http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2...-rental-range/
sometimes in excess of 200,000 rounds through commercially available and full auto ARs
good read....
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2...-rental-range/
sometimes in excess of 200,000 rounds through commercially available and full auto ARs
good read....
I appreciate the class to come out and say 'we weren't following manufacturer directions, so we're not going to name names. We broke them, they didn't work for us at our firing and maintenance schedule'.
The bolts being the first failure point, to the point where the lugs deforming over time and getting out of headspace range is happening concurrently with lugs start to shear and break is actually pretty cool to think about - the fact that bolts are happily going 20k rounds is neat.
I am curious what the extractor setups they favor are - my guess with running DD/LMT BCG's would be that those extractors run fine (and running exclusively factory new brass ammunition seems to help a ton).
I've been following that for a couple of months, quite interesting.
Interesting lube comments were made. Should be quoted in the FC thread!
I wish we could know what manufacturer it was that warranted this comment
-– There is company that has an AR system that has some “parts don’t need lubrication” and that failed before the end of the first day. I don’t think some mfg’s understand that people REALLY use their weapons and when you’re rocking full-auto all day they NEED lubrication. My armorers and RSO’s were laughing when it seized up because we knew there was NO way it would last on our range.
Anderson maybe? Home of the world's NO LUBE AR as they proudly proclaim.
http://www.andersonrifles.com
To be fair I've used several of their stripped lowers and been happy. But to not lube an AR? Come on now.
That was definitely a good read. Love to read no BS observations based on serious hands on experience. Thanks for sharing.
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There's a lot more info and specific details on the epic threads on TOS. Including AR, AK, and pistol specific threads. Not sure how applicable full auto all the time is to real world applications though. I understand the need for worst case testing but it's somewhat analogous to reliability testing cars by redlining them on a racetrack until destruction.
Nice to know about USGI mags.
I mostly train and go to work with Pmags but have a "few" USGI mags set aside for a rainy day.
I read that article when it first came out and enjoyed it thoroughly. That article and TOS thread have the AK guys saying it can't be true because they heard from a vet, relative or friend that the AR is a jamomatic POS.
Good read. I was hoping to read about if they had any AR's with billet receivers, and if they had any issues.
So are they running all their piston setups on full auto? Maybe I overlooked that part.
Good read though.
They do make a lot of their money on customer just wanting to blast away on full auto, (and since they're making margin per magazine, it's in their interest to encourage that) so the majority of the rounds are on full auto. This would be the biggest deviation from normal civilian owned AR usage... but using higher quality ammo and actually following a cleaning and lubrication regiment means their guns run better than most.
I think it's funny that he refuses to say how or if the
PWS piston system ran. He won't even comment if
they have used it. He says he doesn't want to comment
on failures of manufacturers because he doesn't want
people to take it wrong, when all throughout the thread
he sites specific names and how they perform. But will
not touch PWS with a 10 ft pole. Intrigues me as to why?
I'm a PWS fanboy as well, so I feel your pain. As I stated earlier though, the operating conditions (full auto all the time) and failure criteria (broken or inoperable parts; key holing at 10y) do not resemble real world conditions so I take the results with a large grain of salt (because fanboy?). It does not seem like FTF and FTEs are tracked very closely based on what I've read but I think that everyone would agree that those play a large role in assessing a weapon's reliability and durability. I frankly put more trust in real world endurance tests like DMack, Todd G, and even Lucky Grunner.
I thought that USGI mags were more prone to bent and damaged feed lips when they hit the deck during reloads. I'm guessing that reloads are a lot more gentle at BLV and possibly even performed by RSOs.
Yup. Could also be something as simple as availability of spares and replacement parts. I can think of a few places just off the top of my head that stock LMT and DD BCG's, but running any kind of proprietary setup means there's probably some unavoidable bottlenecks in supply chain possible.
I'd put a lot of other real-world tests ahead of this, but again it's another data point, that further reinforces the trend that: properly lubricated AR's will run, for a long time, with any reasonable maintenance/cleaning regiment. Replacing a BCG (and using the probably good one as a spare) between 5000-10,000 rounds still sounds quite reasonable, fresh buffer springs around the same time also sounds fairly reasonable. Magazines that don't work good instantly become trash/training mags, and I am really amused that he went out of his way to state that every lube performed as advertised (quite germane to the Fireclean ~ Canola Oil firestorm right now). Really puts a now somewhat old Pat Rogers quote about 'Eye of Newt, CLP, Vagisil - use whatever you want, just use something as a lubricant' being really quite true.
My overall takeaway is it shows how much of the consumer market place really is hype and marketing.....based on his data, a good DI system with a milspec barrel and quality bolt and mag last the longest under these circumstances.
[QUOTE=GiddyHitch;2179863]I'm a PWS fanboy as well, so I feel your pain. As I stated earlier though, the operating conditions (full auto all the time) and failure criteria (broken or inoperable parts; key holing at 10y) do not resemble real world conditions so I take the results with a large grain of salt (because fanboy?). It does not seem like FTF and FTEs are tracked very closely based on what I've read but I think that everyone would agree that those play a large role in assessing a weapon's reliability and durability. I frankly put more trust in real world endurance tests like DMack, Todd G, and even Lucky Grunner.
Yeah the thing is that I don't even know if they have used PWS
products. He won't say. Yes I'm a fan of PWS but I'm not
gonna lose sleep about it. There are just so many variables
that go into these situations. Dmack's test as well as running
my PWS more than instills every bit of confidence in the
system. Even if they had a PWS rifle on their range, and even
say it failed in some way, you have to know how or why.
