AR build and beating the odds.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

TexasShooter - I was playing with diferent buffers in an attempt to smooth the recoil. I was doing some competive shooting with a flash hider and wanted to see if playing with buffer weights would let me smooth the recoil so my sight picture was less disturbed (a muzzle brake is the best way to do this by the way).

Other popular reasons to ply with buffers are to slow the cyclic rate to get marginal improvements in reliability or to deal with the increased backpressure generated by suppressors (whic I also have).

Bolt bounce is when the bolt returns to battery so fast that it actually hits and then rebounds a little bit. It happens when the buffer is too light for the amount of pressure cycling the rifle. Playing with size or location of the gas port, lots of heat, suppressors, adding extra barrel after the gas port all effect port pressure in ARs.

 

[TexasShooter59]

B. Roberts, thanks for your response!

Are you able to share your findings with the buffer tests, or is that a "competitive secret"? If so, no problem.

When folks talk about "slowing the cyclic rate", are they talking about between shots fired in a NFA weapon or, are they talking about one cycle in a semi-auto? I never have understood that, and assumed it was NFA they were talking about. If semi-auto, I am curious how and where in the weapon slowing down the cycle increases reliability?

Thanks again. This has been one of the more informative threads I have read in a while. Today I went to the Dalas Market Hall show and picked up the Colt M16A2 Depot manual and the USMC TM thinking they might help with some mods.

 

[Zak Smith]

A slower cycle time provides the magazine more time to lift the next round sufficiently.

Some competition shooters (including myself) prefer shorter cycle time so that the gun is "ready" sooner, and the various inertia events are done sooner.

 

[TexasShooter59]

Makes perfect sense. Thanks!

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

My general findings were that messing only with the buffer basically yielded a marginal improvement (and even that was debateable).

Timewise, I am just not good enough that I can tell a consistent difference between heavier and lighter buffers (and I was comparing the heaviest (MGI at 7oz) next to the lightest (standard at 2.whatever oz.).

Subjectively - the heavier buffer seems like a slower but gentler push vs. a sharper but shorter push from the lighter buffer. I've kind of gone back and forth on that one where I like the smoother push and then prefer the shorter push. I am currently running a standard carbine buffer but have considered going up to an H-buffer since I run a suppressor a lot nowadays.

As Zak already noted, you need mags to be in good condition for the lighter buffers because the mag has less time to get the next round into position.