Empirical Evidence for AR Supremacy ???

[Stephen Cue]

Let me first start off by saying that I do not claim AR's on the right side of the chart are of equal quality to the ones on the left side.

I have said of the AR's on the right that "many are just as good" as they ones on the left, albeit for an individuals specific needs.

Obviously the AR's on the left: Colt, Noveske, LMT, etc are put through more "quality control" i.e. MPI testing, HPT, Shot peening, Mil.Spec, staking the gas key, etc; than AR's on the right.

Another thing Leftside ARs have is that they are individually tested as opposed to batch testing or no test at all.

SO......

Now that we have established this fact. Lets get to the evidence. How many of you know of AR's on the right failing due to not being put through the extra "quality" processes that AR's on the left go through?

I would love to read anecdotal evidence from people that have experience with AR's in combat.

I am honestly curious and will let the evidence speak for itself. Also, I am not looking for personal opinion arguments, nor will I cast any disparaging comments myself toward anyone.

BTW...I also fully believe that one should buy what they can afford and make whatever improvements, if any, they need to.

Here is a link to the "CHART"

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pwswheghNQsEuEhjFwPrgTA&single=true&gid=5&output=html

 

[264Magnum]

The thing is, the guns on the right side have probably never been in combat. The only evidence you'll get of guns in combat are the pretty ones on the left.

 

[ez bake]

The thing is, the guns on the right side have probably never been in combat. The only evidence you'll get of guns in combat are the pretty ones on the left.

I was just gonna say - "experience with ARs in combat" is probably going to limit who can even comment about this to very few folks who still own ARs.

I know several folks who were issued M4s or had AR patrol rifles and as soon as they got out of Law Enforcement or the military, they didn't want much to do with them.

How about instead of experience with ARs in combat, you go with a set amount of use (i.e. carried through rough terrain, shot more than 1000rds at a session, used roughly because of necessity, exposed to elements, checked for accuracy, etc...).

This is a good premise for a fairly cool science project of sorts - I'd love to see several tests done (strictly by users' experience) to see which manufacturer's stuff will hold up to some rough use with or without the extra testing.

Part of the problem with going by individual users' experience is that with batch testing, there is a wide variation of experiences available with that particular manufacturer (several problems could be missed, while several good ARs could be floating around out there).

 

[264Magnum]

People with competition experience would probably be easier to come by.

 

[Glocktogo]

Including competition experience and intense multi-day classes will broaden the experience pool. Otherwise, check m4carbine.net. There seem to be fewer airsoft and low end users on there than arfcom.

 

[Stephen Cue]

This all sounds good guys, I'm up for whatever the consensus may be.

 

[KurtM]

Wellllllll....... I guess I would like to add a few thoughts here, go figure. In random order so here goes.

Mil Spec. is exactly that, no better, no worse. For example a Noveski Stainless barrel IS NOT MIL SPEC! it's chamber dimensions are different as is it's profile, hardness ( which is much harder by the way), and rifling....ALL of these aspects FAR EXCEED! Mil Spec....But it isn't Mil Spec!

I have only seen 3 bolts ever fail ( civilian use). I have only ever had one fail on me and it was a COLT with all the great gobbly gook letters on it. Of the 3 I have seen two were DPMS and one was a LMT ( one of the DPMS bolts failed, after the gun blew up so was it really the bolt...or was this a true "high pressure test")

If I were to take the trouble to turn a barrel so that a gas block were to sit on it and SEAL the gas port to the gas block, the last thing I would do would be to etch the barrel surface in an acid solution ( parkerizing ) and ruin that nice smooth SEALING surface!

Proper staking??? From One guys opinion?? ( Yes I read the little blurb above the list) No Loc-Tite??... Guess he doesn't know about the High Temp varieties that only start yielding around 1150 Degress...and how about Rock Set?? I have only ever heard or seen ( both at the same time) of one gas key coming loose..ever ever ever! (Bennie Cooley's) at a large 3-gun match, and that was because he had NEVER thought to STAKE it and DIDN'T use any thread locker, just tightened them down and called it good....AND it was on it's SECOND barrel when it started to leak!

