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Polished Bolt Carrier


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So I love the look of a polished bolt carrier... I have never been able to find them sold as is for any caliber AK. I would love one for my AK 7.62 by Vector... and if possible one for my Saiga .308. Ive seen compounds online that remove the blue finish on rifles but I would assume I would have to keep it lubricated to keep it from rusting once I remove the protective coating.. But it would be easier to just purchase one, so what are your opinions about this? Would it just be more worthwhile to purchase or to do it myself, and how well do those compounds work to remove the finish?

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Flitz seems to be a metal polishing compound, the thing is my bolt carrier still has the dark finish on it... so would it be easier/cheaper to use chemicals to remove that finish then polish it with Flitz or to just purchase a stainless steel bolt carrier?

 

 

Also has anyone ever seen a polished bolt carrier for sale on any site?

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I use a Grizzly buffer for polishing bolt carriers and motorcycle parts.For a blued bolt carrier i start off with a fine or medium wire wheel until color is removed.I then work down thru polishing grits "cakes" or "sticks", usualy start with black then to white.This beats the hand polishing all to hell,but there is a trick to it that comes with practice.

 

GRIZZLY.jpg

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Some venison sausage, bacon wrapped backstrap steaks & some other things. :smoke:

 

Vjor can do it too. My father-in-law has a blasting cabinet & setup now too, but he's busy golfing a lot lately. (being retired & all)

 

I'd suggest PMing either one of 'em.

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I used the bits that came with my dremel xpr. I used the round "sanding" bit that has the texture of hard rubber to strip the paint off, then polished it with the compound that came with the dremel. The "rubber" bit gets you about 90% of the way there, then you use the cloth polishing bits really lightly at a medium speed. Link Dinzag said, the tricky part is getting the brush marks going the same direction, and this is tricky with a 1/4" X 1/4" footprint on the polishing wheel. Just don't be afraid to screw it up, and if you do, send it off to a forum member.

 

Also, that weird "rubber" bit is great for polishing trigger groups.

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Your guys really into Chrome looking and SS bolt carriers I see.

 

Here how to do it the easy way, Get a fine wire wheel for the drill

and I semi course wheel, install semi course wheel on drill

start to take the paint and phosphate of bolt carrier, will take you like

couple of hours or less, once you got the damn thing clean of paint and phos

use the fine wheel to give you a finish like SS, now come the interesting parts, you going to have to

paint it with some transparent paint, like transparent duracoat, like that it don't rust

or becomes dull.

 

Now look I say fine wire wheel, don't go getting a side grinder and

a super course wire wheel or you going to live marks all over the

part and gauges like crazy.

 

If I was you I will do just the bolt carrier, leave the bolt itself alone

the way it is, black like it is.

 

Now if you have a bench grinder, well get fine wire wheel for it and

and semi course one, makes life a lot easier.

 

How I know that, you have to polish metal to blue it, sand blast

live things grey colored metal, unless you get really fine glass beats

and other stuff, but if you want look alike stainles steel, the wheel, the wheel

the wire wheel boss !!!!

 

 

Hey my 2 cents worth of crap, from your Spanish friend vjor.

 

 

And I mean fine wire wheel! Now if you gents want to get into

buffer wheels and all kinds of stuff and make things look like

real chrome, thats a different post on another life.

Edited by vjor
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Your guys really into Chrome looking and SS bolt carriers I see.

 

Here how to do it the easy way, Get a fine wire wheel for the drill

and I semi course wheel, install semi course wheel on drill

start to take the paint and phosphate of bolt carrier, will take you like

couple of hours or less, once you got the damn thing clean of paint and phos

use the fine wheel to give you a finish like SS, now come the interesting parts, you going to have to

paint it with some transparent paint, like transparent duracoat, like that it don't rust

or becomes dull.

 

Now look I say fine wire wheel, don't go getting a side grinder and

a super course wire wheel or you going to live marks all over the

part and gauges like crazy.

 

If I was you I will do just the bolt carrier, leave the bolt itself alone

the way it is, black like it is.

 

Now if you have a bench grinder, well get fine wire wheel for it and

and semi course one, makes life a lot easier.

 

How I know that, you have to polish metal to blue it, sand blast

live things grey colored metal, unless you get really fine glass beats

and other stuff, but if you want look alike stainles steel, the wheel, the wheel

the wire wheel boss !!!!

 

 

Hey my 2 cents worth of crap, from your Spanish friend vjor.

 

 

And I mean fine wire wheel! Now if you gents want to get into

buffer wheels and all kinds of stuff and make things look like

real chrome, thats a different post on another life.

 

Thanks Vjor, I'm going to try it out this week sometime.

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NO NO NO WD! It absorbs moisture. Use it only to keep a wet gun from rusting untill you can clean it.

Use synthetic motor oil. It will coat and penetrate the metal. Makes it easy to clean because it holds metal and hydrocarbon particles in suspension.

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I took NO metal off. Only the exterior paint, a miniscule layer. Also, the areas that I worked on have no significant impact on the function of the rifle. I touched no part of the carrier that comes in contact with the reciever, nowhere near the underside of the carrier, and no part of the gas piston. Everything that was polished pretty much stands alone.

 

Rust may be an issue here with the salty, humid air of Florida. How would a thin coat of petroleum jelly or mineral oil work? Maybe a clearcoat?

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I only polished the part of the carrier that shows through the hole. I did it as described above, and I've had zero reliability issues, and no rust. And I'm terrible about keeping oil on weapons. I can say for sure that it suffered two six-month periods without being fired or cleaned, and I prolly didn't oil it prior to.

 

Don't be scurred.

 

Shane

Edited by shaneman153a
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I did these tonight. Not real experienced with the dremel but not a problem really.

 

Wanted to try the safety as well. Safety takes almost twice as long as the bolt carrier, and you gotta have just the right shaped bit. When I get finer pointed bits I'll hafta get a few little spots that I couldn't get but hopefully they don't show in the pics.

 

 

I like it but now I'm too jazzed to crash for the night yet so I'm posting this now.

DCP_1961.jpg

 

DCP_1962.jpg

 

DCP_1963.jpg

 

DCP_1967.jpg

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yeah, i'm planning on gold plating the face u see and not touching the moving parts. i have to nickel plate the thing first, i'll post pics as soon as i'm done. i have polished an entire double barrel before to look just ss...but rust IS an issue...so yeah plating or coating is a must.

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any body try a paint stripper it wouldnt leave any marks and should have a smooth shinny surface then dura coat and done. now i wish i would have pick up those cheap bolts from a dealer who was going out of buisness could have experimented on them .day late and a dollar short again.

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Call a shop that does hydraulic pistons, most larger cities have a place that will do hydraulic pistons.

 

The city where I lived previously had serveral industrial machine shops, they built logging trucks and heavy machinery for forestry, mining, fishing and related industrial machinery.

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