I never want to hear anyone say the forward assist is useless ever again!

[Eudaemon]

If you need to press check it's because you don't/didn't know the condition of your rifle or it was not loaded. Either way, it's a dumb practice.

It's common practice to have redundancies when dealing with firearms. Why have trigger discipline or treat every gun like it's loaded if you know the state of a firearm? If you're about to go on a life threatening mission, I would imagine there's more than a single item on the list of things you need to ensure are true in order to maximize the chances for success. It costs nothing to do a press check at a safe time prior to engaging in a planned mission.

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[okie]

50 years of ARs being used in all kinds of wars all over the world and not one single documented case of the forward assist ever being put to good use. It would seem that that normally useless doodad has been kept there all this time by a miracle of fate for the singular purpose of saving his life.

This is definitely one of those too strange to be true kind of things.

That said, now that it's seemingly fulfilled its purpose in life, can we finally retire it already???

ETA: And just in case someone hasn't mentioned it already, Kyle got lucky. They did studies of the viability of the forward assist before it was even implemented, and Stoner rightfully concluded that the forward assist, statistically, would cause further problems in I think 2 out of 3 malfunctions. So tap and rack is still the best go to.

[Wake27]

50 years of ARs being used in all kinds of wars all over the world and not one single documented case of the forward assist ever being put to good use. It would seem that that normally useless doodad has been kept there all this time by a miracle of fate for the singular purpose of saving his life.

This is definitely one of those too strange to be true kind of things.

That said, now that it's seemingly fulfilled its purpose in life, can we finally retire it already???

ETA: And just in case someone hasn't mentioned it already, Kyle got lucky. They did studies of the viability of the forward assist before it was even implemented, and Stoner rightfully concluded that the forward assist, statistically, would cause further problems in I think 2 out of 3 malfunctions. So tap and rack is still the best go to.

Just because you’re not aware of it, doesn’t mean it’s not in existence. Very few people that are busy fighting wars are going to sit down to write you a thesis on how the FA is worthwhile,


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[rjacobs]

You called it.

and now on to page 6 LOL

[mRad]

50 years of ARs being used in all kinds of wars all over the world and not one single documented case of the forward assist ever being put to good use. It would seem that that normally useless doodad has been kept there all this time by a miracle of fate for the singular purpose of saving his life.

This is definitely one of those too strange to be true kind of things.

That said, now that it's seemingly fulfilled its purpose in life, can we finally retire it already???

ETA: And just in case someone hasn't mentioned it already, Kyle got lucky. They did studies of the viability of the forward assist before it was even implemented, and Stoner rightfully concluded that the forward assist, statistically, would cause further problems in I think 2 out of 3 malfunctions. So tap and rack is still the best go to.

There is a list of documentation of real-world malfunctions somewhere that is available to the public?


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[mRad]

It's common practice to have redundancies when dealing with firearms. Why have trigger discipline or treat every gun like it's loaded if you know the state of a firearm? If you're about to go on a life threatening mission, I would imagine there's more than a single item on the list of things you need to ensure are true in order to maximize the chances for success. It costs nothing to do a press check at a safe time prior to engaging in a planned mission.

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He’s never heard to check, double check, and triple check.


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[okie]

Just because you’re not aware of it, doesn’t mean it’s not in existence. Very few people that are busy fighting wars are going to sit down to write you a thesis on how the FA is worthwhile,


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Fair enough, but suffice it to say, it sure is an anomaly if it ever happens. And even more of an anomaly if it fixes the malfunction, since it's like 66.7% likely to either not solve the problem or make it worse (according to Stoner the likelihood of making it worse was high).

Bottom line, tap rack is always the better play. It's going to work damn near 100% of the time, and can't really make the problem worse if it fails to solve it. It's also just as fast (or faster), arguably takes less fine motor skills, doesn't require taking the control hand off the weapon, etc.

I think another important lesson here is to always, always, always have a backup. The fastest reload is another gun, and that's ten times as true for trying to clear a malfunction. Now I realize our prodigal son couldn't legally have a sidearm, so I'm certainly not faulting him for that. But I think pretty much all of us here can.

But yea, I digress. I still assert the forward assist is useless and needs to go because there's a much better option. The forward assist is just like the A2 profile in the sense that it needs to go because it was a big mistake in the first place, but since it's just not really hurting anything by being there the Army simply doesn't bother to remove it. It's like a third nipple. If you could snap your fingers and make it go away you would, but it's not causing enough trouble to motivate you to get rid of it.

[MistWolf]

Kyle got lucky

Who cares?

Some things I've heard over the years-

"I'd rather be lucky than good."

"You make your own luck."

"Solve the problem. Stay in the fight."

