Author: Jack

WARNING

Never remove the antenna without first ensuring that transmit (TX) is disabled in settings. These radios automatically transmit periodic updates to the mesh, and damage will occur if the radio happens to transmit while the antenna is removed. This applies even to quick antenna swaps. The TL;DR is to NEVER under any circumstances remove the antenna without first ensuring that TX is disabled in settings: Settings > Radio Configuration > LoRa > Transmit Enabled (toggle off)

A note about this guide: Please be mindful that Meshtastic (and Meshcore) is an open source project in beta, and therefore it’s constantly changing and evolving as the developers make updates to the protocol, as well as to the various clients and apps. That being the case, it’s likely that some of the information in this guide may be outdated. If you’re having trouble locating a setting, it’s likely that the name or location has changed, so you may have to apply some common sense critical thinking. If in doubt, the best source for the latest information for any given application is the official Meshtastic Discourd: www.discord.com/invite/meshtastic

QUICK SETUP

Install antenna: If it’s not already installed, screw the antenna onto the SMA connector on the top of the radio finger tight, being careful not to overtighten.

Plug in radio: Radio may be in deep sleep or depleted, so plug it into an external power source to wake it up. Remove silicone plug on radio’s base and power via USB-C cable (not included).

Pair radio with smart device: Install Meshtastic app on smart device (make sure Bluetooth is enabled on smart device and enable all app permissions). Meshtastic is available for both Android and iOS. Go to Connect tab in Meshtastic app and connect radio (PIN is 123456).

Set your LoRa region: Before the radio will function, you have to set your region so it knows what frequency to use. Settings > Radio Configuration > LoRa. The app may prompt you to do this once the Bluetooth connection is established.

Change Bluetooth PIN (optional): Change factory default PIN by going to Settings > Device Configuration > Bluetooth > Fixed Pin, enter your own PIN, then hit Save. Note that you will have to “forget” the radio in your smart device’s Bluetooth settings to clear the factory default PIN, then reconnect the radio in the app with the PIN you just set. This can be done later if you want to skip for now.

Change Position setting for Primary channel (optional): The default setting is to broadcast your approximate location to the public mesh. To disable, go to Settings > Channels > Primary Channel > Position. Toggle off and hit Save (radio will restart). Note that this will not affect position sharing on encrypted channels (more on that later). This can be done later if you want to skip for now.

Turn on transmit: Radios are shipped with transmit disabled for safety, so you must re-enable it in app before you can send messages. In app, go to Settings > Radio Configuration > LoRa > Transmit Enabled. Toggle on and hit save (radio will restart). NEVER remove antenna without re-disabling TX!

Send a message: Send a message (e.g. “Radio check”) on the Primary channel by going to Messages > Channels > Primary Channel. If there are other users within range, you should see “Acknowledged” appear under the message (indicating another node has received it), and you may get replies. You should also see nearby nodes start to populate in the Nodes tab (and on the Map) within a few hours if there is any significant public mesh in your area. If you don’t see any activity, it’s probably because there aren’t any active users within range, so you will need to set up a second radio before you can do a successful test.

ADVANCED SETUP

Set custom name: You can rename your node by going to Settings > Device Configuration > User and changing the Long and or Short names. Note that Short Name is what appears on the node icon as seen by other users and may be an emoji. Keep in mind that both names are broadcast to the public mesh, so don’t use personally identifiable information. Note that it’s helpful to write the node’s short name on the housing.

Set up private channel: Never encrypt the Primary channel, as you will break your connection to the public mesh. Don’t change any primary channel settings (other than the Position, as mentioned in the previous section). Encrypt one of the other channel slots and set it to Secondary (Settings > Channels > Add Channel). The channel name is like a user name, and the encryption key is like a password. Anyone else with those credentials can send and receive encrypted messages over that channel. Set Position to precise, as only the people you give those credentials to will be able to see your location.

Specify Role: The radios come set to Client, which is the default standard role for mesh nodes. If you intend to use ATAK (or iTAK), change that to TAK (Settings > Device Role > TAK). Otherwise, Client is probably what you want. DO NOT set any Router/Repeater roles unless you’re 100% sure it’s appropriate, as you may break your local mesh.

Choose LoRa Preset: There are several presets that balance range with data rate (Settings > Radio Configuration > LoRa > Presets). Long-Fast is the default, so it serves as kind of like a “national calling frequency” equivalent for Meshtastic. I.e. if you’re lost in the wilderness and need to send an  SOS, Long-Fast is likely the preset that’s going to get you found. Medium-Fast can handle more traffic so it’s more common in cities, and Long-Slow extends range at the expense of traffic handling, so it’s often used by rural users, especially if there’s no public mesh in their area yet. Message boards and social media groups for local meshes are the best place to find out which preset is most prevalent in your area. If all else fails, just try them out to see what’s out there, starting with Long-Fast. Send a message (e.g. “Radio check”) on the Primary channel from different locations and see who responds or what nodes populate in the Node List and on the Map.

TROUBLESHOOTING

Resetting the node will immediately solve most issues (see next section NOTES ON RESET BUTTON).

