Strike Industries AR Enhanced Bolt Catch | Review

Recently Tom R. posted a product release notice about the Strike Industries AR Enhanced Bolt Catch. I was pretty excited to hear about a new Strike AR upgrade part, every Strike part I have bought or reviewed has surpassed my expectations.

From their website.

The SI Enhanced Bolt Catch is another piece in our line of high quality parts for the AR. The SI AR-EBC features an extra wide bolt catch lever surface making its operation effortless. Its solid construction and clean matte black finish make it a great looking replacement or build project. It’s a great value for an essential item. If you need the parts to keep your AR in top shape, look no further than S.I.

Package include
1 x AR Enhanced Bolt Catch 

Features
-Mil-Spec bolt catch
-Wide surface area bolt catch latch for enhanced operation
-Solid steel construction
-Sleek SI Design

As always Strike’s packaging is top notch. While it doesn’t affect the performance of the product, it sure is nice to see a company pay attention to a detail like this.

I personally have no problem with the stock bolt catch, but I had to see if Strike was able to improve on the tried and true OEM catch. This means removing a hard to access roll pin on my registered short barreled rifle, a slightly frightening task. Lowers can, and do break if you are not very careful.

I grabbed a 3/32″ punch and took a deep breath, after some slight persuasion the roll pin was free.

It was as simple as driving the new provided pin into place with the same punch.

Fit and finish is rather nice.

Once I put the upper back I found that the bolt catch had plenty of clearance. In the writer’s opinion, it looks pretty cool too! The wider surface area makes it much easier to engage the bolt catch, much more comfortable than the stock latch.

As skeptical as I was, I am sold on the Enhanced Bolt Catch. I am not a BAD lever user, so the potential incompatibility doesn’t bother me at all. At an MSRP of $13.95 it is an inexpensive upgrade to your rifle. The SI Enhanced bolt catch is available for purchase on their website.

Look for a follow-up range review of the Enhanced Bolt Catch in the future.

This post originally was run on The Firearm Blog – http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/05/04/review-strike-industries-ar-enhanced-bolt-catch/