I think there's quite a misunderstanding of the A5 here. Does a carbine buffer work with every set or does an H3? Nope, and neither does an A5, but it does a heck of a lot better job, barring the occasional 14.5" middy.
For a while, I was running the A5 on my SR15's. I still do at times, but the standard factory set up works fine. I also run it on my other guns and it makes the 10.5" feel like my SR15, but even better, it allows it to eat anything I run through it, and very well at that.
Try it on a 14.5" carbine or especially a 16" with a carbine gas system, you'll see a difference in all but a few occasions. The softer recoil of the A5 on many systems, not all, is a positive side effect allowing quicker shot recovery. If you are buying the A5 for your middy 14.5" or similar, to make your gun softer shooting, you're not buying it for the right reasons.
If you're buying it because it may make your overgassed, SBR'd or finicky rifle more reliable, then you're headed in the right direction. Another reason one should consider the A5 is if they have one or two lowers (maybe SBR'd?) and a handful of uppers, especially if they range from a 10.5" to a 16" or 18" middy or rifle system and often use those uppers on the same lower or two.
I found that the other weekend when hunting that I used my SR15 on my SBR'd Noveske lower as well as my mk18 (block 2, I guess) upper and just left the KAC lower sit in the house. Both performed equally well for three days suppressed, both felt almost exactly the same and both ran everything from Monarch steel cased to Nosler 77 grain and TAP 75 grain.
I posted this a while back and feel more sure that it's true now -- There's obviously a threshold here with the AR and a particular ammo that once it gets to a certain point, it can't get any softer shooting without sacrificing reliability. Believe it or not, sometimes a carbine or H buffer is all we really need for a particular combination of gas system, barrel length and ammo, not to mention the gas port size from that particular manufacturer.
Rifles I have personally seen work with the A5 with no modifications. Ammo was often xm193 and Winchester 55grain .223, but some (the ones that belonged to me) have had a mix of basically everything.
LMT 10.5" mk18
Noveske 10.5" mk18
KAC SR15 16" (both new and old gas port sizing)
Noveske 14.5" carbine gas system
BCM 18" mk12 mod 1 clone
LWRC PSD 8" (could have used a heavier buffer)
PWS Diablo upper in both 5.56 and 7.62x39
Now, I have not seen it fail in any upper I've tried, but there have been times where a different weight would be preferred. Maybe replace one tungsten with steel on the SR15, especially the older, smaller gas port, and maybe replace one stainless with a tungsten for the 8" PSD.
I don't have enough experience with the 14.5" middy to say, but I do know BCM, for example, uses smaller gas ports than Noveske, also for example.
Proven combat techniques may not be flashy and may require a bit more physical effort on the part of the shooter. Further, they may not win competition matches, but they will help ensure your survival in a shooting or gunfight on the street. ~ Paul Howe
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