What were the circumstances? If it was just one rifle you have
to remember that it's just one rifle. EVERY single manufacturer
has had a rifle or component in thier system fail. Not one
is exempt from this. So does this mean we stop using them
all together? People just need to keep in perspective that there
are so many variables that go into these things.
Yet another PWS fan, although I also have a POF and a BCM that I've been happy with. I agree that more info. is always a good thing and it's nice to hear that his AR's generally hold up so well. However, I'm not sure his criteria for a reliable firearm and mine are the same. On the one hand I put my guns through a lot less abuse - never shooting full auto or suppressed. Also, even though I shoot pretty frequently, owning multiple AR's ( plus a bunch of other guns) means that it will be years before I approach putting 10,000 rounds through a rifle.
On the other hand, since it's an indoor range, with lot's of inexperienced shooters and people shooting full auto, his criteria for accuracy is going to be a lot more forgiving than mine. I shoot a lot at 100-250 yards, with lots of sitting and prone shooting. I want my guns to be capable of at least 2-3 MOA with XM193 or its equivalent. So I suspect I'm going to be replacing my barrels long before the bullets start keyholing.
He apparently runs several short barreled PSA uppers, bought at the same time. Apparently he had one short stroking early on, but they fixed it, gas key loose if I recall correctly. And they had a bolt break at the Cam pin after approximately 20-30k rounds. He seems to feel they are on par with lmt and the like as far as parts longevity. At least, that's what I gather.
I don't think most of his data about barrel life is good for much, but parts breakage interests me quite a bit.
He mentioned that ftf and FTE are something they avoid, because otherwise it screws up the experience for the customer. They give the customer another gun and Mag if it has more than a certain number of malfunctions, (3?) no matter the number of rounds left. That gets expensive after a while.
Overall, I think it's some good data.
While his logs are not the most detailed from a rounds fired, tracking mag failures, and the like standpoint, I think that their repair records give a lot of insight into the various systems they run. Full auto and suppressed may skew the results a bit, but that grain of salt is easier to take than what most other people's data sets generate. The fact that the owner seems to be a good guy is a plus as well.
Sent from 80ms in the future
Much peace
Jimmy
Skewed for sure, but wouldn't constant full auto use and suppressed be generally harsher on the components? I would think so. In that case, it would be skewed to suggest the parts would have a shorter service life than a normal user might see.
If a weapon jams once, there's a good chance it was user-related but a second jam means the customer gets a new weapon and they start all over with a fresh magazine, even if they got 24 out of 25 rounds down range. Most of the customers won't take the additional magazine because they feel guilty but it's worth the cost of the ammo to make sure leave with a huge grin and satisfied.
I went to ARFcom and read the whole thing, in fact I copied his comments to make a short handout for the guys I work with.
Ah, thanks for quoting it. Didn't want to go find it myself.
As such, I would assume problematic guns get repaired, or replaced.
I think I read on TOS him saying a range officer loaded and handed them the gun, let them shoot it empty, then took it right back, so of course they wouldn't have any of the rough handling, dropped mags, outdoor conditions, etc., that a duty-type weapon would see.
It's interesting reading but the firing schedule, round counts, and maintenance likely don't match many real-world guns.
I wouldn't have thought to ask those guys, but they obviously know what they're talking about. It was very reassuring to hear that upper receivers don't wear out, as I just gave Vltor 7 big ones for their new keymod mono upper. Good to know it will be around for a long time.:D
The above post does touch on something I thought too, that their choice of lube and maintenance schedule might not work as well for the real world, depending on what the real world is in any given case. For example it might work for police, but may not work for military in the desert. I was also a little surprised that they didn't use TW25B. As far as cleanliness goes, I've always found it to be 100% mess free, but it is pretty pricy and probably not necessary for their purposes. But the info on part longevity is priceless, although they do take the guns far past what would be allowed in any armory, but that's part of what makes the information so useful. Not even the military pushes their guns anywhere close to those round counts without doing a serious overhaul in between. Definitely a very unique perspective that shows what those guns are capable of if taken to their extremes.
In engineering terms, supportability is typically worth more than reliability if you're running stuff to failure anyway. They could probably afford a pool of spares and be able to lean on PSA service to keep their stuff up and running at the same cost they'd be at bare minimum with other stuff, so those were far and away the best value for them. Also keep in mind that they aren't they ones paying for the ammo to test and see if it's running - they're just dealing with the opportunity cost of getting good tips if it doesn't.
Interesting thought, however, they are also using colts, lmts, and DD rifles. They have stated that the PSA stuff has lasted on par with the other brands. I imagine replacement cost for entire rifles is dwarfed by ammunition costs.
If I'm misunderstanding your post, sorry, I'm abbreviated....
I would be willing to believe that PSA lasted as long as DD and Colt under the circumstances they're describing. But...
I would also be willing to bet that the DD and Colt will hold their groups longer, were more accurate to begin with, and most likely have better reliability due to better QC. The thing is, when you're shooting a gun until it keyholes, just about all barrels are going to hold up about as long as the next one. The true measure of barrel life is how many rounds it will fire before the groups start to open up, and that's where quality comes into play. If accuracy of any kind was a factor for them, then I doubt they would be using PSAs.
Also, they're using these guns under ideal circumstances. If the tolerances are a little off, then it's not going to effect anything. On the battlefield, however, poor quality control could lead to less than ideal accuracy or, on the other end, malfunctions when it got dirty.
I've already addressed the accuracy issue. This testing is valid for parts breakage in my opinion, not accuracy. Their accuracy standards are much different than most.
In any case, I don't consider constant full auto Mag dumps ideal conditions, not dirty/dusty but I won't argue here.
By the way, what kind of groups do you expect to shoot while running from building to building and put a few rounds through a window running full sprint? Cause I expect minute of make the shooter duck. Just saying.