Bluetooth pairing issues not fixed by resetting the node are most often fixed by forgetting the node in your phone’s Bluetooth settings and then reconnecting the radio in the app.

If the device is paired but issues persist, try rebooting the device via the app by selecting the device in the “Nodes” tab and tapping “Reboot.” If issues still persist, factory resetting and reflashing the firmware will help rule out any non-hardware related issues.

NOTES ON RESET BUTTON

The reset pin is wired to either a screw or copper contact (depending on model) behind the antenna. You can reset the device by shorting it to the antenna connector’s hex nut (simply using a metal object like a paper clip to connect the two together). If the device is painted, you will need to scratch away a little bit of the paint to expose bare metal. A very brief “tap” is all it takes (if you hold it too long the node will see that as a double tap and put it into DFU mode, so if the node doesn’t respond try a faster tap). This is primarily to recover the node if it malfunctions in the field. For normal operation like updating firmware, it’s easiest to control it via the app or web client. Naturally there exists the remote possibility of something metallic in your pocket or bag shorting them unintentionally, so painting them or putting some electrical tape around any exposed portion of antenna connector will preclude that remote possibility.

NOTES ON ANTENNAS

The antenna market for Meshtastic is the wild west. We highly recommend the TEC ANT-916-CW-HW-SMA for handhelds (mobile and base applications require specific consideration). If you choose to use a different antenna (you do so at your own risk), please use extreme caution, as there are lots of antennas on the market that are not only subpar but will even damage radios. If you do decide to experiment with other antennas, NEVER use any antenna that’s not expressly designed for the ISM 915mhz band (keeping in mind that many antennas marketed as such are out of band), or that doesn’t have a real SMA connector. We leave as much of the radio side SMA protruding as possible so as not to preclude the use of a counterpoise by advanced users, so fake SMA connectors that rely on the antenna body’s shoulder for proper indexing of the center pin will damage the radio’s SMA connector and potentially destroy the radio itself. Even if you shim such fake antennas, the impedance will be unpredictable, potentially leading to a high enough SWR to damage the radio in a perfect storm scenario. SMA connectors rely on EXTREMELY precise indexing of the center pin, and a good connection between the two shells for proper ground, which yields a repeatable 50 ohm connection. The male SMA shell nests inside the female shell, and there is also a tapered shoulder that provides the proper airgap between the two PTFE dielectrics surrounding each connector’s center pin. Close enough simply isn’t good enough when it comes to antenna connectors.

NEVER use SMA to N-Type adapters, as the strain of those antennas is too great for SMA connectors and will likely lead to damage. SMA connectors are quite delicate and easily damaged, so try to opt for shorter more flexible antennas like whips and ducks vs rigid ones with hard plastic shells. High gain antennas are also not ideal for handheld radios because they require good placement to be effective, as they concentrate the signal in a much smaller area, thus requiring much more intentional placement. For radios carried on your person, you want a lower gain whip antenna with a broad radiation pattern (omnidirectional with maximum gains in the range of 0-3db).

Also be cautious with adapters with coax extensions. While this will relieve the strain on the radio’s connector, the coax and additional connections will eat up your signal, and when you’re talking about Meshtastic’s 20db output it doesn’t take much to reduce your signal to the extent that any range you may have otherwise gained with a larger antenna will be canceled out by weakening your signal. If using such a setup, make sure you’re using very high quality connectors and coax cable, and keep coax runs to several feet max.

Also keep in mind that these radios have very small ground planes, so try to only use antennas that have a built-in counterpoise (like the aforementioned TEC). Most antennas require about a 100mm square ground plane to get the advertised performance, and many that are designed for vehicle applications require several square feet of ground plane. Unless you’re highly skilled when it comes to improvising ground planes, it’s best to stick with antennas that have a built in counterpoise.

Most importantly, NEVER swap antennas without first disabling Transmit (TX) in the settings (Settings > Radio Configuration > LoRa > Transmit Enabled (toggle off)).

NOTES ON SECURITY

It’s no secret that Meshtastic is most popular in the US with the 2A community, so to a savvy criminal anything that affiliates you with Meshtastic could be much akin to the same security concerns with, for example, having an NRA sticker on your vehicle.

Bad actors can spoof nodes on the primary channel (broadcast someone else’s node information), but you can preclude that possibility by “favoriting” known nodes (if two nodes have the same name, the “favorited” one is the real one). Even then, treat everything on the primary channel as suspect.

Broadcasting your approximate location on the Primary channel is helpful to the public mesh, as it assists others in testing nodes, but it could be a security concern (in general, not just in an operational scenario). While it’s less likely that the approximate location of a fixed node could be exploited, a moving node presents more potential for exploitation by criminals, as that data could be used to track you (e.g. learn your habits, see when you’re not home, etc.). For that reason, I like to set fixed nodes (e.g. base stations) to within 90 meters or so, but turn position reporting off completely on the Primary channel for HT or mobile nodes. The density determines how safely you can report your position (e.g. if you’re the only house for five miles, any meaningful position report would give away your precise location).

If a radio containing your private channel’s encryption key is lost or stolen, you must consider that channel and key to be compromised and set up a new one. The key can also be compromised if someone hacks your smart device, so securing your smart device is just as important. Best practice is to rotate keys on a regular schedule.

