Lightweight Bolt Carrier Group and Recoil - AR15

[arjohnson]

Recoil can be managed with an adjustable gas block, brake and buffer combo using a lightened carrier just the same as a full weight carrier.

What you give up when using lightened carriers, buffers and reducing gas flow is reliability. Gun may not shoot certain ammo or run well when dirty, but since it's a range toy it doesn't really matter, tune it for the cheapest shit ammo and it should run just about everything if that's your goal.

[Emptymag]

Random thought as I sit here on a cold, rainy day, browsing for parts:

It's crazy that a .625 adjustable gas block costs more than an entire BCG.

[Gun]

Wat does this mean? What "system"?
I went to the Vltor site but don't see anything that seems to apply.


By the way, the lower/stock is not a standard setup - I'm using a GWACS Armory CAV-15 one-piece unit.

It's this,



so it won't work in that.

[Emptymag]

Gotcha. ^^^

Fun fact: The CAV15 lower utilizes a carbine buffer/spring and the "buffer tube" is molded right into the inside of the stock.

[TooBigToFit]

I'm not much an AR guy, but I've been slowly building up my next AR as things go on sale. I put together a "franken" upper of my new parts and old parts (basically, the midlength barrel, upper, and BCG from the old gun with the handguard and adjustable gas block of the new one). It's got a Superlative Arms adjustable gas block on it.

When I first took it out, I forgot that I had shut off the gas. I was caught by how little recoil there was. Then I opened it up all the way, and the amount of recoil surprised me, pretty much the most I've felt out of any .223 gun. Surely, the adjustable gas block will have some sort of setting between "low recoil but no ejection" and "lots of recoil with lots of ejection." I just haven't bothered to figure out where that is yet.

You're welcome to borrow the upper if you'd like to play around with it to see if it'd make a tangible enough difference for you. I honestly don't shoot it at all.

[Emptymag]

I'm not much an AR guy, but I've been slowly building up my next AR as things go on sale. I put together a "franken" upper of my new parts and old parts (basically, the midlength barrel, upper, and BCG from the old gun with the handguard and adjustable gas block of the new one). It's got a Superlative Arms adjustable gas block on it.

When I first took it out, I forgot that I had shut off the gas. I was caught by how little recoil there was. Then I opened it up all the way, and the amount of recoil surprised me, pretty much the most I've felt out of any .223 gun. Surely, the adjustable gas block will have some sort of setting between "low recoil but no ejection" and "lots of recoil with lots of ejection." I just haven't bothered to figure out where that is yet.

You're welcome to borrow the upper if you'd like to play around with it to see if it'd make a tangible enough difference for you. I honestly don't shoot it at all.

No real need to try it, but thanks. That's the brand I'll likely use. It's $89 and while I don't want to pay that much, I can't seem to find one for less. Not as many .625 diameter adjustable blocks on the market.

If it were for me, I wouldn't bother with adjustable as 5.56 recoil isn't bad enough to warrant the added cost, but since it's for my wife...

[NathanB]

OK, so what I'm interpreting from that is that using a lightweight BCG won't necessarily adversely affect recoil.

This is the meat of my question because if I can buy this BCG at the sale price I have shaved weight without spending any more than I would for a standard BCG.

In my opinion no. I don't think it impacts reliability if done right either. My three gun rifle has never choked to my memory. Keep in mind that it's a gas system. So all parts must work together. If you're doing light weight bolt you should do a buffer and adjustable gas too.

[Emptymag]

In my opinion no. I don't think it impacts reliability if done right either. My three gun rifle has never choked to my memory. Keep in mind that it's a gas system. So all parts must work together. If you're doing light weight bolt you should do a buffer and adjustable gas too.

What do you mean by "do a buffer"?

[edritchey]

If you use a carbine stock you can use a limbsaver recoil pad I put one on my wife's 6920 and it made the recoil a little lighter. here is a link to them - LINK they are not real cheap but seem to work well and don't add much weight.

[NathanB]

Meaning you should really look into a lighter weight buffer too.
This is the buffer in my 3 gun rifle

http://www.tacticallink.com/Taccom-U...-for-AR15.html