Ok, you guys who know me know  I was never a fan of the AR/M16 until this LW thing came along.  I like shooting the AR and have always had them, but in life and for games, I would not want to use one.  Now I am not tactical man, I don't play enough to claim I am any good, and I am likely too crippled to be any good.  Iam too busy to partake in lots of gun games, but I do go.  Until now, I have never shot an AR in this type of competition.  In the past I shot with HK's or FAL's.  I always felt a disadvantage during reloads, but always had the advantage of reliability.

So this time my rifle looked like all the rest on the line, only it had a secret little piston gas system under the handguards.  The only ammo I had was wolf as my Black hills order did not arrive on time and Wally world was out of 55gr 223.  I am sure the wolf would piss off Paul.

In my squad, I believe my 10.5 inch upper was the only one not to malfunction throughout the match of the other AR variants allthough some made it through unscathed.  These were not garage guns these guys were shooting.  They were colts, et al.  No cheap imitations in the mix.  After a botched stage because the guy spent half his time clearing malfunctions, everybody would gather around the guy and his gun.  3 guys would say "you need more oil,"  three others, "its a bad mag."  The guy who had the most troubles was running a colt and let me remind you these are not combat conditions.  It has become so ingrained in people that this is part and parcel of the game that if the guy has 3 malfs during his run, they will let him go get his "back up gun" and reshoot the stage.  WTF?  Mulligans in shooting sports?

How could anyone LOVE the ar-15 knowing that it is so sensitive that if it was too dry, or too wet it might not work.  Back up rifles?  WTF?  We did not congregate on the group of people surrounding the malfing rifles to figure out what was wrong.  I know what is wrong and I know what would solve it.  I did not use it as a sales opportunity, but I think it dawned on a few guys that the damn 10.5 " carbine was more reliable than their 16" colts, bushies, etc.

Personally, I have never had malfunctions in my AR's (impingement).   I have kept them clean and loved as I know that is precisely what they need.  This was a smorgesborg of malfunctions.

You guys may not know this, but Bushmaster has a rep for a more reliable weapon.  You know why?  The main reason is that they oversize their gas ports and overgas the weapon to ensure reliability.  Is this a bad thing?  No, not really.  The weapon in theory will have wear issues sooner, the volume of gas and carbon dumped into the reciever is increased.  So if you keep it clean, you should get good reliability out of the weapon.

Point 22.5 - What are the factors that could cause a colt to malf so frequently?  Is it the rifles fault?  Yes.  Even if a colt leaves the factory after all of their QI testing.  It is tested clean, it is tested with fresh factory mil ball ammo, proven reliable magazines, proper lube.  In this scenario, the military accepts 6000 mean rounds to failure.  Now throw in some less than stellar ammo.  A little dust.  Not lubed properly.  Whatever.  Is this the users fault?  You may say it is.  Is it?  How much of what you do, or what you buy to feed it should be considered acceptable.

My rifle was devoid of lube other than the teflon coating on the bolt carrier and the sandstrom coating LW puts inside the receiver.  I was using Wolf ammo.  Underpowered, filthy crap with a lacquer coating that melts onto a hot chamber.  I also had a 10.5 inch barrel which combined with the other factors could have led to more unreliability.  I used Jesse's mags which are always loaded, and look like he found them in a junkyard.   We stayed after the match and burned up the remaining ammo.  I pulled the bolt carrier out to show a guy, and he was shocked how clean it was.  There was some carbon on the bolt face, thats it!  No carbon in the tight confines of the bolt carrier bolt interface.  He manually cycled his now heavily lubed bolt group and cycled mine.  He asked why it seemed so smooth.  Well, there is no gas key carbon to fight, there is no carbon inside the bolt carrier group that hinders unlocking, and it is not 2 abrasive surfaces (parked carrier, anodized aluminum) dragging on each other.   The piston nozzle was as clean as when we started as it is continually scraping the carbon from the inside of the cup and blowing it clear with the next round.

My point is, that after 40 years of service, somehow our paradigm about why weapons work or don't has been shifted to the user.  The Brits keep doing this with the SA80.  Keep blaming the troops, or call a particular weapon a lemon.  Blame the shitty ammo.  Blame everything but the inherent design of the rifle.  

I am going to give you an example of an AK.  Have you seen those video clips from africa of those folks dancing around doing wild mag dumps at the enemy?  Those rifles are held together with bubble gum and tape.  They are as rusty as a boat ancor.  Maintenece?  I doubt it.  Probably some motor oil and a wipe down.  My point is not that the AK is the be all and end all.  My point is that it was designed around the shorcomings of who would be using it or maintaining it, the variance of ammo available, and the different environments it would be used.  It is loose, over gassed, and by gum factory AK's seem to work regardless of the user.

