Wear & tear **UPDATE**

[Turnanewleaf]

I think you're right, Kyohte. I'm gonna keep shooting her and I'm confident there will be zero failures

[Henny]

That is a first for a 17S. I have come to the conclusion it is not something to worry about. Here is why:

The front of the lugs aren't of much importance. I have only found 5, maybe 6 reports of this online, meaning there are probably many more unreported instances. Lastly, I found no occurances of bolt failure in SCARS.

I don't know gentlemen. I was getting peening on my bolt as seen in these photos.





I eventually sent my gun back to FN. The entire rifle was replaced. Something was wrong. Wear like that on a bolt is not normal.

[SONYtec]

I agree, send it in. Something was not machined correctly.

[dredge999]

My wear/range report after 300 rounds fired out of a new SCAR 16s.

Twice the bolt failed to lock back after the magazine was empty. Not sure why, GI mags in use. I have a PMAG that I modified but I have never used it to fire a round through the SCAR. Offending ammo was Tula so I suppose I can blame it. Each time it happened I loaded a few rounds and tested and it did lock back in my test. We fired remington ammo without any failure to lock back. My intuition tells me that magazines would be the culprit in failure to lock but I could be wrong.

Pics of the bolt attached. There is a small bit of deformation on 3 lugs as others have reported. Not nearly the degree of those that have sent in their rifles.

No wear at all on the bolt catch.

The weapon was a joy to fire and very tight groups were effortless with the irons compared to my AR-15. It seems like it is more accurate than my other rifle by a good bit.

Let me know what you guys think of the wear.

Rick

2012-03-16 17.09.40.jpg2012-03-16 17.10.02.jpg2012-03-16 17.10.31.jpg

[FN-SICK]

I have about 800 rounds through my SCAR 16, I just pulled the bolt. I don't see any unusual wear. In fact I see just slight polishing. Everything is square. I also do not have any dings on the bolt hold open. I read some stuff about magazine problems primarily with PMAGs right after I got the rifle.

I took my PMAGs, EMAGs and USGI mags and did some testing to confirm what I read. I found that it was true that the PMAGs and EMAGs lifted the hold open and could be impacted by the bolt. So I modified a couple of PMAGS & EMAGs and did some further testing.

One of the other claims was that the bullet tip could be deformed when using certain ammunition with a PMAG in a SCAR. To test this I loaded a PMAG, EMAG & USGI mag with new Lake City 62 grain SS109 green tip. I place the magazine in the magwell and cycled the charging handle through 20 rounds in each magazine.

The result is that I found serious deformity to the tip of the bullet when using PMAGs (with the windows) and EMAGs, but NOT with the USGI mag. I tried this several times using new ammo each time in different magazines. The results were the same. Confirming what was said in this forum.

So, I tried the same test using some m193. The results were different. This time I did not see the same deformity in the tip, but there were scrapes in the bullet and case, that were not there with the USGI mags.

Then I looked to see how the PMAG & EMAG fit in the lower compared to the USGI mag. The PMAG and EMAG seem to sit higher than the USGI mag in my rifle. I am guessing it has something to do with the thickness of the material in the plastic mags. Anway, after confirming that the bullet tips were being deformed using the PMAG and EMAG I decided not to use them.

Now, I only use the PMAGS & EMAGS in my ARs. They were designed for ARs and they work very very well in ARs.

Now, I only buy and use the D&H teflon mags in my SCAR 16.

I will check my SCAR 17 in more detail tomorrow, but it looked good after a quick inspection. If I turn up anything I'll post it.

This is my experience, yours may be different. But now I check the fit of all magazines before I use them.

[dredge999]

I concur on the PMAGS. I will not run them in my SCAR, unmodified or not. Every round I have fired has been from a GI mag. Granted I was using Tula and then Remington .223 today so those two ammo are different.

Rick

Edit: Uploaded a better picture.

ScarBolt.jpg

[dredge999]

Additional info on my situation.

I called FN support (Browning) this morning and spoke to John Carle. After sending him detailed pictures and a couple of youtube videos I made he asked me to send in the rifle for them to inspect. Timing on hearing back regarding repairs/replacement would be 2 weeks according to them.

He is sending a pre-paid shipping label and I will try and get the rifle off to them today.

Rick

[Echo39]

Have not had any issues with modded Pmags.
Are most people having Pmag issues?

[Kyohte]

I concur on the PMAGS. I will not run them in my SCAR, unmodified or not. Every round I have fired has been from a GI mag. Granted I was using Tula and then Remington .223 today so those two ammo are different.

Rick

I've run XM193 through mine almost exclusively. I think I may have run 10 rounds of Tula to check function with weak ammo (with which it worked fine).

It's good to know they send a pre-paid shipping label. That my get me off my butt to get the ball moving on mine.

[dredge999]

I modded mine and checked to make sure they weren't causing the problem they did when unmodded. I am just being overly cautious and I just run them in my AR instead. I have 7 other metal GI mags I can use if I want to. They don't drop free in my SCAR so that is another reason I don't like to run them there.

Rick

Have not had any issues with modded Pmags.
Are most people having Pmag issues?