MPI...Magnetic particle testing...all it does is check for cracks in the bolt BEFORE use ( not a bad QC thing ), It does nothing for the elasticity or surface hardness of the bolt. IF you start with good material and have a good machining process.....it is just a check, nothing more, and has nothing to do with what happens AFTER the proof round is fired! And now we are on HPT High pressure tested mean the gun was fired with a proof round. It tests the bolt and the barrel at the same time. IF YOU BUY A BOLT ALONE it has not been HPTed!!!!!

Only Saber Defense makes almost all their own parts, everyone else relies on all sorts of companies to get their parts from. If these parts meet a certain standard we will call mil spec...they are deemed acceptable...NOT GREAT, NOT BAD...just ACCEPTABLE. There are many parts out there that far exceed anything the Military would ever dream of. Many of these parts are made of much better quality and material, and if bought in large #s would be cost prohibitive for Military use.

Most all AR problems can be attributed to LACK OF CLEANING AND MAINTENANCE. Yes I know that EVERY maker of AR's has made bad ones!, but in general it is the "operator" that lets the rifle down. IE in class I gave recently, I had a guy swear up and down that Saber was complete crap! Those "English junk heaps" (Ian Guy, the owner of Saber is English) as he called them. I asked why he said " I got a brand new rifle from them and it shot OK at first, but now it short stokes all the time and double feeds...complete junk.
He had it with him and I asked to see it over lunch. it was bone dry, he never cleaned it after shooting almost 1000 of Wolf ammo ( which in my opinion is fine, just very dirty), never oiled it from right out of the box, and let it bounce around in the trunk of his car that had a leaking "sand tube" from many winters ago. I cleaned it up, OILED the heck and it ran flawlessly. Even put the upper on an M-16 lower and ran a few 30 round mag dumps...FLAWLESS. I asked him why he never oiled it or cleaned it and he replied he had read something long ago about ARs need to be run dry so they don't attract dirt and since he hadn't shot over 2 or 3 thousand rounds it didn't need cleaning yet...WAIT....WAIT... He said his DPMS was twice the rifle the Saber is he "just got it before the class" and so far after zeroing it in that very morning had yet to have a single malfunction...after a grand total of 250 rounds!

As long as it groups good, functions well after PROPER care, and it has run around 500 round trouble free....they are ALL good.

As for Mil Spec, and "Combat proven" just remember that on Military M-4s With Military spec. parts they require the bolt to be replaced every 5000 rounds...because of bolts breaking....so where does that Leave Mil Spec?

 

[CAR-AR-M16]

Wellllllll....... I guess I would like to add a few thoughts here, go figure. In random order so here goes.

Mil Spec. is exactly that, no better, no worse. For example a Noveski Stainless barrel IS NOT MIL SPEC! it's chamber dimensions are different as is it's profile, hardness ( which is much harder by the way), and rifling....ALL of these aspects FAR EXCEED! Mil Spec....But it isn't Mil Spec!

I have only seen 3 bolts ever fail ( civilian use). I have only ever had one fail on me and it was a COLT with all the great gobbly gook letters on it. Of the 3 I have seen two were DPMS and one was a LMT ( one of the DPMS bolts failed, after the gun blew up so was it really the bolt...or was this a true "high pressure test")

If I were to take the trouble to turn a barrel so that a gas block were to sit on it and SEAL the gas port to the gas block, the last thing I would do would be to etch the barrel surface in an acid solution ( parkerizing ) and ruin that nice smooth SEALING surface!