Even encrypted messages can be intercepted and triangulated, so always be mindful that while your encrypted messages can’t be deciphered, any radio transmission essentially broadcasts your position to anyone within range of your signal. Listening is free, however, so if that’s a concern you can always disable TX and only enable it to transmit from random locations when necessary.

NOTES ON CONFIGURING MQTT

MQTT allows you to send Meshtastic messages over the internet using your phone’s Wi-Fi or 5G connection. The nRF52s aren’t capable of handling large amounts of traffic, so if enabling MQTT causes the device to behave erratically or stop working altogether, join a less busy Root Topic (or create your own Root Topic (e.g. “my_root_topic”). Practically speaking, these devices can only handle small amounts of MQTT traffic, so the reasonable use case is to only use MQTT to pass messages for your own inner circle, vs. joining a regional group (set unique Root Topic for your group and only enable MQTT on your private encrypted channel).

NOTES ON DUST, WATER, AND DROP

The entire assembly is fully potted in silicone encapsulant, which is degassed at 30” Hg, so it’s inherently very dust and water resistant, and it’s unlikely that water is going to be able to penetrate into the electronics in any normal conditions. What’s vulnerable is the USB-C port, but a simple cover keeps it impervious to dust and highly resistant to water. The alternative would have been an Amphenal milspec USB-C receptacle, which, besides being very costly, would have dramatically increased the footprint, and with a little common sense the standard USB-C receptacle shouldn’t present any limitations.

While water in the USB-C port isn’t immediately harmful, and, most importantly, water shouldn’t be able to migrate from the port into the main board, at least not without significant pressure, repeated or prolonged exposure will corrode the contacts. Silicone USB-C plugs are very effective for splash and even some submersion scenarios, so keep those and use them. Electronics rated protectant oils are also good if it’s going to be used in wet and or salty conditions, in conjunction with preventing moisture and drying it out quickly if moisture does penetrate (like if you were forced to charge it while moving in a driving rain).

Also note that SMA connectors aren’t waterproof. Use dielectric grease to waterproof them, which will maintain electrical continuity between the connectors.

The silicone encapsulant also provides a lot of drop protection to the electronics themselves. If the device is dropped and the housing is damaged, it’s nearly certain that the electronics inside will be fine (within reason), and the silicone is soft enough that the electronics can be reinstalled in a new housing if necessary. The housing being plastic is actually mostly beneficial to the electronics inside, as any drop severe enough to break the housing could be severe enough to damage electronics via shock, so the ductility of the housing provides some shock protection in addition to the silicone potting. ASA (similar to ABS, popular for automotive applications) is also stable at normal temperatures on earth, so basically any temperature that won’t kill you won’t kill it either. So, while you still shouldn’t leave it in a car in the summer (for the battery’s sake, mostly), you don’t have to worry about it melting like typical 3D printed things do.

The TL;DR is that while this device is undoubtedly EXCELLENT for its size, weight, and cost in the durability department, please observe the “if you take care of it, it will take of you” approach.

In the event you’re concerned about EMP, the TL;DR is that nobody, not even the experts, really knows, so keep it in a faraday can if that’s in your wheelhouse. HOWEVER, these devices would ALMOST undoubtedly be just fine in most cases, as the conductive elements are teeny tiny and the antennas are relatively short, so it would for sure take an immense amount of energy to induce enough current to damage them. HT radios are generally thought to be low risk for EMP damage, and these are especially low risk due to the very small antennas. Storage with the antenna removed would almost certainly ensure survival (just be sure to disable transmit in the settings before removing the antenna, as always).

NOTES ON BATTERY LIFE AND CHARGING

We put gigantic batteries in these radios, which operate at a mere ~10mA (yes, milliamps), so don’t be alarmed when they don’t go from 0% to 100% percent charge in a few hours. A full charge from empty will take about three days (or more with 21700s). This is like having a laptop battery the size of a suitcase; it will last practically forever, but it will also take longer to charge to full.

That said, a charge of a few hours, even from a low current source (like a small solar panel), will provide up to several days of use, so don’t worry just because the app says it’s low (it only sees voltage, not actual capacity). Anything over 3v means you have a day or more of normal use. Anything over 4v means you have at least a week of normal use.

The charging circuitry maxes out at 100mA, so even a small solar panel can provide more than enough current to charge them. Or if you’re using a single portable solar solution for all of your devices, these won’t slow down your higher draw devices by any perceptible amount (i.e. charge them from the same panel as your phone, and you won’t notice your phone charging any slower than usual).

Settings impact battery life a lot, as does traffic volume. In standby, the current draw is mere microamps, so with optimized settings these radios can last for over two weeks on a single charge. In a very heavy use scenario, such as a repeater for a busy mesh, that could get cut down to just a few days, so be mindful of the fact that these are handheld transceivers designed for use by a single operator in client mode. While they could be repurposed as routers in a pinch, they weren’t designed to handle heavy traffic.

It’s ideal to not charge past 4v or let the battery fall below about 3.5v during normal use (about 50% and 80% respectively). This will increase battery longevity from around 500 charge cycles to about 2,000 charge cycles. Smart chargers can be used to automatically stop charging at a specified voltage. Not to worry, though, if you do need the full charge, the radio’s charge/discharge curent is so low that it’s already very gentle for such a large battery.

