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Thread: Shooting AR with no gas rings (video)

  1. #11
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    My issued M16A2 had rings that were so worn down they might as well have not existed. I could hold the carrier bolt side down and the bolt would completely extend...no bolt flick necessary. It ran like a champ.

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Doc Glockster View Post
    I keep running across these posts on various forums where someone says "I've shot my AR for 20 years without replacing the gas rings" and similar posts. I thought it couldn't possibly be true (you know how people on the innernetz tend to exaggerate).
    More often than not it's 20 years of ownership and probably 2 cases of ammo. Shoot a few hundred rounds today, another 100 7 months from now....etc..

    There's very few forums where years of ownership = years of use. I see it all the time. " I've owned this Taurus for 37.6 years and I never had a problem!". ..."how much ammo did you shoot?".....*crickets*


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    Last edited by Arik; 08-03-17 at 20:49.

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Arik View Post
    More often than not it's 20 years of ownership and probably 2 cases of ammo. Shoot a few hundred rounds today, another 100 7 months from now....etc..

    There's very few forums where years of ownership = years of use. I see it all the time. " I've owned this Taurus for 37.6 years and I never had a problem!". ..."how much ammo did you shoot?".....*crickets*


    Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
    I always thought that was understood. Either lots of years owning, very little using, yet will make claims stating it is a Wunder weapon because it never failed in that time frame, even though we might put more rounds through a firearm in a day training than they did in 10, 20, or even more years. It is why it is really a better quantifier to tell someone how much you've shot opposed to how long you've had it. I know guys who have guns that they have owned for years, if not decades and still haven't shot. Hell I own a rifle myself that I have never fired, granted it is because it is older than dirt and kind of scares me, but still I cant say it is good or bad because I never fired the ****ing thing. I can however tell you quite a bit of my thoughts on other guns which I have shot tons, and I do mean literal tons, of lead out of. I'm talking 10s of thousands of registered rounds down range with the guns. Having done that I can also tell you that some guns will work even with parts are broken or very worn. On a side note so will reloaders, I have a thread somewhere bitching about breaking a ****ing reloader, trust me there were parts that were well past their service life, yet it still worked, I could even have man handled it to make it continue had I desired, doesn't mean that it would have been good for the machine, but I could have. Did not mean I should have tried. And I think that is the point. I is kind of nice knowing what something will do should you need to, but unless you absolutely need to, you are likely going to create worse issues than if you don't, a particular example I know of was a Remington 3200 that we had, wasn't having issues as far as not shooting, but the action was a bit loose, and the trigger had this really funky crunchy feel to it when you fired it. Anyway, Ended up having both firing pins broken, the gun would still kind of fire too, but neither here nor there, firing pin holes were oblong, which didn't help anything, and there was a bunch of other small issues. Ended up being about $900 worth of work that needed to be done to bring the gun back up to spec, and about a 3 month wait. Ended up with a gun that was just about new once we got it back, but proper maintenance and we wouldn't have been dropping the better part of a grand on work, and it likely would not have gone down during the state championship either. Lesson, maintenance cycles aren't written in stone, but they should at least be attempted to be followed to some degree. Also, ignoring issues can cost you, likely money in repairs, or on one case I know of specifically the entire gun when you refuse to heed the manufacturer tell you the that gun has been shot so much over the past 15 years that you need it rebuilt.

    The reverse of that are people who will exaggerate claims ect. Be them making the gun look better, ergo your average gun rag, or looking for any small thing to make the item appear less than it is, IE your average AK doomsday preeper who claims AR jam if you don't detail clean them every 20 rounds.
    "I don't collect guns anymore, I stockpile weapons for ****ing war." Chuck P.

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  4. #14
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    The sole purpose of the gas ring is to provide a better seal between the bolt (piston) and the carrier cavity (cylinder). Armalite liked the idea of a "perfect seal" and put rings places most gun designers didn't/don't. Early AR-18s has rings on the piston as well. But, SVT-40s, FALs, Gew-43, M1s, etc. do not, and work perfectly fine without them.

    With sufficient gas, any leakage can be compensated for. So yes, under certain combinations of buffer weight, gas port diameter and port location, the rings could be removed and the system will work. Since most civilian AR tend to be run on the lean side, which provides best part life and lower felt recoil, I'll bet pulling all three rings off your bolt will make the gun highly ammo dependent on whether it will run, if at all.
    Last edited by lysander; 08-04-17 at 13:01.

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by lysander View Post
    The sole purpose of the gas ring is to provide a better seal between the bolt (piston) and the carrier cavity (cylinder). Armalite liked the idea of a "perfect seal" and put rings places most gun designers didn't/don't. Early AR-18s has rings on the piston as well. But, SVT-40s, FALs, Gew-43, M1s, etc. do not, and work perfectly fine without them.

    With sufficient gas, any leakage can be compensated for. So yes, under certain combinations of buffer weight, gas port diameter and port location, the rings could be removed and the system will work. Since most civilian AR tend to be run on the lean side, which provides best part life and lower felt recoil, I'll bet pulling all three rings off your bolt will make the gun highly ammo dependent on whether it will run, if at all.
    I had the opposite thought: could removing the rings compensate for an overgassed carbine?

  6. #16
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    If you have too much gas more leakage is good.

    If you have just enough gas, more leakage is bad.

    to-may-toes - to-mah-toes, either way . . .

    Although, if you have an over-gassed carbine, removing the rings is not what I would recommend as a "fix".
    Last edited by lysander; 08-04-17 at 15:44.

  7. #17
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    So....we may be onto something here.

    If your carbine is overgassed and a heavier buffer hasn't solved function problems, then maybe remove the gas rings and go back to square one with the buffers?

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Doc Glockster View Post
    So....we may be onto something here.

    If your carbine is overgassed and a heavier buffer hasn't solved function problems, then maybe remove the gas rings and go back to square one with the buffers?
    This is an interesting thought, and is something I'd not ever really considered. It might be worth trying with a verifiably over-gassed rifle. In theory it might work, but I wonder what unintended side effects may surface in terms of reliability, carbon fouling, etc.
    "I actually managed to figure this one out: you've got to find a woman who loves God more than she loves you -- albeit just barely."

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  9. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kdubya View Post
    This is an interesting thought, and is something I'd not ever really considered. It might be worth trying with a verifiably over-gassed rifle. In theory it might work, but I wonder what unintended side effects may surface in terms of reliability, carbon fouling, etc.
    And probably only actual field testing will bring that out.

  10. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Doc Glockster View Post
    And probably only actual field testing will bring that out.
    Agreed. So, who's up for the test?
    "I actually managed to figure this one out: you've got to find a woman who loves God more than she loves you -- albeit just barely."

    -Army Chief

    I did not know the man quoted above, and joined this Forum after his passing. He seemed to be a leader of men; both spiritually and physically. Someone we'd all be proud to emulate.

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