I searched but couldn’t find anything about this. Salient Arms has been posting a lot about their AR15s built with a “full rifle length gas system on a 16 inch total LVOA rail (14.5 barrel + pinned/welded comp). All of which makes for an extremely soft shooting weapon with reduced muzzle flash.”
Without commenting on the manufacturer, has anyone experimented with this combination? If you had a bunch of rifles or rifle barrels that you wanted to convert to carbines it might be worth considering but other than that, is it feasible? 18 inch barrels with a rife gas system seem to run ok but a 16" or 14.5"? Not much dwell time.
When people ask about it on Salient’s Facebook page their only answer seems to be posting a link to a full auto test such as this one:
No experience, but gassing AR’s and what is accepted to work has changed dramatically over the past seven or eight years.
The idea of a 14.5" mid length was thought to be ridiculous not that long ago…I don’t doubt that this can work, albeit at the expense of a smaller operating envelope(just like the 14.5" middies.) Given Salient’s clientele(or intended clientele) of competitors as opposed to defensive shooters, I’m willing to bet it’ll do just fine, and probably does shoot soft as can be.
This has been done before. It’s not something new. Look up the Colt model 605. It had a 15" barrel and rifle length gas system. Also look up “dissipator.” Although many dissipators have a carbine or mid length gas system and a front sight base at the rifle length, a true dissipator just has a rifle length gas system run through a front sight base.
I think that’s true for only certain barrel lengths and calibers, i.e. there aren’t any rifle length .300 BLK uppers. Or something along those lines. My guess though is that since only Bushmaster, CMMG, Salient, and maybe some other company are selling guns with a barrel shorter than 18" and a rifle length tube means one of two things, it doesn’t work or they never tried it out. I’d guess the reason is probably the first one.
It appears so, but much would depend on the ammunition. I imagine shooting low powered steel cased ammo through a rifle with a gas port so close to the muzzle might be problematic regardless of port size. This is why most companies that put out a dissipator style carbine do so with carbine or mid length gas system.
You can play around with a lot of variables to tune a rifle. Gas port size, buffer weight, carrier weight, buffer spring, buffer tube length can all be “tinkered with” to get the desired results . . . some of it may limit the window where the gun is reliable though (only runs with certain ammos, doesn’t like certain weather conditions, etc., etc.)
Probably a combination of good ammo (a guy shooting a Salient gun won’t be using Wolf), a large gas port, a lightened bolt carrier, and a tuned buffer spring assembly.
Salient is building stuff for 3-gunners. It is ok if it runs with a specific load and has to be lubed every couple hundred rounds. Guys hunting the ragged edge of competition guns don’t necessarily insist on the reliability at all costs/in all conditions that is afforded by your typical high quality AR.
That isn’t to say that they will accept an unreliable gun. But they will accept a certain amount of additional care being necessary for a gun that will give them a competitive edge.
A typical 3-gun rifle used to be 18-20 with rifle gas. The faster, shorter range, drag race style 3-gun nation stages have sent guys back to the drawing board and looking at 16, 14.5 pinned, and even 12.5 and 11.5 SBR platforms.
I still prefer the more traditional combination of short/intermediate/long steel in the field courses, and my 3-gun rifle is a true pig. A heavy bastard with an 18" MK12 barrel that recoils about like a 22.
I have been seeing them a lot on Facebook, myself and wondering about the reliability. I love the theory behind true “dissipators”, but always heard they’ve had reliability issues. Also, why wouldn’t they just use a 16" barrel? This is all just curiosity as pretty much everything in the Salient line up is out of my price range.
I’ve seen 16.0 work with a port in the area of .090" 14.5 is way too short for me… knowing a little about burn rates on powders and pressure curves and stuff.
