Full Metal

AR-15 bolt carrier groups are one of two components that are considered to be the heart of the rifle, the BCG and the barrel. When you see a bolt carrier group you wouldn't associate the word beautiful with it, just function.

Then there is the Salient Arms International's titanium nitride bolt carrier group with an integrated gas key it is beautiful, sexy, and superbly functional.

Picture from SAI Facebook page

I have this bolt carrier group in three of my rifles, I have put over 7000 rounds through the AR-15 I use most often, my primary rifle, and over 1500 through the other two rifles.
What first brought me to this BCG was an AR-15 build that was to be the culmination of some of the best AR-15 parts available. At first on my search for the best bolt carrier group I was drawn to the Sharps Rifle company Balanced Bolt Carrier with Relia-Bolt (review coming soon Sharps BCG), an amazing BCG in its own right, and I was going to go with it but I wanted something better.

I wanted something more reliable, to start a bolt carrier that had an integrated gas key, because the gas key is where most BCG's fail from hard and excessive use, and a good coating that can stand up to wear and that was easy to clean.
On my search I found many BCG's that were coated in nickle boron, but none with an integrated gas key, I found very few with integrated gas keys but they had Mil-Spec coatings. Then I found a small fraction coated in titanium nitride, so I started to look into that coating and found that it was used in mill ends and milling tools because it made them far more durable, extended there life, and had low friction coefficient.

Then I saw a Facebook post, that is what brought me to Salient Arms International, they had a BCG with everything I was looking for. There Facebook post said that it was there new BCG with integrated gas key coated in a pre-nickle and titanium nitride coating and it was on sale...for $300 shipped, normally $335+ shipping. At first I was very hesitant, on sale for $300, that's a lot for a BCG, especially when I just wanted to test one out. But you know what they say about curiosity, it got the best of me and I was ready to pull the trigger and buy one. I was going to go to there web site but they didn't have one up at the time, they claim its coming soon but with them soon is a relative term. I ended up calling then to place my order, it was seamless.

I had placed my order and was told that it would ship the next day. I was checking out there other offerings and I saw on there Facebook page that they had a SAI branded Raptor charging handle and it was also on sale, so I decided to get it added to my order.

When I had called back to add the charging handle I was put on hold, at first I thought it would take a while but the music that played while I waited was "America as fuck" just how I like it, all in all it was a very short wait and they added the charging handle to my order.
I got an email that night with my tracking number and the next morning it was on the way.

I received the BCG and charging handle in the mail about two days after ordering it, and needless to say I was excited.
The fit and finish on this bolt carrier group is very impressive, beyond superb. The pre-nickle and TiN coating is even throughout and slick and smooth to the touch. The look and feel was that of top quality, but before I made my final opinion on it I had to test it out...thoroughly.

I installed the BCG and charging handle in the rifle completing it and now it was off to the range. 

In the first range day that I used the rifle I put roughly 400+ round through it with nothing but smooth cycling, not one malfunction. I had decided not to bother cleaning the rifle or the BCG until I was able to at least 1000 rounds through it. The following weekend me and a few of the guys made a day out of going to the range, we ran a ton of drills, from individual to team drills, and distance and accuracy shooting. Needless to say it was fun and the best part the rifle ran nearly flawless, the only hiccup was one failure to eject, and that was on a mag filled with reloads, we chalked that up to the round being under powered. By the time we were done and ready to head home I had put around 800 rounds through it.

The following day it was time to clean the rifle, I wanted to see how much fouling the BCG had retained, if there was any wear marks on it and how easy it was to clean. When I removed the BCG and charging handle from the upper receiver I was pleasantly surprised at how little fouling was on the bolt carrier group, and there were no wear marks on any area of the bolt carrier.

I disassembled the BCG and began cleaning it, using that tried and true Frog Lube CLP. I quickly found how easy it was to clean, most of the fouling and grime came off easily, just by wiping it off with a piece of paper towel that had the cleaner on it. The only area of the BCG that took any effort to clean was the back of the bolt. On the rear of the bolt there was some carbon burns that required me to use a brass carbon scrapper to remove it, but that wasn't very difficult to remove.

After I had completed cleaning re-lubricating and reassembling the BCG and rifle I felt as though I made a good decision in buying the BCG from Salient Arms. This AR-15, now my primary go to AR, felt complete and reliable.
I eventually gave in and called Salient Arms to order two more of these beauties, one for a 300 Blackout build and one for a 5.56 SBR build. Long story short I would definitely recommend this BCG to anyone, it is on the pricey side but if you want quality and have the money to drop on it you should most definitely look into Salient Arms International TiN bolt carrier group.

I love Glock pistols, I always have and always will. The Glock 17 has been my duty weapon for 6+ years, my conceal carry weapon has been the Glock 19 for 5+ years and more recently the Glock 30s (I like .45acp but that's another story) on and off, I genuinely love Glock pistols.

That brings me to the issue, Glock's slogan is "Glock Perfection" but with those damn plastic sights that come standard on all factory Glocks, it isn't perfect, its close but no its not perfection.

Those plastic pieces of shit!

I wonder why Glock just doesn't put steel sights on there pistols from factory, it doesn't have to be anything fancy, like night sights or fiber optic sights, it could still be that U and dot sight system but just metal not plastic.

I know that many are going to say "then why don't you just change the sights if you don't like them, its not that hard" and you know what you would be right but that's not my point. Sure it is easy to replace the factory sights on a gun, and I probably would still change the sights on my Glocks even if they where made of steel, but that's me and maybe most gun enthusiasts.

I'm referring to the regular person, the average Joe/Jane that buys the gun just for home protection or plinking every other month, the person who doesn't know much about firearms, other than it is used for protection, someone who just wants it as is no upgrades.

Glock you need to step your game up, because your competition is not going to disappear. 

From M&P to Sig they are trying to give consumers the better value to attract them to there products. For example a full size 9mm from Smith & Wesson is less expensive than a full size 9mm Glock and it comes with metal sights.

Don't get me wrong I prefer my Glock over my M&P pistols but the better out of the box value is the M&P.

To Glock I don't want to be scared of breaking the rear sight off of my gun by racking the slide off of my belt. And yes I have ripped many factory sights off of my Glocks with single handed operation, until they fix that problem its Trijicon sights for me.

I'm just hoping that Glock as a company will see what many of there customers want and make the change.

Maybe it's wishful thinking, or maybe in a Glock perfect world.