Forward assist how important?

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BTW if you want a gun that will go bang every time, and that you can wrestle with until it does even in the worst case, don't get an AR. Don't get anything that puts all the moving parts in a little box.

I might have an AR or two. But I really don't trust them like I would want to, if I were in Iraq or something.

What I don't get is how the SCAR or other newfangled-looking takeoffs on the AR design are any better in that regard.
 
There is force and there is assist.
Leveractions, bolt actions, pump/slide action, break opens, and self loaders that have a handle on the side of the bolt all have one thing in common. The ability to assist the cartridge forward.
 
I do a lot of Coyote hunting with my AR. To keep things quiet I don't let the bolt slam shut, I close it slowly using the charging handle. Most of the time I need to use the FA to fully chamber the round. When building my AR I spent some time considering the DPMS Lo Pro upper which doesn't have forward assist or a brass deflector. I'm happy I went with a standard upper.
 
During the three decades I did Uncle Sams bidding, both active and reserves, I only used a forward assist twice. In the second case it made a bad situation worse by jamming a bad round into the chamber that did not belong there.
During my law dawging duties (20 years with a couple chunks missing due to military activation)... We taught and were told to never use the darn thing. If a round did not go in there correctly, run the bolt back and put in a new round.

It does come in very handy for semi-quitely chambering a round.
 
not so much how important it is--rather more so like:
would you leave the penny off of penny loafers? :eek:
 
During the three decades I did Uncle Sams bidding, both active and reserves, I only used a forward assist twice. In the second case it made a bad situation worse by jamming a bad round into the chamber that did not belong there.
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DING DING DING
We taught and were told to never use the darn thing. If a round did not go in there correctly, run the bolt back and put in a new round.
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Much better solution. If the round is the problem, it's gone. If dirt/debris is the problem, it may well be cleared when the round is cleared, instead of rammed into the chamber and then turned into a high-friction matrix around the hot/semi-molten cartridge case immediately prior to the attempted extraction. If dirt is the problem, ramming *ahem* assisting it further in will probably not help.

Mike
 
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I only used a forward assist twice. In the second case it made a bad situation worse by jamming a bad round into the chamber that did not belong there.
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That’s the part that I'm most concerned about I'd hate to put a square in a circle….How often does it happen that the “milspec” ammo is not up to par?
 
it's not typically that there is a problem with the ammo from the factory, it's that something has happened to it since then, or that there is an obstruction (e.g. dirt) in the chamber
 
About as useful as a Bayonet.

Well, I carried one of those nasty black sticks :barf: for three years and never needed the bolt assist. I was stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, where we did have problems with grit and dust (dust storms) in good weather and snow and ice in cold weather.

I never used it. Any time I wanted to make sure I had a round loaded, I did what's been mentioned here - use the bolt retractor to open it and have a peek myself. I think most guys, under the pressure of combat :eek: would think first to yank it back and chamber another round than to nudge the forward assist.

I'm not saying it's worthless - but it's not nearly as useful as, say, having my M203 grenade launcher hanging below the rifle tube.... :fire:
 
Think of it like the shift lever on a 4X4 pick-up truck.

It will keep you from getting stuck sometimes.

But when you do finally get stuck, you will really be stuck!

Beating on a FA to get a round to chamber is fine if it chambers.

But if it doesn't, you are in a world of sxxx, because it won't go in, and now, it most certainly won't come back out!

rc
 
Think of it like the shift lever on a 4X4 pick-up truck.

It will keep you from getting stuck sometimes.

But when you do finally get stuck, you will really be stuck!
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I think that sums it up pretty good!!!!
 
HA sorry, bout that, you can blame FlyinBryan for that tid bit of missinformation about the LA shooting, He told me that, FlyinBryan, Him, it was Him. lol so "they" are the voices in his head.
 
Yes the manuals still call for teaching SPORTS.
Another big waste of time, causing further delay in getting back into the fight and making continued target tracking even more difficult. A good tap-rack-bang works better.

Another problem with teaching folks to rely on the forward assist is that if a round fails to completely chamber while you are in a fight, you will not see the problem. (if you have your act together)

Most of the time you pull the trigger and the rifle goes snap as the hammer falls. Since the bolt is usually just a touch out of battery the hammer will work, but the bolt is cammed slighly forward so the firing pin will not strike the primer.

