Looking at a new Upper for my AR and have been considering a Piston Upper. I was wondering from all of you who own Piston AR Rifles if you think it is worth the costs for what you get?
Thanks,
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Looking at a new Upper for my AR and have been considering a Piston Upper. I was wondering from all of you who own Piston AR Rifles if you think it is worth the costs for what you get?
Thanks,
I own two LWRCI uppers (10.5" M6A1 and a 12.7" M6A3). Both are mounted on NFA lowers (SBR or F/A) and I do reommend them with a caveat.
The reason I purchased these, at three times the cost of DI uppers, because I own nine Glock pistols. The Glocks have spoiled me because I do not bother to clean any of them. When I started doing the same for my Carbine, I experienced a malfunction (DUH!).
The carbon built up so much in front of the firing pin's "hat" that I had failures to fire. So basically, if you would rather not perform as much maintenance on your AR, then I do recommend the piston system. But if you're disciplined enough to clean your rifle regularly, a good quality DI system is more than enough for whatever you might need it for. YMMV.
In a word, no.
I have had a LWRC M6A2 for a couple years now and have only put a few hundred rounds through it. For the price of just the upper you can have a whole rifle. I find it is not balanced as well as a DI gun, I dont see how you can make something more reliable by adding more moving parts, and I am on point with my maintenance. I clean guns for a living and I overestimated/underestimated the piston "goodness" and DI reliability, respectively. FWIW Im selling my M6A2 and piecing together a BCM Recce in its place.
I personally do not own any piston guns but do own many Glocks. Even Glocks need cleaning. I am a Armorer for a living and have Glocks, M4's etc and they all need cleaning. I own two M4's (Lmt, Bcm) and they have not failed me yet. If you would like to own a piston gun than buy one. I would like to purchase one as well but as stated for the price of just an upper you could buy a very reliable DI gun and have a complete rifle for the price of just a piston upper. I believe whatever makes you happy, so if you would like to buy one than by all means do it.:D
Suppressed = Yes
SBR'ed = Yes
Suppressed/SBR = Yes
Everything else...not really. Maybe for the party of it, but no.
If you're not going to suppress it, short-barrel it, or put it on a pre-1986 lower, then, no.
ETA: Buy another DI upper, and with the money saved from not buying the piston, get some fancy-dancy, newfangled BCG and some lube. You'd still have enough left over for ammo.
IMHO, No. Any quality AR Platform with a 5.56 chamber, to the left of the "Chart" will do.
I am about as cleaning adverse than most people. I have had over 3000 rounds + on my Colts and LMT, without cleaning, just lube, shooting eastern european steel cased ammo (Wolf, Barnaul) the overwhelming majority of the time. With the exception of a few bad mags (CProduts), causing double feeds, I have experienced no malfunctions what so ever with the weapons, shooting 6-10 mags per weekly range outing. During a recent Pat Roger's carbine course, he had a T&E DI weapon, with 26K rounds, on it and only cleaned once. One of the T&E weapons I fired, a BCM Middy, shooting 1200 rounds of Wolf, without failure, had over 12K on her, uncleaned, just lubed.
I have a Colt 6920 upstairs that I've put about 5000 rounds through since April. Not that this is a huge number I just don't like to clean so I'm trying to figure out how long I can push it. Even still 5000 rounds is probably well beyond where the "popular wisdom" says you should clean any gun, never mind an AR.
Though a sample of one mine runs like a champ with a little bit of lube. YMMV.
Wherever the threshold lies for cleaning causing a malfunction I've not reached it yet. My guess is that it's much more about intensity.
If I was inclined to do mag dump after mag dump on full-auto I'd probably prefer a piston. Until then, for the cost, the reliability of two colts beats one piston gun.