Temperature also has a very heavy impact on battery health, so avoid extreme temperatures, especially hot cars. It is possible that a car in a hot climate can reach a temperature hot enough to cause immediate damage to a lithium battery, and repeated exposure to high temperature can dramatically reduce battery health over time, as the electrolyte inside the cell becomes very corrosive to the lithium at high temperatures.

There is no battery cutoff switch, meaning the device can never be fully turned off. Waterproof switches are bulky and expensive, and with a little common sense these nodes don’t require them due to their extremely low power consumption in deep sleep mode. The main thing is not to let the battery self discharge below the threshold required to start the battery protection circuit (at which point the device will become unrecoverable). In other words, don’t just toss it in a drawer and leave it for months on end. Make sure you’re charging the device once a month or so. In reality, it will probably take multiple months in most cases for the battery to fall below critical levels after the protection circuit has cut power to the main board. However, these nodes are designed to be constant companions. Even if you’re not actively using the features, they’re constantly exploring and mapping the mesh around you, and discovering new nodes and clearing stale ones. Activity on the primary channel also keeps you informed about local mesh news, like the installation of new routers. Getting the most out of Meshtastic means staying up to date one what’s where, so you will be able to always position yourself to get reception. Like any radio service, half the battle is just knowing where everyone else is, where the dead spots are, and how the terrain and RF around you affects your coverage. If you have accidentally let your battery discharge below critical levels (i.e. it won’t charge), you can first try warming it up while it’s plugged in, such as leaving it in a warm car or in a room with a space heater for several hours, which might put the voltage over the threshold to start charging again. If that doesn’t do the trick, you will have to send it in for battery replacement. If you do need to store it for some time unused, charge it to full, put all settings on power saving, disable transmit, and remove the antenna; these steps will give it the longest “shelf life” possible.

RESOURCES

www.meshtastic.org

www.discord.com/invite/meshtastic

www.facebook.com/themeshtastic

www.reddit.com/r/meshtastic/

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!

This video has stirred a little bit of controversy. If you search “chipped bolt lugs” you’re going to get a lot of ARFCOM and Reddit hits of people posting photos of damaged 9310 nitride bolts. And you’ll see a lot of responses from people claiming that the bolts were damaged by a canted barrel extension. The hypothesis is that the index pin or corresponding notch is out of spec, allowing the barrel assembly to rotate while the barrel nut is being torqued down. That explanation doesn’t pass the sniff test for me, though, and here’s why.

For starters, we overwhelming (if not exclusively) see this with 9310 nitride bolts. Were this a problem of out of spec extensions or receivers, the problem would show up at least as often with every type of bolt. Actually, you would expect C158 phosphate bolts to show up with this damage more often, because they are much more common, and, theoretically, are slightly less durable than 9310 bolts.

Second, it’s simply not logically possible for a misaligned extension to go unnoticed by the owner. The bolt would bind going into battery when installing the BCG in the upper receiver, and it would also bind when retracting the charging handle. I submit that a misalignment severe enough to cause this damage would bind the bolt so badly that it would be impossible to charge from the charging handle in the first place.

Third, the chips in the lugs are on the wrong side of the lug. If the extension were rotated by the barrel nut, it would be rotated clockwise (looking onward), and the lugs would be striking the extension on the opposite corners from where the chips are. What is notable though is that the chips ARE on the corners that are the last point of contact during unlocking. In other words, when the bolt rotates to unlock, those are the corners that are receiving the most abuse.

When you search “kaboom” you’re going to see lots of pictures of entirely destroyed rifles because those are the cases that get the most attention, but more often than not you get something like this, where the damage is much less pronounced, and in these kinds of cases the ARFAK has you covered!

This is a follow-up to the post What is “milspec?”

AR15s (and their accessories) generally fall into one of four categories:

1. consumer grade
2. duty grade
3. sporting
4. boutique

Consumer grade ARs are those intended for the hobbyist. They might be geared towards hunting, casual competitive shooting and home defense; but mostly they’re intended, and only appropriate for, target shooting at the range. Not all of them are cheap, but affordability is usually the biggest selling point in this market. You might, however, pay for brand or cosmetics or even features like lightweight components. Drivers in this market are low price, features over substantive quality and brand recognition.

Duty grade ARs are made for military, law enforcement and serious shooters. They’re driven by consistent quality and reliability because they’re used in applications where failure is going to come at a high cost.

Sporting ARs are those made for hunting, bench rest, competitive shooting, etc. While the quality may be high, at least where it’s applicable to their intended use, function is often sacrificed for weight savings and recoil mitigation, and low end parts of unknown origin are often used. For example, let’s say I were making 24″ bench guns; my concern for the bolts would be mostly for dimensional accuracy because such rifles never break bolts, and it would therefore be entirely appropriate to source nitride 9310 bolts for such an application. Or if I were making race rifles, I would use aluminum carriers. Such decisions would be entirely reasonable, and the resulting product could very well be said to be high quality within its market, for its intended application. Putting such parts in a Mk18 going downrange, though, would be tantamount to premeditated murder.

