I bought a DPMS Oracle the other day. The charging spring (the one that surrounds the buffer) is pretty noisy. When I pull the charging handle, I can hear it scraping against the inner walls of the buttstock (I'm guessing that's whats happening) and the metal is just noisy in general as it compresses. l have a Bushmaster that is pretty quiet in contrast. I've been an AK person for years but only had an AR for a couple of years so I haven't had a lot of experience with them. Is this noise "normal"? I don't mind spending a little more to replace the spring with a better one, but just would like to know if that would even help or if something else is going on. I already tried lubricating it and it didn't seem to help. Any other tips on "inexpensive" ways to improve a DMPS are welcome as well. By "inexpensive" I mean I am willing to put another couple hundred into the rifle to improve its performance.

Does it feel gritty when you pull it back?  Im just guessing that its normal, I will see if mine does that when I get home.  If I can remember lol.  Have you checked the spring and or tube to make sure all is well?

Cleaning and lubing are your friends.  I suspect that it's the spring rubbing and not the BCG.  I took mine apart and cleaned the spring and the inside of the tube then put some moly grease in the palm of my hand and spun the spring through it to get a light coating.  Cleaning and lubing the BCG's contact points helps a lot, too.  Don't forget the contact points on the charging handle.  They can make a scraping noise, too.  Mine is no noisier than mu Colt ot other frankenguns.

It will get quiet down with a few hundred rounds and lubed up well.

Shoot it.

AL

It is all in your head.

Clean, lube and shoot it. If you rifle goes bang, no worries.

It sounds pretty gritty. The best I can describe is it sounds like metal on metal. At first I thought it was the charging handle itself, like it was dry. So I first took that out and rubbed it down with lubricant. That didn't help. So I stuck my ear next to the buttstock while pulling the charging handle and I can hear it coming from inside the buttstock where the spring is. So I sprayed that down with lubricant and no help. I read in a different thread about replacing spring and buffer with a Springco Blue wire or a JP flat wire spring and a T2 or H2. Aside from performance, are these known to be "quieter"? I looked them up and looks pretty cheap for that upgrade (around $30). The only reason I'm concerned is because my Bushmaster does not make this noise, even before I ever fired it.

And its an AR so......"embrace the sproing!"

I field stripped it and lubbed everything down. It was about as clean as it could ever be. Never had one round through it, aside from the test round from the factory (I assume they test fire). If they did test fire it, they cleaned it really well after because it was pristine.

That's what I thought at first (its in my head), until I got out my Bushmaster. While the Bushmaster is not silent, it definitely doesn't have that "metal on metal" sound.

I checked my DPMS Oracal. No grinding sound. Just normal compression sound.

Go with using a grease instead of a spray lubricant. Grease will stay where you put it and help with the "sprong".

thanks all for the tips. I'll go pick up some grease. Lets hope grease isn't being hoarded too!

I have  an Oracle and noticed the same thing when I bought it.  I used some heavy grease on the buffer  spring.  After one tIme at the range  it was fine.

Just an update on this. I talked to a guy at my LGS about this noise and he said he has some ARs that do it and some that don't. No explanation though. Like I said earlier my Bushmaster does not make this noise. So I went home and field stripped both of them and noticed that the Bushmaster spring is slightly different from the DPMS. The end of the Bushmaster spring tapers a bit (on both ends) so that it fits very snugly over the buffer (it actually grips the buffer and does not allow the spring to "spin" freely if you twist it around), whereas the spring in the DPMS fits flush, but loosely over the buffer. I placed the Bushmaster spring and buffer in the DPMS and it "fixes" the noise. Anyway, I'm ordering a few Bushmaster springs and just thought I'd share in case that noise was annoying anyone else.