Guys,
I was just reading the SR-556 thread and some of the replies got me thinking. All of my rifles are DI…three Colts, an LMT, and a BM. It’s all I know.
I got the impression that a lot of you guys out there don’t like piston. May I ask why?
Seeing as how it’s cleaner, I figured it would be the natural evolution of this weapons system…not an evolutionary cul-de-sac.
So, if it’s not better, do you guys think it will just wither on the vine?
Thoughts?
There is some back-and-forth here:
http://m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=29852&highlight=carrier+tilt
Thank you.
My “Search Fu” is weak, my master.
pistons for me, preferably LWRCI, why ? because i like the simplicity of the set up and the reliability of my first one with over 5,000 rounds thru it, cleaned only once but lubed often, my cleaning routine now is an oiled rag after about 500 rnds wiping the carrier and inside the upper with carrier removed
man, off topic, but when I read OldNavyGuys post at the end(me being half asleep), I thought it said “I am really, seriously starting to develop a load for useless people.” I thought we had m193(among others) for that, lol.
To date I have not been interested in any piston AR. Why? Well for many reasons. First, there are several problems with shoe horning a piston into a gun that was never designed for it.
For a piston based AR to somewhat work, you need the following to happen:
Couple things to remember about pistons. They do not know how to deal with the back pressure created by a suppressor any more than a DI gun does. IMHO, shooting a lot of suppressed rounds in a piston will lead to a pre-mature breakage. I believe that this is one of the main reasons for the broken bolts and receivers on the 10.5" 416’s.
So why don’t we see more broken piston AR’s?? Piston guns having something break on them will generally appear around 8-10k rounds. People with these high of round counts typically attend a lot of training schools. If you spend time reading AAR’s, you will see reports of piston guns going down.
C4
Good observation! Ten thousand rounds can equal $5,000. Most piston buyers have yet to spend that kind of money to get to the point where it breaks.
But they have their piston gun. Piston envy.:rolleyes:
Agree. I’ve been doing a lot of suppressed shooting with 12.5" Kalashnikov’s lately, and if you already have a gun that is heavily over-gassed (AK’s tend to run this way) then you will induce malfunctions and introduce a lot of fouling back into the receiver. Many seem to be fooled into thinking a gas piston in and of itself makes running a suppressor a non-issue, but my opinion is that one would be better off building a dedicated suppressed gun (with the appropriate tweaks) or investing in a quality adjustable gas port, like the Noveske Switchblock.
hummm !! NOW THAT is a great idea 
Grant, have you any personal experience with the LWRCI ? i have no experience with any of the other piston models as i believe the LWRCI is the best, so why mess with any others ? please do not take this note as confrontational, i just want to present my personal experience with the LWRCI pistons, all 4 of them, one is a .499LWR and it’s functionality has been flawless in the 2,120 reload and factory loads i have run thru the tube.
Grant and all,
Here is a link to TOS that a person here in Florida ran his suppressed HK for a weekend shoot/class.
The main point he was trying to make is he didn’t lube it at all during the class. All the other DI versions had to be lubed all the time to keep running.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=118&t=446047
Enjoy.
He also concedes that the piston guns ran fine when properly maintained.
It’s a personal choice, and I can’t justify the increase in cost or complexity. I’ll use my money on ammo.
BINGO!
C4
I have personal experience with ALL piston AR’s. I also talk to people that are exposed to a lot of piston guns in classes (like Vickers).
From talking to one of the best firearms engineers in the industry, they advise that one of the few (if only piston system) to own is the PWS. It appears to be the best of the bunch.
Let us know when you get about 10k of hard rounds (read training) through your LWRC. Just so you know, we have heard many reports of LWRC guns going down and or having issues. Again, no piston gun is perfect and is why we have not got into them.
C4
My suprressed SBR does not look anyting like that as I use the suppressor to actually cycle my weapon (putting the excess gas to good use).
For reference, feel free to talk to Cost of Magpul about it. He was very impressed with it at the M4C class.
C4
I was impressed with it too!
Most controlable AR I ever shot!
I was present for this class, new-arguy stated the facts in that thread as they occurred.
But as others in that thread point out, all machined parts operating on themselves in tight tolerances need oil.
In that particular weekend of instruction, a gas tube and a 4oz plastic tube of CLP/SLIP/whatever, worked just as good as a $4k HK upper.
Think about the ammo, training, hookers and blow you could buy with the left over money.
Any way we could see pics of the setup you ran in the class? I know there was an AAR written on the class you guys did but I was wanting to see some detailed pics of your setup.
Thanks
I’ve owned a lot of different DI guns (own an M&P15T now, too), but I really wanted to try a piston AR, and after considerable research (I spent over a year reading up on them), I chose a new 3rd generation POF-415.
I’ve been VERY happy with it, and while it is different, I did NOT buy it believeing it to finally be the ‘Star Trek phaser on setting 16.’ :rolleyes: Much for the same reasons I own a Springfield 1911A1 and a S&W1911 - both DO the same thing, fire the same round, and share many of the same parts in common - I own a piston AR, because while it does the same thing as a DI rifle, I enjoy its craftsmanship, and, its differences.
I think there is at first a novelty with Pistons, first answering the age old bitch folks alway have had with the AR platform about blowing the gas back into the bolt, heat, carbon buldup, etc. Some folks dont need and thats cool, I grew up with an issue M16A1s in the Army, later A2s and with propper maint, never had a problem. Past that have done HBAR to M4 route myself over the years. I had an opportunity to play with an Ares piston retrofit and was impressed enough to do some research and pick-up a couple of LWRCs to play with.
I have put the 16" LWRC through 2 Vickers multi-day carbine classes last year, without a hitch or cleaning. My 10.5" LWRC is more for full-auto plinking.
I love my LWRC 10.5" - but then again I fire it quite a bit in full-auto and suppressed. Together the best reasons for pistons. I have done this with a 10…5" DI setup and that ran fine with heavy lubing, but an occasional failure to extract that once started, continues until I give it a combination of cool down cleaning. I do not have that issue with the LWRC. My 10.5" LWRC had an issues with an unstaked(whatever you call the gas tube that is solid in a piston gun) but that was early on and about 2.5K+ rounds ago.
I must say - recoil noticably more in a piston, but cleaning is plain simple, especially if you are a stickler like myself. Big secound reason would be in ease of maint.
YMMV