Volquartsen bolts work perfectly
For all you guys building on this platform. The Kidd Bolt is and never was designed for anything but the Kidd Receiver. Kidd bolt and receiver are proprietary. Making it impractical for a build. If you’re lucky you won’t get the bolt stuck in receiver.
The Volquartsen bolt is built to Ruger blue print. I have built both and I have experienced the same issue with Kidd.
You’re better off using Volquartsen over Kidd. Unless you build with all Kidd parts.
Kidd trigger are great but I have sent mine in 4 times breaking detent on trigger safety.
Bottom line Volquartsen reliability Customer Service and fit.
Volquartsen bolt is a very reliable and friction free cycling.
I have seen some bad quality control on the Brownells receiver, mainly tight pin holes
Great buy!
This receiver is top notch and the price is even better. Great value for sure. My only reason for giving it a 4 instead of a 5 is really about Brownells and not the receiver. It didn’t come with fastener pins and wasn’t even mentioned as a suggested add like they normally do so well at. Now I have to wait 4-5 days to finish my gun assembly for a $10 part.
It does the job
The scope base rail sits to high, I can't use my open sights
Decent project receiver. Tights specs
I bought these on sale, so the price was about $100 per receiver which made it a decent deal considering its difficult to get firearms right now. I bought these for project guns to build. Finish is great with no visible machining marks. Finish is very course and very deep black. Barrel collar was easy to adjust. Trigger pack slides in fine, as well as mags. I am using JWH bolts which required fitting into the receiver. The area where the bolt drops in has a radiused cutout for the bolt to drop in. Where it requires fitting is that radius has to be "squared" off so the square bolt drops in. I also relieved it a touch bit more to make it easier to drop in the bolt, but not enough for the bolt to drop out of the channel when the buffer is installed. The cross drilled holes are TIGHT. TandemKross pins would not move into position even with a small brass hammer. I had to run a drill bit through it to remove some of the finish. Once I cleaned up the holes, pins drop in fine. Next using a TandemKross buffer. Buffer hole in the 1 receiver was tight. Second receiver would not accept the buffer at all. The plan is to also relieve the hole a bit to wear out the finish a touch to get the buffer to fit. I think Brownell needs to redesign it so that this much work isn't required, especially when they are demanding a $150 price tag. Kidd receivers cost only $172, or $22 more, and the fit and finish is perfect and doesn't require this much fitting. For someone who might not be able to troubleshoot or weary of modifying their gun, this is not the receiver to get. But it otherwise has tight tolerances in the bolt channel and has no slop. The finish won't chip off like the factory receivers. Depends on what you are looking for and how much work you are willing to put into it.
Almost perfect
I bought this to use in conjunction with the magpul backpacker stock and a tactical solutions barrel. I'm using a Ruger OEM bolt which works fine. I got the railed version because I wanted the option to easily mount a scope/red dot if I decide to, and the only real flaw in the design that I can see is with the railed receiver you can't use the fiber optic sights that are mounted on the tactical solutions barrel. It's not Brownell's fault because the parts are from two different companies so I wouldn't expect them to work flawlessly, but if there were a channel down the middle of the picatinny rail to allow you to still see the rear sights it would be perfect. I'm going to try to find a gunsmith or machinist who can maybe mill one out but until then I have to just use the front sight and aim a little low.
I would buy again
For the sale price you can barely buy the Ruger parts for it, and you have to have them anyway.
Good, could use some improvements.
Setup: Brownells standard receiver, Tandemkross bolt and charging handle, ruger BX trigger, Tactical Solutions takedown barrel, magpul backpacker stock, Tandemkross trigger pins, Volquartsen buffer, Tandemkross optic mount, Vortex Viper red dot. I did see some warnings about running anything other than a factory ruger bolt and the bolt not fitting into the receiver. I ran into the same issue, there is a little corner that the bolt needs to clear to insert and remove it. Mine would not insert at all. I had to use my dremel and grinder attachment to clearance this little corner, then polish it smooth, this took about 10 mins. My buffer took a lot of effort to get in. Lots of oil and twisting just caused it to bind. I had to polish the inside of the holes and then use a lot of oil and nylon hammer to get the buffer in. However, these are issues you can expect to run into when building custom guns. If you wouldnt consider yourself at minimum an amateur gunsmith, buy prebuilt firearms. I just got back from the range and it ran pretty flawlessly. Put about 300rnds of various ammo: CCI target, federal target, Winchester m-22. Only had one FTE, one round that didnt ignite, had a pretty good strike on the rim. I wish Brownells would include filler plugs for the top of the receiver if you dont wish to include a scope. For the price of them, its dumb they dont. If they could fix these issues, Id give it 5 stars, until then it gets 4.
