YoungestPiperCub
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Near KW Ontario
Hey all,
I'm on my second WK180, first one was not great second one is a lot better. As I have been reading it occurred to me that the broken bolt carriers that were happening are from 2 things. One would be a improper hardening, this is what the recall was for. The second however is that there is no buffer of any kind anywhere on the rifle. The rifle uses a carbine length gas system unlike the original and a piston with a large gas port for "reliability" what actually happens due to the design is that a #### ton of gas is fired back in a very fast impulse stroke and rams the bolt carrier back. When the bolt comes back and bottoms out it is the back of the bolt carrier slamming into the return spring plate plate. (Part #18 on page numbered 12)
https://www.wolverinesupplies.com/R...s/KODWK180CONLINE/KODWK180C_ProductManual.pdf
Interestingly, my return spring plate has a tapped hole in the middle that has dented the back of my receiver. There is clearly large forces happening here. The thread is serving no purpose that I can tell. When you look closely at the back of the bolt, it contacts first with the firing pin then the bolt carrier itself. It is a slam of metal on metal. In an AR when you bottom out, the buffer has hard plastic/ rubber to dissapate any over gassing the WK does not. Because of this hard stop, bolts are breaking, magnetic changing handles are coming loose and threaded handles are breaking because the inertia has no where to go. Hard stops in anything mechanical are a big no no. I played around and have found that you can buy hard rubber or foam disks at the hardware store. I applied 4 of these to the end plate and now when I rack the rifle the sound of metal on metal is gone. This also provides about 1/16 of an inch of compression that will slow the bolt down more gently. A Hard stop puts g forces in to 100s and even 1000s. a .030 compression can reduce the forces ten fold.
Function wise the rifle works the same as before. There is however much less metal contact. I suggest everyone consider doing this simple mod for longevity of the rifle.
My background is in mechanical engineering and looking at this design it just screams that it will die an early death. Metal on metal slams are such a NO NO in machine design i cannot believe it was signed off on like this.
Here is what I did, I plan to refine it with a more resitant material like Buna or a rubber of some kind. I may try and make use of the tread in the plate to secure a bumper.
I'm on my second WK180, first one was not great second one is a lot better. As I have been reading it occurred to me that the broken bolt carriers that were happening are from 2 things. One would be a improper hardening, this is what the recall was for. The second however is that there is no buffer of any kind anywhere on the rifle. The rifle uses a carbine length gas system unlike the original and a piston with a large gas port for "reliability" what actually happens due to the design is that a #### ton of gas is fired back in a very fast impulse stroke and rams the bolt carrier back. When the bolt comes back and bottoms out it is the back of the bolt carrier slamming into the return spring plate plate. (Part #18 on page numbered 12)
https://www.wolverinesupplies.com/R...s/KODWK180CONLINE/KODWK180C_ProductManual.pdf
Interestingly, my return spring plate has a tapped hole in the middle that has dented the back of my receiver. There is clearly large forces happening here. The thread is serving no purpose that I can tell. When you look closely at the back of the bolt, it contacts first with the firing pin then the bolt carrier itself. It is a slam of metal on metal. In an AR when you bottom out, the buffer has hard plastic/ rubber to dissapate any over gassing the WK does not. Because of this hard stop, bolts are breaking, magnetic changing handles are coming loose and threaded handles are breaking because the inertia has no where to go. Hard stops in anything mechanical are a big no no. I played around and have found that you can buy hard rubber or foam disks at the hardware store. I applied 4 of these to the end plate and now when I rack the rifle the sound of metal on metal is gone. This also provides about 1/16 of an inch of compression that will slow the bolt down more gently. A Hard stop puts g forces in to 100s and even 1000s. a .030 compression can reduce the forces ten fold.
Function wise the rifle works the same as before. There is however much less metal contact. I suggest everyone consider doing this simple mod for longevity of the rifle.
My background is in mechanical engineering and looking at this design it just screams that it will die an early death. Metal on metal slams are such a NO NO in machine design i cannot believe it was signed off on like this.
Here is what I did, I plan to refine it with a more resitant material like Buna or a rubber of some kind. I may try and make use of the tread in the plate to secure a bumper.
