The perfect general purpose 308 AR

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10 years 11 months ago #32622 by OleCowboy
Replied by OleCowboy on topic The perfect general purpose 308 AR

Siscowet wrote:

maskman228 wrote: The armalite upper is my only choice because my EDM lower only accepts Armalite uppers. And you are correct when you say running behind.

.243 or something like it is what the military should have looked at in 1960 instead of the 5.56 round. It is an excellent round, and does what the 5.56 cannot. Not sure it can do what a 7.62x51 can, however. But for a general carry military personal weapon, it would have been a good choice of caliber IMO.


Sisco, the 243 brings a lot to the table for sure.


5.56@55gr: 100 yds: 2897 fps 1024 ft lbs

.243@55gr: 100 yds: 3492 fps 1488 ft lbs


5.56@55gr: 300 yds: 2234 fps 609 ft lbs

.243@55gr: 300 yds: 2763 fps 932 ft lbs

And the WINNER IS.....

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10 years 11 months ago #32625 by Siscowet
Replied by Siscowet on topic The perfect general purpose 308 AR
A purchaser of the Ruger 762 on another forum had a very in depth report on it. While being an Armalite fan, they may want to develop a piston design. There are some advantages. Apparently cleaning is a snap because the BCG hardly gets dirty at all. And when combined with an adjustable gas block, you can adjust for subsonic loads for a suppressor can quite easily. It is looking interesting.

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10 years 11 months ago #32626 by OleCowboy
Replied by OleCowboy on topic The perfect general purpose 308 AR

Siscowet wrote: A purchaser of the Ruger 762 on another forum had a very in depth report on it. While being an Armalite fan, they may want to develop a piston design. There are some advantages. Apparently cleaning is a snap because the BCG hardly gets dirty at all. And when combined with an adjustable gas block, you can adjust for subsonic loads for a suppressor can quite easily. It is looking interesting.


I read a comprehensive report on that (not sure if its the same one or not), but it does ding the 762 on being quite front end heavy. They have the piston up front wich works well, but with weight an issue is that a major detriment?

What I would like to see is a 'shared' piston approach, so as be it Ruger or ArmaLite the parts are common, etc...till then I fear it...

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10 years 11 months ago #32628 by SOC
Replied by SOC on topic The perfect general purpose 308 AR
Piston systems are way overrated on ARs, want a piston op gun get an AK, SCAR, ACR, G36, SIG 556 etc as those guns were designed to work that way without the heavy mods needed to make an AR operate on a piston without eating itself.

The AR-15 only gets a boost from a piston if your using poor quality, dirty, corroded ammo and a slight improvement when outside grime gets in the rifle.

The additional operating mass and energy makes the above even less of an issue in large platform ARs.

IMHO the additional money spent on a piston AR of any type would be better spent on a heavy buffer, stronger buffer spring, adjustable gas block, and a titanium nitride, nickle boron, dimondblack, or similar coated BCG.

The above will boost reliability in adverse conditions, speed cleaning and only add a few oz at most. All without sacrificing accuracy, balance, or adding extra parts that can break or be lost during disassembly.
The following user(s) said Thank You: jtallen83

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10 years 11 months ago #32629 by maskman228
Replied by maskman228 on topic The perfect general purpose 308 AR
Agreed

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10 years 11 months ago #32630 by Siscowet
Replied by Siscowet on topic The perfect general purpose 308 AR
A lot of points both ways, who is really to know? I haven't seen enough out of Seal/SOCOM use of the H and K 416 in the Afghanistan environment to know if it really answered the piston vs DI question. For me, it probably wouldn't make any difference. But under the terms of discussion in this thread, it makes for a lively discussion. Only way to find out more is to shoot one myself. I am going to find a way to do that.

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10 years 11 months ago #32639 by jtallen83
Replied by jtallen83 on topic The perfect general purpose 308 AR

Siscowet wrote: A purchaser of the Ruger 762 on another forum had a very in depth report on it. While being an Armalite fan, they may want to develop a piston design. There are some advantages. Apparently cleaning is a snap because the BCG hardly gets dirty at all. And when combined with an adjustable gas block, you can adjust for subsonic loads for a suppressor can quite easily. It is looking interesting.


I can see the BCG would be easier to clean but would the adjustable gas block itself be easy to clean? Eventually you'll have to clean it, how fast can that be done? The "piston AR" almost seems like a step backwards, didn't the M-14 use something very similar? My thoughts are less parts, less the chance something can break. Accuracy is another issue. When piston AR's start winning competitions on a regular basis then I might give them more credit there, till then I'm just not sure..........

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10 years 11 months ago #32640 by maskman228
Replied by maskman228 on topic The perfect general purpose 308 AR
My thoughts as well.

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10 years 11 months ago #32658 by OleCowboy
Replied by OleCowboy on topic The perfect general purpose 308 AR
For the reasons some of you have mentioned the piston generally seems to just be a nothing more than a another approach. While there are weapons out there that use the piston and do well with it. In every case it was a organic design from day 1.

Part 2: There is a lot of truth to the old axe, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. The DGI system has no shortage of use around the world and a history going back to the 50's. I have never seen the problem the piston fixes. WHile often we hear you got to keep you AR clean I also had to keep a M14 clean and look back and never saw a lot of additional effort to clean my AR. In the 70's for some reason we seemed to have millions of blanks to shoot up. We would go to the field for a 5 day FTX and shoot blanks by the hundreds and 1000's. Blanks REALLY carbon up bad, but with the right tools were a breeze to clean. ( would soak my M 16 in carbon cleaner I got down at the Chev house, set it on a pie pan to catch the drips, put it in my wall locker, take a long lunch, come back, wipe off and turn in my M 16 for 'white glove' at about 1400 hrs. I was always the first guy to get his weapon turn in and pass inspection.

What are the key advantages of the piston vs DGI?????????

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10 years 11 months ago - 10 years 11 months ago #32661 by faawrenchbndr
Replied by faawrenchbndr on topic The perfect general purpose 308 AR

OleCowboy wrote: What are the key advantages of the piston vs DGI?????????



-Piston advantages
--Bolt, carrier and chamber stays cleaner
--Bolt, carrier and chamber stays cooler

-Piston disagvantages
--Piston gets dirty
--Piston, pushrod, gas block and surrounding areas get extremely hot, much quicker than DI
--Accuracy suffers from that of a comparable DI

So in the end, from what I have experienced, unless you are an Operator in the dirt, it's all about where you would rather have the carbon and heat. Gloves are a requirement very quickly with a piston carbine. Also consider the parts, there seem to be about seven different configurations of piston systems on the market. Parts are proprietary and expensive.
Last edit: 10 years 11 months ago by faawrenchbndr.

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