I know I would have been. :)
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I take a slight issue with this statement. I used to live in Washington state. And though I agree the law was stupid and poorly written, I knew people who shot their suppressors OUTSIDE of Washington in Oregon and Idaho.
So it's not necessarily true that people were doing in within the state of Washington.
Grant: Forgot the buffer specs. Standard carbine spring and H2 buffer. An extra tidbit of info: The BCG that FZ used is a Toolcraft Inc. setup which, if I remember the thread here on M4C, they are an FN contractor.
Insofar as being over gassed, I generally keep a good eye on the ejection patterns so as to know when spring maintinence needs to take place. This rifle has always ejected to about the 3:30/4:30 position unsupressed (still did this weekend when tested without the supressor and clean), and to about the 2;00/2:30 supressed. Nothing was amiss ejection wise during the shoots this weekend. Not sure if it was bolt speed, filth, or something else that caused the failures. If it were bolt speed, I would suspect that the issue would be worse once the gun is cleaned and lubed properly, but that wasn't the case.
I wouldn't be suprised if the gas port is a bit excessive at this point as IG points out, although like I mentioned, I haven't had any over gas issues with the rifle prior to this. I regularly maintinence the rifle and change springs sometimes even before I figure there will be an issue simply because this is my "go to" rifle. This means that I regularly
have all the springs up to spec and the rifle hasn't shown any change in behavior that might be caused by excessive gas port issues as time goes by and all things are returned to spec.
All of that being said, given the extremes of the situation and that the rifle continued to function despite the filth of the previous 500 rounds and the additional 600 supressed (which as MarkM pointed out is a tall order for a rifle under normal contitions), and the fact that it continued to run perfectly again after cleaning, I must say that i'm quite happy with FZ products so far and would reccomend them to anybody.
FYI post script:
For what it's worth, I have family in Oregon(my home state as well, born and raised there, still trying to figure out why I was dumb enough to leave) and have plenty of rounds through the can during visits, I have just never run it this many rounds prior to cleaning the rifle.. I bought the can used with no waranty (and it's prior owner bought it as a factory blemished can for cheaper then normal) and treat it as a "beater" item just like the rifle. I even stopped keeping track of it's round count at this point. I'll just shoot it until it fails and then replace it. It also already has a couple of minor baffle strikes but don't really care as it still sounds the same as a virtually new M4-96D owned by a friend when shot side by side.
The can has also cracked the laser weld between the mounting software and the main body of the can, and there is even a very slight buldge around the circumference of the supressor up near the endcap (cause unknown). Since it's not under waranty, I'll just keep shooting the hell out of it. The buldge hasn't gotten any worse in the last 2k rounds shot through it. Despite all of these *issues*, it runs great and still works fine so I frankly don't care..
I have run the supressor pretty hard before, although never to the tune of 600 rounds at a shot, and i've even had it so hot once(took about 200 rounds in semi) that it was glowing red and you could tell where the baffles were inside by the slightly darker rings in the red, yet it has never failed to do what it's supposed to do. Gemtech did right when they made this can.
For the record, the reason for my actions this weekend was to see if the FZ BCG works as advertized rather then a supressor test. I already know that the supressor will work, and that as a whole (with the original BCG, given even sparse maintinence with continued added lube, the rifle will do it's part as well.
Lastly, the charging handle is a PRI gasbuster. I've shoot with it before, just not to this extent. By the end of the session, there was still a fair bit of carbon on my face. Considering some of the stories i've read about PRI gas busters failing under hard use, I'm really considering just going BCM gunfighter and doing the RTV silicone route.
I don't lube my SBR equipped out a FZ BCG simply out of spite. Cleaned mine last night for the first time in just under 3k because I got it to choke after a 500+ round training session on Saturday. Anyway, it takes over 2k rounds before it starts choking out (even though, yes, it feels like it's going to stop any moment when hand cycling). During a shoot last summer when it started failing (it was ~2.5k rounds in since last maintenance) I simply scraped carbon off with a knife and tossed it back in the gun. Ran like a top.
I think the only reason mine chokes after 2k rounds is because it's way overgassed. Legion has a rifle with ~5k rounds through it, no cleaning no lube IIRC but it's a fullsize rifle all FZ'd out and unsuppressed.
Anyway, it's mostly an academic discussion because for normal use, you'll have many opportune times to add a few drops of oil every several hundred rounds. Hence why my, 'fullsize' carbines still run regular old BCG's and not FZ'd ones.
Absolutly.
I highly doubt that I will ever be in such a situation that would require the kind of performance that I asked of the rifle this weekend.
I'm kind of goofy like that though. Although I read the reviews of new products and how well some of them work, once I take the step to purchase one, I must test it to know for sure so I do things like what I did this weekend. I like to *know* things rather then simply *think* things.
Thanks all for the interesting replies. Always something to be learned.
I lube my Fail Zero BCG just as much as a normal one. Lube is cheap and it doesn't hurt anything.