Last but not least, boutique ARs are made for collectors. They’re like the custom motorcycles of the gun world. They’re more works of art and status symbols than a practical gun, and often sacrifice performance for aesthetics and features like being very small or very lightweight. Their aim is to be cool at any cost. A word of caution, though. Many a boutique AR masquerades as a duty grade AR, and due to the marketing on some of these guns the consumer might be forgiven for thinking these are serious guns for serious use. What further muddies these waters is that a lot of times this market serves as an R&D testing pool for products that might have real world applications, but are hitherto unfielded. The manufacturer may have developed the product to address an actual real world need, and they may in fact be seeking contracts, but the durability, reliability and compatibility of the product is largely unknown. The various PDW and folding stocks are a good case in point. There’s no question that we would all love a more compact stock/buffer system, and whoever manages to crack that nut will certainly profit from it, but until one gets put through large scale testing they will be firmly in the category of cool guns for the gram.

The real question you need to ask yourself is who the lowest common denominator is; i.e. what kind of user does this or that brand have to satisfy? When you do an image search for that system, what pops up: salty-looking professionals or models dressed up as special operations soldiers?

To flesh out that idea, imagine yourself as the manufacturer. Let’s say you serve the commercial market. Your typical customer is someone who’s going to buy the gun on a whim, mostly based on price and superficial features like furniture, and put a few hundred rounds through it a year. In other words, you know that 99% of people who buy your gun won’t shoot it enough to even begin to put it through its paces, much less wear it out. You also know that the worst consequence for failure is someone having a bad day at the range. If you invest 10% more in billets with a better grain structure, your customers won’t know, won’t care to know and won’t ever shoot enough to find out. And if your rifle is 10% more expensive than one that looks identical, or lacks flashy furniture, you’re going to lose that sale.

Now imagine yourself as the manufacturer of a rifle that is commonly used by military and law enforcement. When that rifle leaves your factory and goes to the distributor, you don’t know who the end user is going to be. It could be sold to a collector who will put it in his safe and never shoot it, or it could end up on the front lines in the Ukraine, in an officer’s patrol vehicle, etc. And if you skimp on the materials or QC to cut costs, your core customer will definitely notice when their organization’s guns start going down on the range.

If you’re the first category of manufacturer, it behooves you to cut costs on substance and then dress it up with nice furniture. Sure, that 1% of customers who actually shoot the gun might have the misfortune of happening to get a bad rifle, but that’s statistically unlikely. You don’t have to be a mathematician to calculate that the consequence of saving 10% on EVERY SINGLE RIFLE SOLD is that a mere 0.01% of them will come back for warranty. So you can save millions of dollars across the entire run, at the expense of having to replace one out of many thousands, resulting in a massive net savings to your company. Savings you can then pass along to the consumer to undercut the manufacturers of professional grade ARs that look identical on the surface and don’t have flashy furniture upgrades or mid length this or enhanced that…you get the idea.

And here’s the kicker. That tiny percentage of rifles that come back for warranty will actually result in free marketing for your company. Don’t believe me? Do this: google your favorite consumer grade AR and see what users are saying online. You’re going to see thousands of posts to the effect of, My (insert brand name) has been 100% reliable for (insert made up round count). Those are people who shoot 200 rounds a year, tops. And when you finally stumble on a post from the rare bird who put 2k rounds through one and had it fail, he’s likely going to say something to the effect of, While the rifle failed due to a bad part, the manufacturer went above and beyond to make it right! So even in the rare instance where one of these consumer grade ARs gets exposed for the lipsticked pig that it is, it usually results in an opportunity for that company to buy themselves some free positive press, and for simply doing the bare minimum that’s ethically required of them (i.e. repairing or replacing the rifle).

And when it comes to professional reviews, scant few are actually unbiased. First of all, truly unbiased reviewers who resist the temptation to sell out (who are rare birds indeed) still typically don’t badmouth anyone for the simple reason that it’s very risky. It’s socially, reputationally and even legally risky to call someone out. Not only could it result in a lawsuit, and often has, those who make their living doing reviews don’t want to alienate their audience. And the fastest way to alienate your audience is by badmouthing something that a lot of them probably have in their safe.

To illustrate, think about it this way. You’re a professional reviewer and you take about 20k dollars of your own money and buy several of the rifles and many thousands of rounds of ammunition, and you spend several weeks of your own time shooting, filming and scientifically collecting data. And you demonstrably prove that that AR is NOT in fact “just as good.” Well congratulations, you’ve just invested your entire production budget and a month of your time to lose a bunch of subscribers, receive lots of hate mail and probably get sued because you forgot to dot an i…and, well, we live in America, where anyone can sue anyone for anything…and you just attacked a publicly traded company with a full legal department at their disposal…and you’re a youtuber who’s best legal counsel is your uncle’s frat brother who barely passed the bar… You get it.

The world of reviewers, at least the successful ones (who don’t get sued), follow their mother’s advice: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. True independent reviewers pick out things they know they’re going to have something nice to say about, and avoid the ones they know they won’t. And if they do come across something they have nothing nice to say about…that’s right, they don’t say anything at all. Saying nice things gets views, people leave you nice comments, and, best of all, you don’t get sued! In the world of professional reviews, selling out or taking the high road are the only paths to long-term success.

