Why the hate on a forward assist?
- Thread starter Huskydriver
- Start date
I can but it's
me pushing the rifle to see where it isn't reliable tho....My build:
Adm adm4 billet receivers
Compass lake kreiger
Jp scs
Superlative adj
Jp bcg
Sico hybrid suppressor
Ammo was 23.5gr of tac over a 77smk
What temp?I can but it's
My build:
Adm adm4 billet receivers
Compass lake kreiger
Jp scs
Superlative adj
Jp bcg
Sico hybrid suppressor
Ammo was 23.5gr of tac over a 77smk
View attachment 8347819
Do you have mv measurements at that temp, and a temp where you’d call function of the rifle ideal?
What, if any lube, were you using?
Was the rifle clean when you started?
Did the rifle struggle at the start, or did it get progressively worse?
"Forward" was the theme of Obama's campaign and look how that turned out.
I will say that shooting mostly-TDP compliant guns in truly extreme cold of -30˚C from 2005-2016 in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic working with the Finns, AR-15s have been extremely reliable in those conditions.
I don’t recall dudes banging on the Forward Assist. Maybe they did and I just didn’t see it, but the guns just ran well through multi-day high volume courses. We did see quite a few 7.62x39 Arsenal AKs crap the bed repeatedly enough to where immediate action could not fix the problem, and training was distracted from.
I never saw a 5.45x39 crap the bed though.
As to forward assists, I generally try to buy uppers that don’t have them, but for the normal M4 uppers, I assemble them if the barrel extension tunnel meets my fit requirements for the particular barrel I’m going with at the time.
I know on Grendels, I don’t think I’ve ever touched the FA. There’s a company who recently put out some videos about a JSOC-spec’d AR-15 evolution claiming they specifically did not want forward assist on the guns. There were a lot of really cool mechanical improvements to the design. I need to find that video.
I don’t recall dudes banging on the Forward Assist. Maybe they did and I just didn’t see it, but the guns just ran well through multi-day high volume courses. We did see quite a few 7.62x39 Arsenal AKs crap the bed repeatedly enough to where immediate action could not fix the problem, and training was distracted from.
I never saw a 5.45x39 crap the bed though.
As to forward assists, I generally try to buy uppers that don’t have them, but for the normal M4 uppers, I assemble them if the barrel extension tunnel meets my fit requirements for the particular barrel I’m going with at the time.
I know on Grendels, I don’t think I’ve ever touched the FA. There’s a company who recently put out some videos about a JSOC-spec’d AR-15 evolution claiming they specifically did not want forward assist on the guns. There were a lot of really cool mechanical improvements to the design. I need to find that video.
That’s a Colt 607 Commando, predecessor to the XM177, XM177E2, GAU-5/A, and GAU-5A/A.
Most of the 607s you see nowadays are Retro builds and not the real deal. Here’s an old photo from a Small Arms Review article on Colt M16 models:
Son Tay Raiders used GAU-5A/As and M16A1s. There has never been a Son Tay Raid photo showing anyone with 607s that I’m aware of. Colt used both 602 and 603 uppers on the 607 Commando:
If you have a correct action spring weight and lube, you should not need to ever touch the Forward Assist.
Here’s a video Small Arms Solutions put out recently on the topic, covering the “quiet load” argument.
All's I know is that carbine is, or was, on display in the Son Tay exhibit at the ARSOF museum in Fayetteville. If it wasn't used, they should've gone with a different carbine as an example. Still neat, though. And I like the forward assist on mine even if I don't need or use it or whatever. I think it looks cool too.
And looking cool is 1/4 the battle.
25-30 F
Was like 2700 iirm. In 90 weather it's closer to 2760ish.
No intentionally had about 300 rounds all supressed I did however, use my lube of choice...old 0-20 oil on the bcg to start.
First 100 rounds started fine. The next I could start to feel the bcg starting to drag a bit and get sluggish.
All my ARs have a FA and yes sometime the bolts on rare occasions don't go all the way into battery and I use the FA.
I see no reason not to have a FA and one very good reason to have one.
I see no reason not to have a FA and one very good reason to have one.
All AR's have forward assists, period. The first one was milled into you carrier where your gas ports are...
A mix of both, shooting BR Tuote Reflex and Ase Ultra suppressors sometimes. Most high volume was done unsuppressed though.
I did a high volume course once with a Rock River 16” MLGS AR with an Ase Ultra Jet CQB suppressor that attached to the standard A2 Flash Hider, in -27˚C. Shattered my 1st Gen Magpul MIAD grip, it was so brittle in the cold. The 1st Gen MIADs had a conical grip screw, which acted like a lever to fracture the grip core.
The little tabs that hold the back strap and grip plug in place fragmented off also, without me noticing at first. The grip started feeling wobbly, so I looked down and saw a crack from the top side going down the length of the grip about 3/4". It gave me an appreciation for the standard Colt A2 grip or the old Hogue, (not the imitation A2 grips that most have).
I went back to the barracks to replace the MIAD, because I had a CAA spare in my Pelican case. Remember the ones with those elastomer modular front and back straps that looked cool in photos, but were kind of cheap-feeling in the hand. Anyway, when I pulled the selector detent, it was fizzling before my eyes. The corrosion was happening in real-time in front of me. Cheap zinc-plated detents save a few pennies for the manufacturer, but are not TDP-compliant. The TDP calls for cadmium-plated detents for this reason. DoD learned about that decades ago when type-classifying and putting the AR-15 though military standardization processes in the early 1960s.
There are a lot of critical aspects in the TDP for the AR-15/M-16/M4 family relevant to extreme cold conditions that most are not aware of. The Vismod gun assemblers don’t care about these specs because they cater to the occasional weekend shooter, low price point, lack of pride in workmanship approach.
I purposely shoot in a lot of extreme cold, so I don’t have the time to mess around with Vismod parts. It’s way too much of a training distraction trying to break down a gun and find what’s wrong with it.
So how many rounds is typical in your experience before you start gumming up and needing to relub and or field strip the bcg to get it running again?
When shooting suppressed high volume, with 300-800rds per day/night, I think I might brush off the BCG after night shoot, re-lube with SLIP2000, then shoot the next day. As long as the action feels slick and freely-moving, I’m happy. I don’t go crazy with a detailed strip and anal cleanse.
Biggest factor in this is whether shooting crap .223 Rem Wolf steel case or quality brass case. Everyone knows by now how bad Wolf gums up an action, but even with Wolf, as long as you do preventative maintenance after the 1st day of high volume, TDP guns will run suppressed without issue.
Even with 6.5 Grendel 12” CLGS suppressed, I loan it out. In one course, a guy couldn’t adjust his zero stop after experiencing 8” vertical POI shift when he attached a can prior to arriving without confirming zero, so it was easier to just hand him my 12” and use it during the course for 2 days. He brought a case of that Wolf steel Grendel fodder. You often have to clean out the chamber after shooting a bunch of steel case because the steel doesn’t obturate as fast as brass, and allows more carbon to coat the inside of the chamber.
When you switch back to brass, it can create slow extractions/FTExtract malfs. This is one of the reasons why I prefer sticking to brass-case ammo.
no hate here although i can't say that i've used it much and i shoot 4000-5000 rounds a year.
they do make sense on something that doesnt have a fixed handle though.
how to the FAL and HK guys live without?
they do make sense on something that doesnt have a fixed handle though.
how to the FAL and HK guys live without?
