possible service life and best performance.

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I have about 2,000 rounds through mine and looking forward to many more. Will Wallace has an amazing LBC. Need to go to his personal Facebook page and look at the reply from Mark Passamaneck on torture test he did with the LBC and how it survived.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 years later...

Matt Martini has a ton, as I recall it.

 

I believe a local guy has 10k+ on his.  Can give you his name if you want to drop him a line.

 

I've just got ~6000 on one in one rifle, and then ~1500 on another in a different rifle.  No issues for either.

Edited by AustinWolv
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How's your cam pin slot look? I'm thinking about getting an LBC for my main rifle, its got a Stretch barrel, Taccom buffer, light spring, adjustable GB and I run 55's at about 2550fps for +98% of my shooting. Curious what kind of service life I can expect inside those parameters.

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22 minutes ago, TonytheTiger said:

How's your cam pin slot look? I'm thinking about getting an LBC for my main rifle, its got a Stretch barrel, Taccom buffer, light spring, adjustable GB and I run 55's at about 2550fps for +98% of my shooting. Curious what kind of service life I can expect inside those parameters.

 

Don't have pics of it currently, but haven't noticed any elongation or worrisome wear.  

 

As for setup, could have been something on the fine line with mine, but when I ran a TTI reduced buffer spring, TACCOM ULW buffer (the old one, not the adjustable one they have these days), and SLR gas block with the LBC, I could not get a gas setting good for the rifle.......it was one click either way from not locking back to having really fast carrier speed such that the rifle felt choppy and I think I was getting slamfires, as it would go burst every now and then.  I thought it was trigger, but it turned out to be that going back to a carbine buffer with regular buffer spring smoothed the rifle out and allowed for a gas setting for good operation with another click for reliability.  Rifle felt really smooth and "right" again.  Then switched to the JP SCS Gen2 with no issues since, since that is basically equivalent with stock spring to a carbine buffer setup.

 

(FYI, ammo I've run is factory stuff.........Federal AE 55gr, PRVI 69gr, some Freedom 55gr for practice, various 69gr and 77gr testing, then local Hayes Custom makes 77gr TMK on 24gr TAC for my current long-range ammo for me now.)

Edited by AustinWolv
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I've been running my 16" rifle length MicroMOA carbine for 3 years now, about 5k with full power hand loads, 2950 ish with 55 gr blitzkings.  Besides a few cosmetic wears on the carrier, everything else is fine.  Gas block is SLR Sentry 7, Taccom ULW buffer with std carbine spring.  A minor hiccup this year due to the new bolt and one piece gas ring (this gas ring isn't made for Whiskey carrier due to stacking tolerances, needing to run wet all the times!).

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