So now you have an UN-COCKED rifle with a partially chambered round.

Hopefully the shooter will just hear or feel the hammer drop and then run another round into the chamber with the charging handle.

If they are determined to kill themselves, they will stop looking for targets and turn the rifle onto it side so they can stare at the ejection port. Then they usually try to jack the bolt shut with the damned forward assist. This does not do a thing since the hammer has usually dropped and the bolt needs to be run in order to re-cock the action.

If I caught them doing this during a field exercise it was good for 50 push-ups.

Issue ammo was almost always in super good shape coming from the can.
However, God has given GIs the ability to screw up anything they touch.

So people drop loaded magazines onto hard surfaces and dent ammo as well as feed lips.
Plus you always get a couple billy-bobs in the unit that decide to try taping another magazine upside down to a good magazine. So as soon as they drop to a prone position the inverted magazine gets smashed and full of mud. Plus the extra weight pulls the good magazine just enough to cause failures to feed.

Then you get the nervous types who already have a round chambered and then decide to slowly check the chamber by pulling the bolt back far enough to start loading a second round, just under the first round. Then you end up with the dreaded double feed.
Usually this bends both cases at a good angle as the young troop is freaking out and banging on the stinking forward assist. If you catch them before they start using THE JACK, then you can usually get both bent cartridges out of the chamber and get them back into the fight. If they have been using the darned ratchet jack, then you may have to assemble a cleaning rod and knock a dislodged projectile from the bore.
With the M-16s, M-16A1s and A2s you could sometimes get things unstuck from the chamber by butt-slamming the ground a couple times. It did not work so great with the M-4s.
 
I've only seen it make problems worse on the range and in competition.

It might be handy for other purposes, though, besides fixing a stalled rifle.
 
remember those two guys that shot up Los Angeles a few years back with full body armor? well the one guys gun jammed and they shot him in the neck or face area because his rifle jammed and he was tryin to unjam it. so after it was all over they said if he had just gave his FA a good smakc he would have kept going. So I quess they are very important for bad guys who want to shoot up LA. HA, yea they are VERY important in a combat situation when the round doesnt make it all the way into the chamber and needs a little nudge. im sure they have saved plenty of lives. personally Ive never had to use it other then to check to see if a round was in my chamber like SamG stated.
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The 2 bank robbers in question were using mainly ak pattern rifles.The first bg had a stovepipe malfunction on his ak and b/c he had been wounded in the hand he could not manipulate the action to clear it.The same bg was not shot but took his own life with a pistol.The second bg tried to carjack a truck at that point swat arrived on scene and he was shot in the legs and bleed out after an hour.
 
I do a lot of Coyote hunting with my AR. To keep things quiet I don't let the bolt slam shut, I close it slowly using the charging handle. Most of the time I need to use the FA to fully chamber the round. When building my AR I spent some time considering the DPMS Lo Pro upper which doesn't have forward assist or a brass deflector. I'm happy I went with a standard upper.
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I use mine everytime I'm out on a hunt also. Also to keep things quiet.
I'm glad I have it.
 
Not to stir stuff up.. But the North Hollywood weapons were: Phillips AK47 Full auto Modified, and Matasareanu, HK91 Full Auto modified and AR15 Full Auto Modified. Phillips was hit in the left thumb and could not clear the stove-pipe on his AK and switched to a Beretta 92 and fired right handed, after firing off a few rounds at officers, he was hit in the right had an dropped his pistol. He then picked it up and sot himself under the chin. Matasareanu, emptied the HK91, switched to the AR15 and tried to jack a driver of a pickup. The driver fled, leaveing the keys in the truck. Matasareanu began transfering weapons, money and ammo to the truck from the disabled car with the LA SWAT officers arrived. He was already wounded, but was wearing a full custom made suit of Kevalar coving his arms, torso and upper legs. He took cover behind the truck and was firing at officers with the AR15, loaded with a 100 round Cmag when officers skipped rounds under the truck, shooting his legs out from under him. He bled out before Fire Aid arrived..
 
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