AR15 Buttstock Durability Discussion

[Sanch]

If it’s possible to break something, I can break it. Truth be told I should only own AKs

Has anyone done any durability testing on buttstocks to see if a fixed stock like the newish magpul A1 or PRS is stronger than a collapsible? Or the UBR or the old M93, etc?

I’m mostly concerned about the buffer tube bending or breaking during some catastrophic event.

Has there been any military soldiers overseas discussing carbine buttstock failures of any kind? If their real war won’t break them then my LARPing fantasy probably won’t either.

[HCM]

If it’s possible to break something, I can break it. Truth be told I should only own AKs

Has anyone done any durability testing on buttstocks to see if a fixed stock like the newish magpul A1 or PRS is stronger than a collapsible? Or the UBR or the old M93, etc?

I’m mostly concerned about the buffer tube bending or breaking during some catastrophic event.

Has there been any military soldiers overseas discussing carbine buttstock failures of any kind? If their real war won’t break them then my LARPing fantasy probably won’t either.

Ok Bunny.

[Nephrology]

Any force strong enough to destroy a 7075 aluminum receiver extension is probably strong enough to also destroy the rest of the receiver as well.

[Sig_Fiend]

First it takes a training class or else it gets the hose again.

[OlongJohnson]

If you want to read a lot of derp, search on other sites for 10+ year old posts about testing/breaking receiver extensions.

Or just use Colt parts.

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....rolled-threads

There is such a thing as a "mil-spec" receiver extension that is hot flaming garbage, e.g., the one that came with an SB Tactical brace I bought last year. It had deep cracks in the material as it came out of the box. I cut off the threaded part to enable it to be a show and tell piece about just how scary-bad an RE could be while ensuring it could never be used.

I also have some DPMS castle nuts where the staking notches are so small you can't actually stake into them. Essentially unusable.

Inigo Montoya applies:

"Mil-spec... I don't think that means what you think it means."

[HCM]

If you want to read a lot of derp, search on other sites for 10+ year old posts about testing/breaking receiver extensions.

Or just use Colt parts.

https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....rolled-threads

There is such a thing as a "mil-spec" receiver extension that is hot flaming garbage, e.g., the one that came with an SB Tactical brace I bought last year. It had deep cracks in the material as it came out of the box. I cut off the threaded part to enable it to be a show and tell piece about just how scary-bad an RE could be while ensuring it could never be used.

I also have some DPMS castle nuts where the staking notches are so small you can't actually stake into them. Essentially unusable.

Inigo Montoya applies:

"Mil-spec... I don't think that means what you think it means."

To Clarify, "Mil-Spec" means two different things with regard to receiver extensions: "Mil-Spec" denoting it meets TDP requirements for quality and "Mil-Spec" as the size or diameter of the tube vs a "Commercial" size tube which has a larger diameter.

A mil-spec "sized" RE may or may not be Mil Spec quality.

Stick with quality parts, Colt, LMT, BCM, SOLGW, Sionics etc.

[RevolverRob]

They give M4s to Marines who could break an anvil with a rock...and they don't seem to be able to break the receiver extension and standard M4A1 collapsible stock.

If you can break one, I'd be thoroughly impressed.

[Sanch]

First it takes a training class or else it gets the hose again.

Not sure why everyone always assumes a poster hasn’t taken training classes. I’ve done an average of 2 per year for the last 15 years.

3 or 4 of them were carbine based.

Sorry, I don’t remember any of the instructors going over buttstock durability. Also I got into carbine ownership when pre-AWB bushmasters were the leading option, unless I wanted a colt with weird non-standard receiver pin sizes. And I haven’t kept up with new advances in buttstocks over the last decade or so. I focused my energy into handgun and empty hand skills over that time period. Now with current issues being what they are, I want to reconfigure my carbines and get back to training.

I don’t want to take a training class with $2 a round ammo using 15 year old carbine accessories only to learn it’s not great, and then buy stuff to drop another $2k on a second class tuition plus ammo to get practice with the good stuff I don’t know exists.

[Default.mp3]

Sorry, I don’t remember any of the instructors going over buttstock durability. Also I got into carbine ownership when pre-AWB bushmasters were the leading option, unless I wanted a colt with weird non-standard receiver pin sizes. And I haven’t kept up with new advances in buttstocks over the last decade or so. I focused my energy into handgun and empty hand skills over that time period. Now with current issues being what they are, I want to reconfigure my carbines and get back to training.

I don’t want to take a training class with $2 a round ammo using 15 year old carbine accessories only to learn it’s not great, and then buy stuff to drop another $2k on a second class tuition plus ammo to get practice with the good stuff I don’t know exists.

It's a buttstock. Outside of shitty accessories that break during a class or some super-dubious shit like a Nautilus rotating handguard, there really isn't much by way of accessories that is going to noticeably limit your ability to learn from a basic carbine class. And why would you take a second class to practice? You go to a class to learn how to practice; there are certainly folks that go to classes to practice (like how I use matches as my only practice, if only out of laziness), but that's the wrong way to approach classes.

And really, the thing here is, how can durability have changed significantly? Adjustable stocks have been using the same basic 7075 RE (or even 6061, if you got a less-than-quality carbine) for how many years now? Certainly more than the last decade or so. And even then, that's not even really a buttstock issue, if you're so worried about the RE bending, that's just the RE itself. If anything, a weak buttstock could potentially mean for less likelihood of bending the RE, as the stock would break first and reduce the amount of leverage you can put on the RE.

[rob_s]

For those up of us that were not around ARs before, during and after the AWB, it’s easy to forget the impact that “bans” have had on the collective wants of the firearms market. One related side note that exemplifies that is that many gun shops couldn’t give away HK91s prior to them being banned, and after a ban they became highly prized.

Similar are things like flash hiders, bayonet lugs, and collapsible stocks. Prior to the ban nobody really gave them much thought. Once they were banned, people started paying $500 for “preban” stripped lowers just so they could own these evenly features. The AWB pretty much created the current AR market (along with the post-9/11 global war on terror).

All of that to say, I eventually found that collapsible stocks were pretty unnecessary for me. Once I started shooting carbines a little more bladed and a little less squared up, I was running the stock out a little further. One day I took all my ARs out, put the stocks at the length where I was most comfortable shooting them, and measured them. Guess what length they came to? Yep, exactly the length of an A1 AR stock. That’s why, when I did my “year of irons” I chose a BCM Dissipator upper with Magpul rifle length hand guard and and A1 length fixed stock.

Today my carbines wear collapsible for a variety of reasons (chief among those reasons is, no real motivation to start fiddle-fucking with ARs again), but if I were starting from scratch I’d likely to A1. Among other things, I find the rifle#length buffer system to be the most forgiving, but secondarily would be that I believe the A1 with rifle buffer to be the most durable as well.