Kyle kept a clear head and cranked his situational awareness up to 11. He perceived a possible problem with his rifle and solved it without hesitation. He waited until the right moments and when they came, he took immediate action. He was lucky, but he was prepared to act on his luck when it broke his way.

"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week." George S. Patton

[Mysteryman]

I don’t see it mentioned, but if you are crossing some rough terrain and may have mortared your rifle on something, that may be a good time to use FA to ensure you are in full battery. I am in the “it has its place, but know its place” camp.

Another option is to simply execute an immediate action drill and move along. If you're unsure if the rifle is loaded and/or in battery then do an IA or "load" the rifle. You could also avoid the out of battery if you kept your dust cover closed as well. Either way, your example is a very specific situation.

For myself, as someone who has way more trigger time and training on pistols than ARs, I have little experience using the FA. One the rare occasions I have experienced a click vs a bang with my AR, my auto response has been tap/rack/bang and drive on as I woulds a pistol.

If I have time before hand, drop bolt, press check, make safe via safety, and AR is hot is if I want the AR to be in that high ready state.

I prefer skills to be as interchangeable as possible, and the above seems to apply well to ARs and pistols, where as the use of the FA adds something that does not exist with the pistol.

Make sense or should I be re thinking that approach?

Makes sense to me. The FA isn't a standard item on all rifles and as you pointed out isn't on handguns.

It's common practice to have redundancies when dealing with firearms. Why have trigger discipline or treat every gun like it's loaded if you know the state of a firearm? If you're about to go on a life threatening mission, I would imagine there's more than a single item on the list of things you need to ensure are true in order to maximize the chances for success. It costs nothing to do a press check at a safe time prior to engaging in a planned mission.

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No one can explain why they trust the rifle to function as intended from round 2 to round 30 without doing a press check, without using the FA, or subsequent reloads but, they don't trust the rifle to function when they do the initial load. Seems very odd. I'm sure most are familiar with Pat Roger's filthy 14 rifle eating 24,000 rounds without cleaning. Granted the rifle had a stoppage at 6450 rounds and was solved with an IA. It again had issues with extraction at 13,000 and had the extractor spring replaced. The FA wouldn't have solved either of these issues (there were more as the round count climbed). Firing 6000-13,000 rounds is far beyond a normal endurance period. There's no way to take the environment into account for every situation however, in the case of KR and likely most HD scenarios there will be no significant dirt/dust/debris to be of concern.

50 years of ARs being used in all kinds of wars all over the world and not one single documented case of the forward assist ever being put to good use. It would seem that that normally useless doodad has been kept there all this time by a miracle of fate for the singular purpose of saving his life.

This is definitely one of those too strange to be true kind of things.

That said, now that it's seemingly fulfilled its purpose in life, can we finally retire it already???

ETA: And just in case someone hasn't mentioned it already, Kyle got lucky. They did studies of the viability of the forward assist before it was even implemented, and Stoner rightfully concluded that the forward assist, statistically, would cause further problems in I think 2 out of 3 malfunctions. So tap and rack is still the best go to.

That's where I'm at. KR got lucky and I'm very glad he did.

He’s never heard to check, double check, and triple check.


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Do you check the deadbolt 3 times before bed, or your seatbelt 3 times before driving away? Either you're confident in what you do or you aren't.

[mRad]

Another option is to simply execute an immediate action drill and move along. If you're unsure if the rifle is loaded and/or in battery then do an IA or "load" the rifle. You could also avoid the out of battery if you kept your dust cover closed as well. Either way, your example is a very specific situation.



Makes sense to me. The FA isn't a standard item on all rifles and as you pointed out isn't on handguns.



No one can explain why they trust the rifle to function as intended from round 2 to round 30 without doing a press check, without using the FA, or subsequent reloads but, they don't trust the rifle to function when they do the initial load. Seems very odd. I'm sure most are familiar with Pat Roger's filthy 14 rifle eating 24,000 rounds without cleaning. Granted the rifle had a stoppage at 6450 rounds and was solved with an IA. It again had issues with extraction at 13,000 and had the extractor spring replaced. The FA wouldn't have solved either of these issues (there were more as the round count climbed). Firing 6000-13,000 rounds is far beyond a normal endurance period. There's no way to take the environment into account for every situation however, in the case of KR and likely most HD scenarios there will be no significant dirt/dust/debris to be of concern.



That's where I'm at. KR got lucky and I'm very glad he did.



Do you check the deadbolt 3 times before bed, or your seatbelt 3 times before driving away? Either you're confident in what you do or you aren't.

With life-dependent actions, yes I do check two or three times. It’s even a good idea to do a “buddy check” in some situations.


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