In other words, don’t listen to the company’s claims or the claims of reviewers, independent or otherwise, and certainly don’t listen to the unsuspecting shills on the internet. Ask yourself, What motivates this company? Where is their incentive? Do they have an incentive to make quality products, or is their incentive to save money? And, to recap, you’ll find the answers to those questions by looking at who’s actually using the products. Ask yourself, Who is their poster child? Is it an Army Ranger or a chairborne ranger posing as a gun guru on 4chan?

Finally, choose substance over flash. That Colt M4 with its cringy FSB and 1980s furniture might not turn heads at the range, but the money was spent where it counts. Sure, the hobbyist AR next to it might give you fancy furniture for the same price or less, but who cares when it breaks a lug at 2k rounds. Furniture and doodads can always be added later, but a lemon will always be a lemon and no upgrade will change that.

The TL;DR is that “milspec” is an absolutely meaningless (and extremely misleading) marketing term, often used with the intent to fool unsuspecting consumers into believing a given AR15 is built to the same standards as a military issued rifle. The truth is that no manufacturer except for Colt even has the ability to make milspec parts because the TDP (technical data package) is owned by them, and is a closely guarded trade secret. Basically, the TDP is akin to the recipe for Coca-Cola. Lots of people make cola, and some may be as good, and some may be BETTER, but only Coca-Cola has the recipe for Coca-Cola. The same is true of AR15s. Most are varying degrees of jUsT aS gUd, some are actually just as good…and a scant few are objectively better.

If you have time to nerd out with me, here’s the long version:

The AR15 was originally developed by a company called Armalite, which was a small arms manufacturer that applied new technology from the emerging aerospace industry to firearms design, and essentially functioned as a research and development company, lacking large scale manufacturing capacity. They sold the patents and copyrights for the AR15 to Colt, who supplied all of the military’s AR15s exclusively throughout the 20th century.

As the patents ran out, others entered the marketplace with reverse engineered copies under different names (Colt continues to own the Trademark to this day). While these are dimensionally accurate clones that are even fully interchangeable with, and even entirely indistinguishable from, actual AR15s, they are not the same thing, in the same sense that you can make a cola that tastes identical to Coca-Cola, but may or may not be identical in fact.

The TDP, which is Colt’s “recipe” for manufacturing AR15s, is still a closely guarded trade secret. Due to the nature of government contracts, Colt supplies the TDP to various contractors, but according to the law those contractors 1) must pay Colt a fee for using the TDP, and 2) they must guard the secrecy of the TDP by keeping the assembly lines separate, and cannot sell any of the resulting parts to anyone but the government under the terms of that contract. So in the same way that Coca-Cola might outsource production to Value-Cola, Colt outsources production to AR15s-R-Us, but this does not make AR15s-R-Us parts the same, in the same way that Value-Cola labeled colas aren’t Coca-Cola just because they make actual Coca-Cola in the same factory.

So what then does “milspec” actually mean? Well that varies, but in general it means a “milspec style” bolt, which generally denotes a bolt made from carpenter 158 steel that’s phosphate coated. Generally speaking, it also means that they’re shot peened, high pressure tested and magnetic particle inspected; but there are shades of gray, and it could just simply denote that’s it’s a standard type bolt, vs. one of the myriad “enhanced” style bolts. What milspec does not denote is quality. Milspec labeled bolts include everything from pure garbage to peak performance, and everywhere in-between (and oftentimes the difference is mere luck of the draw).

This is where we get into the games that manufacturers like to play. For example, let’s talk about high pressure testing. According to the pre-2010 milspec, every bolt was high pressure tested (HPT). That’s an old habit in the firearms industry going back to medieval times. You’ve probably seen old world guns with strange little symbols stamped on the barrels; those are proof marks from the high pressure testing that’s still legally required in most of Europe. Today, it’s actually counterproductive to high pressure test every single part. Because of greater consistency in manufacturing technologies, we no longer have to test every single one of something. High pressure testing shortens the lifespan of something, so it’s better to pull one or several randomly from a production run and test those, and then discard them. This is known as batch testing.

Well, the issue is that batch testing isn’t standardized. What defines a batch, how many per batch are tested, what collection methods are used, etc. is all left to the imagination. What it all boils down to in the end is that you have to trust the company you’re dealing with to design their own QC procedures with the intent to produce the best product possible, vs do the bare minimum to be able to stamp that HP on their bolt without potentially committing fraud, and that bar is very low. They may have tested a bolt in 1995 using a proof load with one extra grain of powder and then marked every subsequent bolt HP after that.

The same is true of magnetic particle inspection and every other aspect of the manufacturing and QC process. At the end of the day, it all boils down to trust. You simply have to deal with companies that have a long track record for making good products, and that’s where Microbest comes in. Are they milspec? No. We didn’t steal them from a government arms room, and they are therefore not milspec. BUT, we have reason to believe they are as good as (or likely better than) actual milspec bolts. Microbest is the company that other reputable companies turn to for their AR15 bolts. They are a reputable company’s reputable company, as it were, and I’m thankful to be able to supply them to my customers.