Proper staking??? From One guys opinion?? ( Yes I read the little blurb above the list) No Loc-Tite??... Guess he doesn't know about the High Temp varieties that only start yielding around 1150 Degress...and how about Rock Set?? I have only ever heard or seen ( both at the same time) of one gas key coming loose..ever ever ever! (Bennie Cooley's) at a large 3-gun match, and that was because he had NEVER thought to STAKE it and DIDN'T use any thread locker, just tightened them down and called it good....AND it was on it's SECOND barrel when it started to leak!

MPI...Magnetic particle testing...all it does is check for cracks in the bolt BEFORE use ( not a bad QC thing ), It does nothing for the elasticity or surface hardness of the bolt. IF you start with good material and have a good machining process.....it is just a check, nothing more, and has nothing to do with what happens AFTER the proof round is fired! And now we are on HPT High pressure tested mean the gun was fired with a proof round. It tests the bolt and the barrel at the same time. IF YOU BUY A BOLT ALONE it has not been HPTed!!!!!

Only Saber Defense makes almost all their own parts, everyone else relies on all sorts of companies to get their parts from. If these parts meet a certain standard we will call mil spec...they are deemed acceptable...NOT GREAT, NOT BAD...just ACCEPTABLE. There are many parts out there that far exceed anything the Military would ever dream of. Many of these parts are made of much better quality and material, and if bought in large #s would be cost prohibitive for Military use.

Most all AR problems can be attributed to LACK OF CLEANING AND MAINTENANCE. Yes I know that EVERY maker of AR's has made bad ones!, but in general it is the "operator" that lets the rifle down. IE in class I gave recently, I had a guy swear up and down that Saber was complete crap! Those "English junk heaps" (Ian Guy, the owner of Saber is English) as he called them. I asked why he said " I got a brand new rifle from them and it shot OK at first, but now it short stokes all the time and double feeds...complete junk.
He had it with him and I asked to see it over lunch. it was bone dry, he never cleaned it after shooting almost 1000 of Wolf ammo ( which in my opinion is fine, just very dirty), never oiled it from right out of the box, and let it bounce around in the trunk of his car that had a leaking "sand tube" from many winters ago. I cleaned it up, OILED the heck and it ran flawlessly. Even put the upper on an M-16 lower and ran a few 30 round mag dumps...FLAWLESS. I asked him why he never oiled it or cleaned it and he replied he had read something long ago about ARs need to be run dry so they don't attract dirt and since he hadn't shot over 2 or 3 thousand rounds it didn't need cleaning yet...WAIT....WAIT... He said his DPMS was twice the rifle the Saber is he "just got it before the class" and so far after zeroing it in that very morning had yet to have a single malfunction...after a grand total of 250 rounds!

As long as it groups good, functions well after PROPER care, and it has run around 500 round trouble free....they are ALL good.

As for Mil Spec, and "Combat proven" just remember that on Military M-4s With Military spec. parts they require the bolt to be replaced every 5000 rounds...because of bolts breaking....so where does that Leave Mil Spec?

I do agree with just about everything you say. Mil-spec is a minimum specification that must be met. Some AR manufacturers exceed this spec and some don't even come up to this spec. Your postings seem to show that you have some kind of hatred for the term though.

One thing that you did leave out was shot peening of the bolt which does do something for the surface hardness of the bolt. Again, some manufacturers do this and some don't.

One last thing. You stated "that on Military M-4s With Military spec. parts they require the bolt to be replaced every 5000 rounds...because of bolts breaking". Do you have a source for this? The -23&P TM mentions nothing about this and I don't know how anyone could keep up with it anyway as there is no detailed accounting of how many rounds are fired through an individual weapon. We have some M-16's in the weapons pool here at Fort Sill that I can guarantee you are still on their original bolt after many years of hard use and abuse. Not saying it is not true, just would like a source. Either way, it would not be a bad idea to replace them often because if a bolt were to break in combat you cannot just "stop the match" while you get a spare. I do not see how you can equate a preventative replacement of a bolt to save a soldiers life to the fact that a "mil-spec" bolt is no better than any other.

