About AR15 Buffers and such.

[DS]

I had an interesting question from a customer recently.

He asked me if he should replace the "loose" steel / tungsten weights (standard buffe rhas steel weight, H1 buffer has tunsgten weights) in the buffer with lead shot to help control recoil as this was what someone advised him to do.

WTF?

I wonder if the "lead shot advice" guy that worked that plan out thinks he is more experienced than Eugene Stoner and all the engineers that work for all the AR manufacturers combined and are still today buidling thousands of ARs with the original basic design of the buffer.

The purpose of the loose weights in the buffer is to act as dead blow hammers to

1) help stall and slow down the bolt, in combination with the action spring, at the end of the rearward travel of the bolt carrier group, and

2) very importantly to mitigate bolt bounce when the bolt goes into battery. Bolt bounce is something that happens very fast and is not discernable with the human eye at normal speeds.

If the tunsgten weights are removed and the buffer is filled with dead weight both the primary functions of the design of the buffer is lost and imo the modified buffer is going to damage the buffer tube in the long run and the rifle will suffer bolt bounce.

Don't mess with what is not broken. The buffers are designed like they are for a purpose.

[Psychosis]

Nice!

Thanks.

[Cairbre]

Maybe your customer has been getting advice from Gecko45.

[Gunservant]

That sounds like real Bloudraad-Boere-Boeing advice. A disease fortunately not unique to South Africa, but found anywhere Rednecks (or their local equivalent) happen to be.

[Craig]

Spikes makes a buffer with tungsten granules or whatever, ST2 I think. I was tempted to try this but never did. It's also a different weight to normal buffers. The right combination of buffer weight and spring type is probably more important. If the Spikes was that good, everyone would be using it.

[willehond]

Hi-Jack alert! Sorry

Apologies if this has been asked before...

Just realised I need to do some studying on my new Semi auto. I know LM's quite well. But the AR is new to me. Like to it so far. I just need some education in the department. So Khumba what is a good book to understand the AR platform better. You seem to know a bit about AR's. I have NO PLANS to butcher (aka backyard gunsmith) my AR just want to know more about what makes it tick.

[Jpzx12rturbo]

Hi-Jack alert! Sorry Apologies if this has been asked before... Just realised I need to do some studying on my new Semi auto. I know LM's quite well. But the AR is new to me. Like to it so far. I just need some education in the department. So Khumba what is a good book to understand the AR platform better. You seem to know a bit about AR's. I have NO PLANS to butcher (aka backyard gunsmith) my AR just want to know more about what makes it tick.

Search and you shall find.
"AR technical info for first time buyer" in this same forum.

[DS]

The best ones imo are the Patrick Sweeney books by Gun Digest.

Afaik you can get most of them on Amazon Kindle or hard copy from Zimbi Books.

I think there are 4 of them http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Digest-Boo.../dp/0873499476

Also Glen Zediker's book http://www.zediker.com/books/BB/BB_main.html is excellent quality technical info.

[willehond]

Thanks for the replies. I did search, but searched with the wrong keywords I suppose. Got LOTS of links with AR15 in them, but nothing that was what I was looking for.

Thanks Khumba.

[BigT]

Spikes makes a buffer with tungsten granules or whatever, T2 I think. I was tempted to try this but never did. It's also a different weight to normal buffers. The right combination of buffer weight and spring type is probably more important. If the Spikes was that good, everyone would be using it.

Apparently Sig use a similar system in the M400 and 516 series.