For those that actually have, or have had them, what's your verdict: good bad, ugly???? Not considering cost as a factor.

MM

I think if your going sbr and suppressed, it may make sense. Other than that I'm not sure you will see any benefits.

LMT - runs good; runs CLEAN, very accurate. Mil Spec trigger needs replacement. Thinking Timney.

I am surprised that my Ruger SR-762 shoots as accurate as it does and I like it.

my AR180B is a piston gun. I honestly don't see any real difference in operation between it and a DI AR rifle.

Certainly superior to direct impingement in terms of keeping the crud away from the chamber and bolt carrier region. All crud and soot stays in the piston and gas block area. This makes it more reliable under conditions where frequent cleaning of the action isn't possible.

My Sig P-516 G2 has been 100% after over three hundred rounds. Groups are running around 1.25" at 100 yards with PMC Bronze 55 grain ball, using an informal bench rest.

I'd be surprised if anyone has had a hiccup on a range use DI AR in under 1000 rds with no cleaning or lube.

I know folks, that are top line shooters, that have run the guns all year, meaning likely a new barrel is next, 5000 to 10000 rounds... without doing any more than wiping the BCG off and putting a bit of lube on it again, every 1500 rounds or so...

I never thought about cleaning my match guns until 300 rounds were down the tube...

I've never owned a piston gun

I can count on my hand how many times a DI gun failed me and the reasons were always an ammo boo boo on my part.

I counted once how many rounds we think we went through while shooting DI guns.... Lets just say 20,000 rounds a year give or take, and for sure at least 10 years, and maybe 11-12 if you count in various tests at times before swappping totally away from the M14

Stupid.




Travis

same, I don't clean my DIguns much at all. The only and one single failure IIRC I have had with any AR gun was due to a magazine, one single cheap metal magazine resulted in 1 failure.

problems seem to follow some people around. My dad always said "buy the best tool that you can afford" if you live by that rule your odds in life go up.

Earlier this year, I spent some time with my friend who is a smith and CIII dealer. We shot some of his FA and supressed toys, and the one that broke down was one of his Piston AR's. To be fair we were running that one FA, but he said it was his second piston gun to break down vs none of his DI's and he said he wasn't buying the Kool-Aid anymore.

I've put more than a few rounds through the H&K and the Ruger, both shot very well, functioned perfectly.

I've always liked the idea of a piston gun. But until they become a military standard and parts are standardized, I'm not interested. The reality is, they just make cleaning less of a chore. If that's important to you, then by all means. They can be more reliable in very extreme conditions, but you have to really abuse an AR before you'd notice the difference. Still, more reliability is always welcome. I think the H&K is the best of the bunch, but it's not worth what they want for it. I'd much rather start with a Colt's, buy a good optic, large stack of Lancer magazines, and a weapon light/laser combo, and still have money over for a case or two of ammo.

My experience is limited to three ar's and four uppers, all .223/5.56 DI and with a couple thousand rounds of handloads every single one has gone bang every time. I just don't see the "benefit" of adding the piston and op rod, it just seems to add weight and complexity where none is needed.

then again I've never thought the AR should be melded into an AK varient.

Happened to talk to my CIII friend again and asked him about any follow up on his piston guns. Says he was running three and two of the three have gone down versus none of his DI guns. Says the piston guns have failed multiple times in different ways as the round counts stack up (kinda defeats the purpose of keeping the residue out of the working parts, if the working parts aren't reliable to begin with). He brought up a point related to that. He said his DI guns will have parts available into the next millenium, but he's not confident he will be able to maintain his piston guns into the next decade with each manufacturer making proprietary parts.

The icing on the cake was when he told me to look up a discussion started by his friends at Henderson Defense who run very high volume in their rent-a-machine gun business. Very enlightening;http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_118/..._how_they_have_handled_on_our_range.html
Seems that they only run the HK design now, and only because of customer demand.

Anybody that'd want a 416 over a Colt is a retard.




Travis

First SP-1 in 1977 or 78, 12 DI guns till now and 1 failure to feed. I consider my Ruger SR-762 a hobby gun.

That's an incredibly useful link with a load of information, especially on various components durability.....thanks for posting.

MM

Except for an AR-10 that needed an extractor spring upgrade, and another that got a batch of bad brass, I've had flawless reliability from several different AR's.

A piston gun might be better if you had to shoot 1000 rounds full auto in a sandstorm, but I doubt it.

I put 1200 rounds through a DS Arms 16" AR upper once with no lube (not even on the BCG) or cleaning and it didn't fail one time. I was impressed.

Very interesting information. Thanks for sharing. Makes me doubly glad I've never wavered from DI. Thought about it for a while, but ended up figuring I'd just be adding one more link in the chain to go wrong.

Totally fugking useless.

That includes the 416 for all you 416 lovers.




Travis

Any of those here????????

(but you do know that was supposedly what O'Neill used to pop UBL........)

MM