 

[KurtM]

This is a recomended procedure from Crane Naval Weapons facility, for Dev group, and is recomended SOCOM procedure as well ( replacing the bolt ). I didn't say it wasn't a good idea, it was meerly used to show that even Mil Spec parts can and do fail, at a high rate, to get a memo from Crane. this last June while I was doing some shooting with the A.M.U. at Ft Benning I was shown a 3 pound coffe can of broken M-16 Bolts from just the few the A.M.U. uses in teaching.

I don't have a "hatred" of mil spec. What I have a distaste for is that when ever any one new to ARs who just wants a rifle to shoot a bit with askes what would be a good lower priced rifle...the answer form some here is "ONLY BUY MIL SPEC" or it won't be any good. I, you, or anyone can buy bucket fulls of mil spec parts and assemble an AR all day long ( Fulton Armory, LMT parts Bravo parts...etc), but when they are assembled by some of these "high end" builders you would swear that the parts were made of Platinum, and yet we tell these poor new shooter guys that you need to spend cubic dollars to get a Mil Spec gun. Your average shooter will never come close to burning out an AR, those who do soon realise that as long as it hasn't kaboomed in the last 2000 rounds it will most likely keep shooting for quite a few barrels, gas rings, extractors, and gas tubes worth of fun, no matter whether the parts are "mil spec" or not.

When you see a truely High End custom rifle Like J.P. or Firebird with great fire control systems, custom made bolt carriers, truely STRONG upper and lower receivers with built in mag wells, true match grade barrels like Hart, Krieger and Lothart Walther and then see the same price tag attached to a conglomerate of "Mil Spec" part....well I think you see were I am coming from.

As for Shot Peening, there are two schools of thought on it, some say it is the only way to go, others Like Reed Knight ( which is no recomendation ) and J.P. don't like the process. I myself care not one way or the other, as it only SURFACE stress releives and does nothing for the bolt other than MAYBE stop a crack from propagating....BUT since we already MPIed the darn thing...cause you can't shot peen before MPI, we already know it isn't cracked....so why???

 

[Glocktogo]

While I think that "mil-spec" is a heavily abused term, in and of itself it only means a narrow set of specifications that the military deemed necessary to ensure an item would perform to a certain standard (reasonable performance for the cost incurred).

There are a lot of AR parts suppliers and builders who use premium parts that meet or exceed the spec. But you'll usually not find parts present that don't at least meet that standard. There are plenty of AR companies that use substandard parts in their builds though.

All parts regardless of spec will rarely fail in a light use rifle and Kurt is correct that most malfs will be due to improper maintenance or reassembly issues such as misaligned gas rings.

In most cases the culprit responsible for true parts failure will either be very poor quality materials used in manufacture of the part, or excessive heat. Heat kills springs, degrades soft materials such as extractor inserts and contributes to metal stretching and fatigue failure under pressure.

If you're wanting a weekend plinker and light duty home defense carbine, paying premium prices for the best of the best is overkill. But if you intend the carbine to be capable of extreme use and long term durability, the better the parts and materials the more likely it will perform as expected.

Unlike some AR snobs, I don't look down on anyone who buys a $750 AR as unwashed or uninformed. But if they believe it will hang with a top notch build under extreme conditions, they might wind up disappointed. Nothing in life is a sure bet, but you can stack the odds in your favor.

I've got a DPMS lower with a Professional Ordinance upper that's very reliable since I upgraded the bolt (a $4.95 insurance policy that everyone should get). I shoot it in competition because it's so light, I have an advantage in speed over a short course.

But I went with a Noveske for a hard use carbine because I wanted something that would not only inspire confidence, but be very durable in the event it saw a lot of extended firing. There's an AR to fit virtually every budget. Where people wind up disappointed is when they want $$$$ performance for $$ price. JMO, YMMV