These have been out for awhile now, and without the debate over which is better DI or piston, I’m curious to know from owners how the piston set up has fared? reliability? performance? overall satisfaction etc.
I’d try using the search button, a few threads about this should pop up. I don’t think you’re going to get too many guys here fond of the piston setup though. Why fix it if it’s not broken? :meeting:
Yea, I did the search thing and didn’t find much, of any substance? I’m just curious if someone had one as a back up or just to give it a go? I thought that it might be popular given the modest cost? Thanks
Bought the conversion. Worth the money, just for the (lack of) maitenance factor alone.
Havent exactly seen an increase in reliability, then again I dont see anything wrong with DI to begin with.
For maitenance its a +1.
Keeps the grit out of your face, while getting your hands just a tad dirtier. Depending on ammo.
I purchased a new Complete Adams Arms 16" Mid-Length Piston upper as a early Christmas present for my self and found that the coating (Not sure what it was) appeared cheaply done and very soft.
The receiver and barrel both had dings/marks though the finish right out of the box so after ten days of playing phone tag with A/A’s customer service they finally sent a call tag to have the upper shipped back.
I hope they step up and correct the issue without to long of a delay.
Nothing but smooth sailing and reliable operation for mine- an adams arms midlength 14.5 pinned upper. Eats whatever i feed it, easily cleaned. I also have a DI gun. I really don’t notice a difference, and I bought it for the engineering side of my brain that liked the mantra of not shitting where one eats.
From what I’ve read here and elsewhere, the general consensus among level headed folks is that its a good system, works well but that its value is felt most in suppressed or PDW platforms. I have had no issues with carrier tilt or any other teething issues.
It works as advertised. Is it necessary? Probably not. Am I happy with my purchase? Absolutely.
also, I believe the above poster did get a solid reply and solution from the Adams Arms customer service dept.
From what I’ve seen, it looks like they’ve solved the carrier tilt issues with this system…
But I’m still concerned about long-term stress from the op rod being braced against the barrel nut/upper receiver and the accuracy effects from that reverberating back down the op rod to where it mounts on the barrel.
I would like to see some more destructive testing, like along the lines you see with Pat Rogers’ T&E guns in classes and the Army Aberdeen test center for formal testing.
For what application do you need a piston system for?
I built a 5.45 mm upper with all Adams stuff. I have 6 X 1080 rounds through it so far with no issues I can blame on the upper. The magazines are a different story for a different thread. I have been pleased with the Adams stuff, very well made. One issue, 5.45 ammo is filthy and corrosive and the upper should be cleaned after every shooting session. With a DI system there is no separate gas piston to clean or to state it differently with a piston system there is more stuff to clean. I took a 5.56 mm DI upper and swapped barrels so I now have a DI 5.45 and a piston 5.56. Shooting 20K rounds in the last 2 years without any emotional commitment to either DI or piston, I have concluded that the advantages of the piston are small. The advantages are cleaner action and cooler action. Addressing the latter, I have a new S&W 5.45 and shooting 240 rounds in about 6 minutes, the action was barely warm. Unless you are going to do full auto mag dumps action heat will not be an issue. I have seen no evidence of carrier tilt in the Adams system. I also have an LMT piston gun as well as several DI guns. Folks talk about the difference between the recoil of DI and piston, I can’t tell the difference.
I firmly agree with everything doctinker said.
Can’t you say the same thing about people who replace their pistol grip, trigger guard, stock, buffer/tube, optics, rail, etc? A basic m4 isn’t really broken in any aspect. Why change anything if it isn’t broken?
:stop: Short Bus stop in 5…4…3…2…
Thanks for making m4c feel just a little more like tos.
Back on topic, I have an aa upper and it runs flawlessly, no carrier tilt. But you are sticking a large chunk of metal on the front of your weapon, so it can mess with balace, especially if you also use it with a suppressor.
The design of the piston also means that when running a short barrel and wide muzzle device (even an AAC 51t device), you may have to remove the muzzle device before you can remove the piston for cleaning. Luckily you don’t have to clean it often, if ever, but that’s something to consider.
But the upper runs very clean and I almost don’t have to relubricate it. I probably don’t, I recall someone running their aa upper without lubrication for a long time, but that’s just asking for a problem.
In this case a DI system works and is proven to work well.
Pistol grip, trigger guard, stock, optics and rail don’t affect the functioning of the gun. They make using it easier/better per user. So to me are quite different than changing from DI to piston.
A piston adds cost and complexity to a rifle and doesn’t (in my opinion) offer improvements in usability or reliability.
Well the op didn’t want to make this piston vs di. But aa systems run in sbrs and suppressed very well.
I have an AA carbine kit on a DSA ZM4 upper. It works quite well for me and the types of shooting that I do (a few local tac rifle matches and lots of plinking). I cannot claim that it offers any real advantages over a similar DI system (16-inch unsuppressed) but I only purchased it to try out something “new & different”. I enjoy shooting it just for the sake of shooting enjoyment.
I would grab my BCM 14.5 middy for serious purposes, but fortunately my chances of going into combat are slim.
Adams Arms replaced my upper and paid for shipping both ways so I was happy with the C/S in that aspect. But they are still hard to get on the phone and thats subtracts a lots of C/S points in my book.
But any way I purchased a complete Adams Arms 16" L/W piston upper to slap onto a spare Colt lower to shoot my dirty Wolf ammo during training events. I figured that the A/A complete upper was on par or cheaper then some of the complete DI uppers I was looking at so why not try something new which will eliminate almost all the crud which is shot into the upper and lower receiver.
So far I have 100% function with 330rds of Wolf fired and just a hint of carbon in the receiver. 330 rounds in my DI M-4 clone would require a cleaning.
Also I don’t see any problem with balance as the Gas block and piston rods only weigh a few ounces at most.
I’m a happy camper so far and will report back after I fire the whole 1000rd case of Wolf.
I think Adams Arms is hard to get on the phone because they are a small outfit. I cut them some slack for that.
I don’t know what you were doing, but I have shot over 300 rounds of Wolf and Brown Bear out of my DD rifle in a morning and it still functioned fine. It was dirty, but not dirty enough to affect function at all.
Oooooh… I’m impressed…
Your DI shouldn’t have any issues from a measly 300 rounds, unless of course you are not lubing it enough.
3x AA conversions
1x5.56 w/ 1:7 16" fluted barrel by Green Mountain/ Round Count: Approx 12k (so far)
Absolutely no problems with the conversion that regular cleaning and lubing didn’t fix.
1x 6.8SPC 16" 1:11 Shilen SS barrel. again no issues. Round count of approx 8k
1x 6.5 Grendel / 18" SPR barrel by AA. Round count is still lowish @ approx 5k rounds.
These uppers travel with me all over. Usually in my pelican crate with all my other crap that I lug.
Obviously the 5.56 gets more use than the other calibers but, I am really happy with all three and AA’s QC
I own one that I installed from a kit on a DD barreled upper. The kit was a gift from my son because he wanted to try it out. I have a few hundred rounds through it without any issues. My round count on that gun will increase slowly as I like and use my DI guns.
Sometimes you guys just make me laugh with your high round count requirement to claim a gun is good to go. The only round you can guarantee is the last round your gun fired without a malfunction. You never know about the next round. If you test with 500 rounds it may fail on the 501, test 1000 rounds it may fail on the 1001… 330 rounds without a malfunction is a pretty good indicator.
I do agree a DI gun should not have issues after 300 rounds.