Hello everyone, I'm new here but I own and use ar15 platforms since a lot of time. I would appreciate your opinion about one of my weapons... In Italy we could not use .223 semiautos (military lookalikes) for years, after the internal terrorism emergency laws around 1975... and for that reason the first ar15s were in .222R. One of my weapons, the first AR I bought, back around 1990, is a Colt ar15a2 sporter II in .222R. it's basically an ar15 (m16a1 style sights) with some feature of the A2 (grip, case deflector, rounded foregrip... Well, what puzzles me is the buffer: it has two of them, carbine style,  placed each at the end of the main spring, so with the plastic caps that touch each other under fire. This is strange, though, because the "rifle" buffer (for 20" barrels) should be longer ... But the best thing is that these buffers just weight 1 Oz each.
Isn't it bizarre? Does anyone has got any info about that? I guess that's because .222R should normally have 45 and 50grs bullets, but this is a normal 1:12" twist barrel chambered in .222 for Italian and French markets, but made for .223, and so I normally use 55 and 60grs reloads.
I replaced the light buffers with a single 3,0 Oz one, without the second on the rear because the action did not lock back with empty mag.  The 1 Oz buffer being shorter than the one I put in place.
I think that if I reload 222 with nearly the muzzle energy of 223 (safely and nicely done, as I read in some manuals, with vihtavuori and other powders) I could have better results and a smooth action.
Do you have any suggestions? Many thanks

You are correct that the 2 buffers was not a factory set up. I would guess that someone lost the rifle length buffer and went that route to make it work. The heavier, correct, buffer will make for better and smoother shooting once you get your loads worked up. Are .223 guns still banned for civilians?
Any pics of the rifle?
Welcome to AR15.com.

Carbine buffers in a rifle buffer tube?

Probably set up like that (one facing to the rear and the other to the front) to control the distance the bolt travels to the rear.  If it goes too far the gas key can contact the rear of the upper receiver and damage it.

It's not the bullet weight or bullet energy that operates the rifle.  It's the gas pressure at the gas port.  Try "normal" .222 Remington loads and see if they make the rifle function properly.  It may work fine.

If not, try a slightly slower burning powder as that should increase the gas port pressure.  Be sure you use powders/loads you find in the reloading manuals though.

With a rifle buffer, in a rifle length tube, with a rifle buffer spring there shouldn't be any issue of bolt rear travel being too much or not enough.  Put an empty magazine in it, pull the bolt to the rear and see if the bolt catch pops up in front of the bolt (not the bolt carrier).  Look in the ejection port and make sure.

Good luck with it.

.222 Remington is a fine target and varmint cartridge.  Held a lot of accuracy records back in the 70's and 80's before some of the purpose designed benchrest cartridges were developed.

Welcome to the group.

Thank you, and thank you all for your clues...

Yes, in Italy we (so far) can own .223 ar style carbines, from the nineties on, but after the Paris terrorist attacks the EU authorities asked each member state to "ban" in some sort of ways the so-called assault rifles, even if we all know that a semi-automatic ar15 is NOT an assault rifle... Now we have restrictions over magazine capacity, about owner's sport activity, and about the number of weapons we can own. To be brief.
In those years when I bought my ar15 in .222, prior to further development, we had several weapons chambered for different calibers: m1 garands in .270W, akm47s in .222 and in 6mmPPC (!!!), Fn-FALs in .243w... As you can see they choose a parent case that could be different from the original one.  

Thank you, so I will look for a rifle buffer to make sure the bolt carrier cannot strike the upper receiver... isn't it?

I admit that I tend to think that the double buffer could belong to Colt itself, because I don't think it could be easy to find a simple 1oz buffer, I mean for a common gunsmith... I guessed it was for the lesser amount of energy devloped by the smaller cartridge. Anyway, that's just an idea.
I really appreciate your suggestions.

I own another civilian ar15 with 14,5" barrel, for which I changed the original buffer with a heavier H2... And that's because I put the original 3oz into this 20" rifle.
I have an akm too, in .223 (5,56x45), it's an Hungarian akm built for Nato's evaluation trials in a number of 500. Apart from a bad trigger action, that needed to be smoothed a little, it's a great weapon, mostly since I put on the tech sight ak200 ghost sight... A real improvement, in my opinion.

Yes .222R is a very nice cartridge, I like reloading it and I know it's capable of a good accuracy.
I still remember some bench rest competitions in which it gave very nice results, before and even after cartridges like the 6mmPPC started to win.

OP, the buffer in the AR-15 serves two purposes - to retard the opening speed of the bolt, and to prevent the rear of the gas key on top of the bolt carrier from reaching the rear ring of the lower receiver.  So, while the weight can vary depending on the ammunition and any gas constriction, the overall length cannot.

Thanks...
I wanted to post some pics of the rifle but I can't find the way

https://www.ar15.com/forums/General/Picture-posting-tutorial-and-PICTURE-test-thread/168-638569/

I have reversed a buffer before in a severely undergassed 27" bbl gun, just to see if it would run w/o weights in the buffer.  It did, and now runs fine w/ an empty buffer.

OP's setup & the TACCOM look to be adaptations of rifle tubes to carbine length buffers & springs, which seems slightly pointless if standard rifle components are available.

Very interesting... Thanks a lot

I guess that's right, and that's what I thought. Because yesterday I asked a friend of mine, who bought some years ago a colt .222 ar15a2 sporter 2 like mine, the very same model, to open it and check the buffers: he sent me the photo of the two empty buffers, exactly the same assembly I got on mine. So, it's pretty clear that Colt did this: maybe because, like in the post before is said, the .222 rifle is a bit undergassed because of the .223 gas port (the barrel being a common.1:12" made for .223)...
Now that I could check another rifle, and thanks to your kind suggestions, I can say I am pretty sure that this was factory made.
Thanks a lot

ADDENDUM: in Italy in the early seventies I read that Colt sp1 in original .223 became very popular among shooters, but the oncoming terrorism (leftist brigate rosse but also black fascist terrorists) led the government to ban lots of weapons from time to time prior to arrive to the "110/75" law that reorganized the gun possession for civilians... Prior to that, while you had a gun that was banned, you still could have a "war weapon's collection licence", it meant you could keep them with no ammunitions. Later on, after 20 years or more, some of those weapons became again legal, and so the SP1 .223 rose back from the past...

https://imageshack.com/i/pnYIF53Lj

https://imageshack.com/i/poR3MjNLj

https://imageshack.com/i/pmunEG4Mj

I try to add some pics with imageshack, I hope I won't break any of the site rules

As you may see the rifle has got some features of the A2 model: grip, case deflector, rounded ribbed foregrip, but has got A1 style sights. It has no fence around the mag release, a birdcage flash hider, and no bayonet lug. The original 20rds mag is marked "Colt's... .222R" (nevermind the 30rounder in the pic).

Of course you can see the two empty buffers

Pretty rifle.  Thanks for posting that up.  We see very few .222 Remington chambered rifles anymore.  The Tripple Deuce has all but died out here.

I've got a trip deuce (.222R) in the back of the safe.
It's from mid-1970's. One of my inherited guns.

I've never fired it. Pristine condition.

If memory serves the .222R was example for .223/5.56

One of my hunting buddies back in the early 80's had a pretty Rem. 700 in .222.

With his reloads and the bedding job we did on the stock/receiver and his 3X9 scope that little rifle would shoot a five shot group at 150 yds. that a dime would cover.  Awesome little sporter weight barrel didn't change impact a bit with only 5 rounds fired.