Originally Posted by
Ride5C2
To someone's earlier post, it may depend on your setup. Let me first say that VLTOR's support for their products is fantastic and they've help me through my A5 adoption. With that said, the A5 buffer & tube did not work well on my 14.5 Mid Length (DD) reliably with the default A5 buffer. There just wasn't enough gas to cycle effectively and it short-stroked every 4th round or so.
Using an A5 and a spare Carbine buffer, the folks at VLTOR walked me through various configs until I found the one that worked for me. This involved basically dis-assembling the A5 buffer to reduce weight until I had the right setup, very easy to do.
The A5 starts with 4 weights inside, 2 Steel and 2 Tungsten. Here are some reference configs (using my postal scale, so your weights may vary):
A5 Buffer: 5.3oz
A5 Mod1: 4.5 oz (3 steel + 1 tungsten)
ST-T2: 3.9 oz (reference point, haven't tried this with an A5 buffer)
A5 Mod2: 3.6 oz (4 steel)
Carbine: 2.9 oz
Basically, just swapped out the weights from the Carbine buffer to the A5. With 'Mod1' above, it was much better and only short-stroked once in about 70 rounds. Mod2, 4 steel weights, was the sweet-spot for my 14.5 Mid and it now functions flawlessly.
I've got a local 3 gun event in a couple of weeks, but after that I may try increasing weight (Spikes or Mod1 of the A5 above) and see what I get.
Hope this helps. Again, I like the A5 and I'm sticking with it, VLTOR are great to deal with for customer support, so buy with confidence if you are leaning towards the A5.