AK and AR are 2 completely different concepts.  The AK is a minute of man gun.  Designed primarily for area suppressive fire in massive frontal attacks on defensive positions by Russian Mechanized infantry.  The first position on the selector is AUTO if that tells  you anything.  The AR is more of a precision affair.  Our technology allows us to manufacture mass quantities of rifles that adhere to very tight tolerences with unmatched repeatability.  There are definately a first world weapon. They are capable of 1 MOA.  The magic formula for a reliable AR is a 20 inch barrel and a rifle length gas system.  Even at that they are very susceptable to carbon build up, dirt and debris.  They actually become more reliable the more they are shot and cleaned as tolerences loosen, the gas rings become wear fit,  and all the leaks in the gas system get plugged with carbon.

The LW and other piston systems on AR's go along way in solving design problems that the user is held accountable for.  I can only speak with authority on the LW rifle.  Reports on the others seem to jive in the same direction.  On the LW; It solves the carbon in the action problem.  It solves the break in problem as it has a gas system that is essentially air tight until full vent and thus only uses 5% of tapped gas by volume.  100% of the pressure is used to get the carrier to inertia required for a full consistent stroke, once there, the gas is dumped abruptly.  This all occurs with less than 3/4 " of piston movement.

It provides for easier opening of the action.  In the impingement gun the gas goes down into the key into a gas chamber.  The gas presses the carrier to unlock and back toward the bolt as well.  This provides for an effective delay, but makes for more required gas and energy to open.  Once unlocked the pressure is releived through the carrier ports.  The point is the LW has much more positive extraction as the force needed to unlock is less, the bullet has left the barrel and it unlocks and extracts with no opposing forces.  

They have solved the lube problem.  The weapon can be run completely dry thus not allowing dirt and dust to collect.  Any carbon present from the chamber can't stick to the teflon in the sandstrom.  It eliminates the probems of gas tubes that don't properly interface with the key.  

It solves the problem of pressure curves required in SBR's.  It solves the problem of ammo sensitivity and use of non standard propellants.  Imagine if LW AR's were used in the beginning of Vietnam.  They used the wrong propellant in the ammo supplied and troops died because the weapons were sensitive to the use of different propellants.  Other issues in play as well like chromed chambers etc. but  those guys were sacrificed by a design flaw that still exists today yet we make sure the correct propellants are used.

Before I got on this rant, my main goal was to tell you that mulligans in shooting sports should not be acceptable.  After all, these sports are supposed to mirror real scenarios.  If thats the case, lots of those guys at that tach match would be dead.  I don't know what ISSUEs their weapons had nor did I care, because I knew not much was gonna stop my little LW.  And this has been our experience ever since we had the opportunity to shoot these.  Yes, someone will tell me their AR shot 10 K rounds without maintenece.  Good for you!  Too bad every last one of them doesn't do that.

Jesse ran our shorty AK on Auto most of the match.  He had one stoppage and it was related to a spent casing bouncing off the barricaid back into the action.  It works great, however the AK handguards are not up to the task.  The cocking handle would also get so hot you could hardly cock it.  Changing mags is a pain in the ass.

To alter your paradigm about maintenence, let me refer you to Ol'Dirty on my website....

www.grenadierprecision.com/oldirty.html

This is my opinion.  I have thought about this since the late 80's when we received the C7 in the CF.  There have been other piston systems that did fall by the wayside as they were not properly engineered, executed or tested.  The 3 main piston weapons on the market today all have advantages over inpingement in my opinion.  Each has slight idiosyncratic differences that may give one a slight advantage over the other.  I am biased toward one, and can give you reasons why, but they are irrellivant to these observations.  Any of the 3 on the market would have faired better than any of the other impingement guns.  

I hope you can open your minds and not discount what I have to say just because you are happy with your AR's.  But understand, you have adjusted your Paradigm of what a rifle needs to make sure it goes bang every time and therefore many of you will be biased in favor of your impingement guns that have served you well in whatever capacity you use them for.  You should be the weakest link in your rifle system.  I am not advocating no maintenence, or abuse, but if you are the most important link in your systems reliability, there is something that can and has been improved.

Welcome to the world of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

Quoted: Welcome to the world of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

for real

We don't go for much them well put arguments here in the GD.

Take your damn high-falutin and well written diatribe back to technical forums smarty.



(Seriously, good read - but I still ain't sold on the gas piston for the AR)

dang.  Tag for when I have more than just 30min left at work.

As soon as my old fashioned AR jams, I'll let you know.

Quoted: .

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Most excellent post 48...!

thinly disguised advertisement.  raf