My lug was bent but to be honest I cant tell if it was due to the gun use or from factory. I did not knew much about gun other than the m16 then. It was visually bent, I did not need a straight edge to check that. Either way, it needed replacement. Not sure how much the barrel nut from Jim cost (I hope that dont read as bad as it sounded, lol) but I would thing both would be maybe around $50 combined? That is not much when you weight it against it all. Good thing is since your stock is aluminum bedded you could wait a bit before you get them both. Of course, you will have to head space again since the recoil from Jim is .240 or so which is about double what the stock lug is if I recall right.