You’ve probably heard or been told that most AR15s are “overgassed,” meaning that the gas port is excessively big, resulting in a variety of things we can file under the general category of no es bueno.

The TL;DR is no, milspec ARs are not overgassed. Some, many or most commercial ARs are overgassed because Joe Sixpack will complain that his H2 buffered 10″ pistol won’t cycle combloc .223 in the Alaskan winter (.223 is slightly less caliente than 5.56 NATO, and el cheapo .223 is even less so).

Thus, commercial AR manufacturers learned a long time ago that it’s simply easier to enlarge the port and drop the buffer weight (saves money on tungsten) so that their guns will chew through the mildest ammo on the wintriest Alaskan night without complaining.

So where did the notion come from that milspec guns, specifically, are overgassed, underimpinged, etc.? Answer: people trying to sell doodads. Yes, it is in fact really that simple. When Colt is selling bomber rifles for seven hundred beans out the door, competitors have to do some pretty serious mental gymnastics to justify spending three to five times as much.

The truth is that milspec ARs CAN function with less gas, in MOST conditions, under MOST circumstances; BUT that doesn’t mean they’re overgassed. Milspec weapons have to function all the time, and there’s some variation in cartridges by a few thousand psi. Ammo lots are QC’d to run between a certain range, and a milspec AR has to cycle a cartridge at the bottom of that range in a dirty gun on a cold arctic night with the weapon pointed directly downwards, and still lock back.

So yes, that leaves some room, most of the time, to be able to restrict the gas flow, move the port forward and increase the buffer and or spring weight. Which makes it a little softer-shooting and a little less gassy with a suppressor. With the tradeoff being it might not cycle under certain conditions. Meaning that AR that’s been stone cold reliable on the flat range in fine weather might suddenly give you trouble if you have to defend yourself from an elevated position in the winter (think Rooftop Koreans: Detroit Edition).

If you run a suppressor full time and never take it off, there might be room for improvement. None of the military’s ARs were ever developed with full time suppressor use in mind. That said, suppressors aren’t barrels, and the impulse from suppressor back pressure isn’t the same. If you’re tuning your suppressed rifle to noticeably cut down on gas to face, you’re likely running things on the bleeding edge of what’s functional.

Finally, to play devil’s advocate, you should be looking at a flow-through style suppressor for your ARs, being that port pop is the limiting factor, especially with SBRs. That is, the sound from the port uncorking the spent case is going to be louder than the muzzle report anyways, so there’s only so much juice to be squeezed at the muzzle end. Ergo, there’s no point in having a super high efficient can that’s cutting your muzzle dBs to 120 when your port is throwing out 140 right next to your ear. Not only that, super efficient cans actually INCREASE port pop, which is obviously counterproductive, so it’s better to just get a low back pressure can that tames the muzzle blast down to baseline port pop levels, that doesn’t gas you out and that doesn’t affect the cycling of the action or require fancy doodads to switch between suppressed and unsuppressed modes.

As discussed here, AR15s were primarily designed to take less time to unlock, which allows for the carrier to start moving later in the gun’s cycle, which is extremely advantageous for accuracy and reliability.

As part of this overall strategy, there is no “runway” built into the carrier’s cam slot, meaning the nanosecond it starts moving to the rear it begins engaging the cam pin, thus unlocking the bolt.

The issue that arises is that carriers bounce off the breach when they slam home, and that few millimeters of bounce, as stated, will start to unlock the bolt.

Note that ALL automatic guns suffer from bolt bounce. Even the legendary AK47, given directly to Mikhail Kalashnikov by the Scythian gods themselves, suffers from bolt bounce. Yes, you heard that right, even Mikhail Kalashnikov can’t defy the laws of thermodynamics.

That few millimeters of bounce is compensated by a few millimeters of “runway” in the carrier’s cam path, meaning the cam path doesn’t actually engage the cam in the bolt within that distance.

The tradeoff, though, is that the carrier has to start moving even earlier to compensate for that margin, meaning you have to tap the gas from the barrel earlier, the piston moves earlier, etc. All of which is bad for reliability, durability and accuracy.

The AR solves this problem by solving bolt bounce altogether. The buffer is essentially a hollow metal tube with a weight that slides freely back and forth inside of it. It’s literally just a dead blow hammer.

Besides the potential for an out of battery detonation, bolt bounce is also not conducive to reliable cycling, especially in multi-shot modes. If the hammer outruns the carrier’s return post bounce, it will result in a stoppage. Fast hammers are preferable for accuracy; the longer the hammer takes to detonate the primer, the more time there is for the shooter’s muscle movements to pull the gun off target.

Long story short, the buffer isn’t a bandaid for an AR specific deficiency, as is often claimed. Annoying as it is, the buffer, bane of foldy boi enjoyers everywhere, is part of why the AR15 is superior to everything else.

The AR15 was and is the most technically advanced autoloading rifle ever designed. It solved a host of mechanical drawbacks that existed in most autoloading rifles, both then and now. The one we’re concerned with is the large bolt rotation angle in rotating bolt designs like the M14 and AK47. Most designs used two lug bolts, which required long cam paths and a lot of time to unlock, which equals no es bueno for a bunch of complicated sciency reasons.

