^ Your criticisms are starting to sound a bit like some prejudice or ax to grind against the platform.
The 16s and 17s bolts and carriers look very darn near identical to me, just a bit of size/weight/thickness variation here and there. Perhaps you can expand on your "insight" into what the 17s bolt "should" look like.
Your defenses are starting to sound like you're an FN rep, or proud SCAR owner who might not want to read this. I would want to know if there is something wrong.
I have zero prejudice against the SCAR. To the contrary, I had genuine high hopes for it. When I first saw a SCAR-H bolt, the first thing that came to mind was, "That is way small for a 7.62 NATO bolt." It was no surprise when I learned that they were having fatigue issues with it, at least back in 2010. I didn't know about the SCAR-L catastrophic failures at that time, and only learned of them last week from a guy who participated in their introduction to one of the units within USASOC.
I just learned of the optics-destroying features in March from two independent persons, both with resumes that you can take to the bank, but don't take my word for it.
Here's a link from FN Forums barely addressing the issue and ridiculing it, but I heard about it from no less than 2 people within USASOC, and one in the PMC community, all of whom have used the SCAR-L and -H extensively. These quotes are ones I just pulled with a simple google search, and it the first time I have seen anything of this online outside of SH, because the word of those I heard it from face-to-face was good enough for me. In certain circles, that type of trust still exists.
1st quote:
"The mass of he SCAR bolt has long been a point of discussion within the community. I have repeatedly talked to FN and Crane folks about this in that this is a well known contributor to the recorded high abrupt peaks in recoil impulse that have contributed to ancillary item breakage from SOPMOD Block II MDNS suite. Conversely, the AR series bolt assembly has a much more manageable bolt mass in the system that gives the residual benefit of a) manageable recoil/controllability in rapid shot sequences and b) more receptive/consistent recoil impulse for ancillary items."
2nd quote:
"the MK17 breaking optics is well documented on lightfighter and is the reason why Eotech beefed up their optics(EXPS line). Aimpoints were not tested, Elcan had to beef up their optics as well to handle the recoil impulse. So yes it is real, is it a problem now days? No it has been fixed but do not act like it is all made up either. SOCOM has the information on it from the SOPMOD II downselects."
SCAR: Sharp forward recoil impluse breaking SOPMOD addons? - Page 3
Maybe it is a grand conspiracy by the evil Stoner design crowd, but when I hear from multiple reputable sources within USASOC, SOCOM, and elsewhere that a real issue with destroying optics and electro-optical aiming devices has been identified, it gets my attention.
How much of these issues happened well before civies could get their hands on a SCAR or even before any agency adoptions? By the way, you really going off topic here with the lengthy editorial criticisms of the rifle.
The topic of this thread is "Scar17s". This is an open forum. Are you sure you want to stick with the statement that I'm off-topic? Just checking that I was in the right thread.
...sounds both 100% speculative (and also flat out wrong for that matter) that they are priced to keep them out of crime reports. Statements like that really are further strikes against your credibility, IMHO...
Yup. It was speculative on my part, but not a statement. A statement would look like this:
"Company X makes 100%+ margins on dealer price with product line Y because they want to keep them out of the hands of criminals." You won't find that anywhere in my post, but you will find logical fallacies in yours, just as a matter of fact. My credibility will remain what it is before and after this, that I can promise. All I'm doing is passing on what I feel is important information about a product to many who are interested. The information I have received comes from men I would trust my life with. That is good enough for me.
When this topic came up in another thread, one of the guys in USASOC who actually tested SCARs popped in and backed what I had heard about the optics issue, and I don't know him from Adam. He even posted a pic with him in a HALO rig with the SCAR-L rigged for jumping exposed (not in weapons cases like I'm used to for static-line jumps), and said there were legitimate problems with the system.
Here's the thread:
http://www.snipershide.com/shooting/snipers-hide-semi-auto-rifles/176762-scar-17-optic-opinion.html