Removing the Forward Assist?

[AndyLate]

Using the forward assist in the military offered me a few opportunities for an epic mortar session. SPORTS is evil, forward assist not so much.

EDIT - I did not say forward assists are bad, the way we were trained to use them was incorrect or incomplete. I might build on a slickside upper, but would not remove (or not install) a forward assist on a normal upper.

Andy

[Butch]

I voted to keep it. Military/LE experience is moot. Considering what can happen if you squeeze the trigger on a live round with the carrier out of battery, it never hurts to rap on the FA a couple times.

[Averageman]

Software issue, not a hardware issue.

[hk_shootr]

Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

[cowboybart]

Is there a cover made to put over the FA port?? I'm putting together an upper and don't want the FA as part of it. My other uppers are slick sided, but this one has the port.

[1168]

Using the forward assist in the military offered me a few opportunities for an epic mortar session. SPORTS is evil, forward assist not so much.

Andy

Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

I’m somewhere in this area. My professional experience says it isn’t needed, and using it can make things worse. I used to seek out uppers without it, but future builds will have one that simply goes unused, for the purpose of commonality with work guns.

I don’t press check or use SPORTS.

[Todd.K]

Press checks? It's necessary so you can run your AR like a 1911?

It has very little use as intended and causes more problems than it fixes with the reasons invented for it's use.

[hk_shootr]

Is there a cover made to put over the FA port?? I'm putting together an upper and don't want the FA as part of it. My other uppers are slick sided, but this one has the port.

Many years ago I built a 9mm upper using a standard receiver. I cut down the fwd assist button. Epoxied itin place and drilled a gas vent hole in it. Works well and looks rather normal.

[Duffy]

FA's application may be different in the military than in civilian (including LE) use. I've heard argument for and against the FA from both camps, the only conclusion I could draw which still applies today in my estimate, and I saw the same conclusion in 2012 when we weighed the cost vs. benefit of the LDFA (LDFA cost significantly more than a no name FA with unknown country of origin), was that while some users have used it and found it useful, others haven't and couldn't care less for it, this is invariably the split we see.

Another conclusion is we don't get into debates for the FA, it's difficult to impossible to change someone's mind about it so we don't try. That we talk about it sometimes on forums is only because we want to disseminate and share information so folks could at least take our experience under advisement.

That it can cause problems from misuse is true of any tool mankind has made. For those that don't need or use it, it's a solution in search of a problem, a phrase we hear often enough from folks for whom the solution wasn't intended. To an able bodied person, a wheelchair is a solution in search of a problem.

We're obviously for the FA, we've been making the LDFA since 2015. It's done very well for a product I thought would totally go unnoticed and be a slow seller.

[Stickman]

People are complaining about the forward assist being useless. I disagree.

Who is complaining? The people who have never been in a stack? The people who have never had to press check a weapon silently? The people who still think it is there to cram malfunctions and turn them into jams?


I don't care what anyone is doing if they aren't on my squad, family, or one of my friends. Those people however, have a need to be squared away, and they have the right to hold me to the same expectations.