The AR15 solved this problem by borrowing from the Johnson rifle and adding more lugs. The bolt didn’t have to rotate as much to unlock, meaning it could unlock faster because the carrier didn’t have to travel as far, leading to greater accuracy and reliability. And to cartridges with higher chamber pressures, enabling the poking of small holes in Russian helmets at greater distances (raise your hand if you ever dreamed THAT would be relevant again in the 21st century).

The downside is that the lugs were more delicate. This wasn’t a problem with Armalite’s AR15, or the numerous M16 variants that were put into service for the duration of the Cold War. It was, however, a problem with shorter variants that started popping up in the Vietnam war. However, these sawed-off variants weren’t especially prized at the time, at least not outside of certain adventure skydiving clubs, and M16 bolt carrier groups would outlast the barrel. Several barrels, actually…by which time the receivers themselves would be toast. In other words, the M16 would outlast any other assault rifle at the time by about a factor of four, and the bolt carrier group wasn’t even the weak link. Thus, improving it was an answer to a question that almost nobody was asking.

Moving past the Cold War, though, two things happened. First of all, people got too lazy to march into battle, and, well…it’s very awkward getting into a car with a twenty inch barrel. Pretty soon, though, the problem got even worse. People couldn’t even be bothered to go outside to fight wars anymore, preferring instead to fight from their living rooms (and thus was born urban warfare). And if you think twenty inch barrels were inconvenient for getting in and out of cars, just imagine trying to conduct combat maneuvers inside the confines of someone’s living room.

Obviously, the niche sawed-off variants of the Vietnam war started looking a little more attractive. And as things got progressively shorter, the old problems started rearing their heads again, in the form of broken bolts and cam pins.

As these guns were widely fielded, it became apparent that the breakages could be unpredictable and random, occurring at any round count, despite preventative maintenance. The industry immediately set about designing a better mousetrap, and this became the LMT enhanced BCGs that were later further refined by KAC as the SR15. While these solved some hitherto unrealized design flaws with the AR15 bolt, namely the counterproductive lug opposite the extractor, they were expensive as all getout, and not at all backwards compatible with legacy weapons.

While all that was happening, though, incremental improvements were being made by Colt with the existing BCG, mostly in the form of better quality control and refining the heat treat method. This resulted in a few minor tweaks to the TDP, which produced a milspec bolt that could reliably outlast any barrel. See, barrel life goes down exponentially with length. A twenty inch barrel could last fifty thousand rounds, while a ten inch barrel was pretty well cooked at a mere six thousand. Barrel swaps typically necessitate bolt swaps regardless, and thus the enhanced bolts were never put into service.

This isn’t to say that unpredictable failures were stopped altogether, as evidenced by the fact that many Special Forces units still require the carrying of spare BCGs in the field. The failure rate was just reduced to the point that adopting a new AR variant wasn’t seen as a good use of funds, especially given that the AR15 platform and 5.56 NATO cartridge were already looking to be replaced by that time.

Fast forward twenty years later, though, and the AR15 is still the dominant issued platform for all of NATO, with no end in sight, in its 5.56 NATO chambering no less. And attempts to find a new standard has resulted in a proverbial herd of cats, with every NATO member and its units all pulling in different directions. The SCAR, HK416 and now the XM5.

Worse yet, the commercial market has also yielded to sub sixteen inch variants being the norm, with bolts of varying-but mostly dodgy-origins. And because of stuff and things, those dodgy commercial variants are now being widely fielded by, shall we say, NATO adjacent organizations.

And even if the AR15 is usurped as NATO’s main squeeze, this process will be slow, and support units and NATO allies will be inundated with used-up hand-me-down Mk18s that might be a warm day away from shearing a bolt lug, especially since they’ll probably come with the new extra spicy M855A1 cartridges that replaced the standard pressure M855. It was really nice of the Army to leave us that little treat right before leaving the party, huh?

American civilians will be in the same boat. While M855A1 isn’t common on the commercial market YET, there’s nothing legally preventing M855A1 from being sold commercially, and while certain political forces don’t want that, economic forces generally prevail. The government likes buying things cheap, in quantities from approximately one to one gazillion, to be determined by the declaration, or lack thereof, of WWIII. In other words, the manufacturer must produce one gazillion units with the knowledge that there’s a 99.9% probability they will sell only a small fraction to the government, with the rest usually being sold to the American consumer. In a few years, Lake City will be sitting on warehouses full of M855A1 that the government won’t be ordering, and everyone’ll be itching to slap an XM sticker on it and surplus it out to recoup their investment. With the next highest bidder being African warlords, the political forces generally end up conceding that it’s best to let it go to Americans, being that they will safely destroy it by way of dirt berm, rather than using it for other, less politically expedient purposes, such as genocide.

In conclusion, the AR15 BCG problem is not only not going away anytime soon, it’s going to get a lot worse before it ever gets better. And even if you as a soldier or civilian have your rifle squared away, the guy in the trench next to you might not. So you best get used to carrying spare bolt parts, and I humbly submit the ARFAK is by far the best way to do that.