Need more details on the rifle, especially the butt stock assembly.

In 223, most of the felt recoil is the buffer moving in the receiver extension, and could just be a weaker hammer spring, weaker carbine recoil spring, and even too light of a buffer for the upper receivers function.  By this, the barrel may have a slightly larger gas port with is causing the bolt to unlock too soon, and with the lighter items pointed out above, will cause the buffer to slam off the back of the tube harder than normal on the back of stroke instead.  Also, if the above items are lighter/weaker than needed, it in itself will cause the bolt to unlock too soon as well.


So a couple quick checks is  to put a tape measure down the inside of the receiver extension, and make sure that you are coming up with a 7" tube void to the lip of the tube.  On the recoil spring, should be around 10.5" and the buffer should come in about 2.9oz (note when you shake the carbine buffer, should sound like discs moving, and not a hand full of BB's isntead).
Note, if you bought a cheap butt stock assembly, suspect that they may be air soft parts, and out of spec isntead!!!!

Next, pull all the way back on the charging handle with the rifle back together, and make sure that the face of the bolt stops 1/4" to 1/8" in front of the back edge of the ejection port.  I bring this up, since if you are using a carbine spring and buffer in a full length receiver extension, then the felt recoil you may be feeling is the back of the carrier key crashing into the lower receiver, and trying to crack the lower receiver instead.

Now if all the above is good, and the bolt is locking back on the catch after the last round fired, then what is needed is to slow the bolt unlock isntead.  Here, two ways to attack the problem for cheap, being either change the carbine recoil spring out to a extra tension carbine spring, or pick up a H3 buffer  instead.

If you have a standard carbine buffer (2.9 oz) and a H-3 buffer, then you can swap the internal weight in the two buffer to come up with a buffer in the middle of the two isntead.  Hence the differences between the buffer is the type of material that is used for the weights, and which can be swapped around between the two isntead.


So you first start off with the rifle cleaned and lubed, with the H3 buffer, and see if the bolt will lock back (single loaded round in a mag).  If the bolt will not lock back, then the mass of the buffer is too great (bolt unlocking too slow), so you pull the two buffers apart, and make a H1 out of the standard buffer (one carbide disc, 2 steel discs) and make a H2 out of the H3 buffer (1 steel disc and two carbide discs).  Now with these two buffer, you can try out the H2 to see if the bolt will lock back, then the H1 if the bolt will not lock back on the H2 instead.
Hence what we are trying to do is slow the bolt down from unlocking too fast, and whacking off the back of the tube with too much force to cause the felt recoil isntead.
Note, if the H-3 locks the bolt back and still feels like too much felt recoil, then you can add a extra tension carbine spring to slow the bolt unlock down every more.  Just make sure that the bolt still has enough energy on unlock to make it all the way back so the bolt catch and lock the bolt back on the last round fired.

Again, felt recoil of the 223 AR rifle is from the movement of the buffer and B/C, and not really the round going down the barrel isntead.

The lighter the gun, the more that felt recoil is going to be.

Hence if you take a look at the rigs in the video that you posted, the lads are running a lot of accessories on the rigs, hence adding weigh to them, which in turn lessens the felt recoil.

So is your rifle over gasses and over stroking, easy to tell and just look the rim of a spent case.  If the rim is all bent to hell by the extractor from the bolt unlocking too soon as the residual pressure in the bore was too high, and too much forced used to pry the spent case out of the chamber (that you do have correctly scrubbed cleaned with a chamber brush and CLP by hand during cleanings), then the gas port is too large for the rifle.

If the spent case rims are fine, then the problem is that the gun is too light  and why you are feeling all the felt recoil, and time to start adding weight to it isntead.

Note on my carbine rigs, they will be seeing a lot of full auto use, so it's not light that I want in a carbine, but enough weight that the muzzle holds steady when bursting instead.  Truth is, with running full bull profile type barrel under the hand guards, and the items I tack on the rigs as well, most of my carbines are heaver than a standard USGI 20" a2 rig when it all said and done isntead.  Hence I'll take the extra weight when it comes time to hump it, so when it comes time to use it, it holds on target isntead.

I'm going with answer number one, since as you where told, they opened the gas port up a touch so the rig would run with weaker ammo.


But on that note, since it may be slightly over functioning with stronger ammo that you are running, they might just change out the buffer to a heaver unit, to bring the action back in check with the heaver ammo.   On the same token, if they do this and you are running weaker ammo, might run into a problem with the rig under gassed, and short stroking instead (the whole catch 22 thing).

P.S, the whole ten round mag and bullet button thing must suck; to make the rifle CA complaint.

The steel case ammo problem is that the chamber was reamed tighter in the cross wall section of the chamber to make the barrel more accurite.

Give that barrel about 50 rounds of brass case ammo and cleanings to self polish out the side walls of the chamber and to loosen them up just a touch, and it should eat the steel poly case coated ammo no problems instead.


As for your problem, it was getting a light gun that may be great of humping it long distance, but the light weight rifle is going to have more felt recoil, and not so great for a lot of stationary range work instead.


Hence, the link you posted on the receive off the gun, shows you what you need to do, and that is hang some more weight on the gun isntead.


Hell a Sparta can weights around 12.5oz, and even if not going to run a call full time, nothing wrong with just going with a 12.5oz muzzle type weight so you don't have a POI shift between the can with weight or with can isntead.  And with a can, since it has increase more barrel back pressure, heaver buffer is used, so that another few Oz's of weight in the back end of the rifle.  tack on a scope with mounts, and them some accessories on the rail, and now what started off as a 6lb platform that had brutal felt recoil, now is pushing in the 9+lbs and has dam near no felt recoil instead.

Hence the concept of the gun was not what if first starts out as, but a platform once loaded with what it may needs for service duty, not scaling over 11lbs to be too heavy  isntead.

No worries, and we have all been through this as well.
Hence when I want to build up a Semi auto varmint rifle decades ago, attacked the problem  the other way instead.

Hence full 24" bull barrel, and a ton of weight on the rig so it had no felt recoil on the bi pod instead.
The glitch, when I had to come off the bi pod and shoulder the rifle to run something down (reason for a semi auto and a 30 round mag), the rig was just too heavy for such with any kind of magnification on the scope for the running shot instead (problem solved by profiling the barrel and loosing some on the butt stock weights to lighten it up).

So it may take some tinkering, but you will find the ideal weight your looking for, to make the rig usable for the purpose you intend to use it for.

But, Chances are DD will tweak on the rifle to resolve most of the felt recoil problem you having with it to being with,  
Hence would not be surprised if they install a H series buffer in the rifle to reduce the felt recoil of rig your having with the stronger ammo, and even send a standard weight buffer back with as well , for the times that you are shooting weaker ammo and need the lighter buffer isntead.  This, and just outfitting the rig with common usable gear on it, should solve your excessive felt recoil problems on the rig.