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Please educate me about forward assist mechanism. Is this necessary or even recommended? (Page 2 of 2)
| IMHO its totally unnecessary. Who needs to jamb really dirty or dented ammo into battery? Not me thanks. I was an 11B in Vietnam when that feature was introduced. I carried an M16A1 for a few months and might have used it a couple of times. All my current builds are slick-sided these days. |
1st Cav Div, B 5/7
Vietnam/Cambodia
1970
Vietnam/Cambodia
1970
Joined:
Apr 2026
Posts:
1
EE: 0% (0)
LA, USA
| USN Vet. LOTS of time behind the trigger including 2 deployments I'd rather not remember. I'm here today to type this because my weapon had a FA. Nowadays, I build rifles as a hobby. I won't build a rifle w/o a FA simply because IF I ever need the rifle, I'll know that FA is there if I need it. |
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I'm in the anti forward assist camp. I have seen three forward assists completely down a rifle. One had the pawl rod break and gun locked up. One had the whole retention roll pin for the assembly break and lock up the gun. One had the fowars assist spring break and cause failures to cycle. I have never seen the absence of parts cause the rifle to go down. Sure, I have seen forward assists put the gun in battery and allow it to fire. I have seen it also take a malfunction that could have been cleared easily and make it so bad it took tools to get the rifle back up and running. As for silent charging, you can do that by pushing on the nice relief for the port door on the carrier... as you thumb fits in there real nice and gives plenty of purchase. Your carrier is not too hot to push directly if silent charging is any sort of consideration. And if your finger pressure is not enough to close the bolt, you have other issues that need addressing. You save just over an ounce not having a forward assist. My cheapo builds have a forward assist. None of my high end builds have forward assists but they do have a brass deflector and a port door. Those are must haves for me... not the FA. |
Please educate me about forward assist mechanism. Is this necessary or even recommended? (Page 2 of 2)
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