The title should make it clear what I'm after. I want a piston upper that has an easily selectable setting to lower the gas, that means no tools and clear notches for the gas selections. The upper MUST have a forward assist and preferably it would have an MLOK rail. It seems that most of the piston uppers that would fit this criteria are too expensive with the exception of older PWS uppers and older Adams Arms uppers. The PWS is long stroke which seems like it would be more robust but people also have great luck with Adams Arms kits and have for some time. PWS uses a bullet to select gas setting through the rail while Adams Arms forces the user to touch the hot selector with their hand as far as I can tell. Adams has more gas settings to choose from. Also, the newer Adams P2 uppers seem to have the gas block considerably under the rail so that it can't be readily adjusted. The unfortunate thing about PWS is that they have dropped the forward assist on their newer models and all of the older models that are available in 11.5 have KeyMod hand guards. If the older PWS models had MLOK it would likely be my choice. I just greatly prefer MLOK. If I could find some rail sections that utilized every keymod slot it covered to increase strength I might be able to convince myself that it's okay.
I would consider building my own but I don't see how I could run a decent length hand guard without making the adjustable gas block hard to reach on an 11.5 inch gun. If I can't easily reach the gas block then the upper no longer meets my criteria. I emailed Adams Arms about this, since their MLOK uppers seem to suffer from this problem unless I'm missing something, I'm waiting to hear back. I had it in my mind to use the Faxon 11.5 mid-length barrel to get the gas block close to the muzzle but they only make it in .625 while Adams Arms only make their piston kits in .750. The superlative arms kit is not an option because there is no easy toolless on-the-fly gas selection and I don't care for the location of the piston spring. If that pring weakens enough the carrier could start hammering on the piston. This is more likely as the piston head gets dirty and has a harder time returning forward.
Am I stuck buying a PWS KeyMod gun? Any information about how one adjusts the gas on the Adams Arms P2 MLOK uppers? Is long stroke preferable to short stroke? Any recommendations for uppers to look at or build options? I would say that right now I'm leaning towards just buying the older PWS MK111 Mod P-1 and putting up with the KeyMod even though it will bother me. I am open to buying used if you happen to know of a deal somewhere.