A buddy of mine has been telling me about the advantages of going pinless. As in removing the buffer retaining detent pin from the AR lower to prevent malfunctions related to pin bending or failure.
I'm reluctant to remove this part for a few reasons, and thought this would make for a good discussion here.
I have replaced some of my pins with L-W Heavy Duty buffer retainers.
“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”--Jocko Willink
"You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
I remove them in my rifles (just gotta remember when you crack the gun open) my thought is that its just one less part to possibly fail, if I can removethe possibility all together then why not?It in no way effects the performance of the rifle. The heavy duty retainer is also a fantastic choice to address the concern, 6 of one half dozen of the other.....or just leave it stock, because thats just fine as well.
Come, mother, come! For terror is thy name, death is in thy breath, and every shaking step destroys a world for e'er. Thou 'time', the all-destroyer! Come, O mother, come!
I've seen this hashed out before. My understanding is that if all the tolerances are stacked up the way they should be, the pin just sits there and nothing ever touches it until you open the receivers, at which point the buffer moves forward a tiny fraction of an inch and stops gently against it. So there should be no substantial risk of failure. As in, countermeasures that involve strengthening or eliminating it are a solution to the wrong problem.
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Not another dime.
Last edited by Clusterfrack; 06-29-2021 at 02:58 PM.
“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”--Jocko Willink
"You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
It does seem like a captured buffer/spring assembly that’s less complex than the JP model would be a cool and viable engineering solution and allow the elimination three arguably needed small parts in the AR reciever.
Captured Springs have been used successfully on rifle and pistol designs for a long time now.
im strong, i can run faster than train
I'm not running a buffer retainer in one of my lowers because I got ahead of myself and launched it into orbit in my shop while removing the standard receiver extension to install an A5 system. I didn't have a spare so I just assembled it without it.
I don't really worry about one failing in any of my lowers that have a buffer retainer, I'm just saying I've ran the lower without one for almost three years and nothing bad has happened. Even if you forget it's missing while separating the upper and lower, the spring and buffer usually just shoot forward and stop against the rear of the hammer. If the hammer doesn't stop it, it's kinda like opening one of the gag cans of peanuts with the springy snake inside that jumps out at you.
I leave them in, they play no part with the gun closed and I've never seen one fail.
I don't want to have a malfunction and need to open my gun under stress and have a loose buffer and spring to deal with.
I asked this here once and the few people that responded said they leave it in. Being a government employee I've seen a bunch of hand-me-down M16A1 and A2's that weren't in the best condition and I've never seen or heard of one breaking on any of those. I know Karl Kasarda of InRangeTV is big on removing them because he's seen a few fail at matches. Overall it seems like a subjective thing to me.
Originally Posted by MattyD380
Could this be considered the primary risk of BRP removal? I'm about halfway through an AR build, and will need to decide what to do about this exact topic.
The options other than everything traditional and stock appear to be:
1) Heavy duty BRP
2) No BRP
3) Captured buffer assembly - I'm aware of the JP and of the Armaspec. I understand that InRange & Forgotten Weapons are both big fans of the JP, as evidenced by the WWSD2020 carbine.
I'm personally more tempted by 1) & by 3) than I am by 2), but if anyone can comment on malfunction reduction without a BRP, I would be curious to know more.
Per the PF Code of Conduct, I have a commercial interest in the StreakTM product as sold by Ammo, Inc.
They probably have more experience than I do, but that seems like solving one issue and possibly creating another. While I have no personal experience with JP captured buffer spring assemblies in my guns, I have observed more AR malfunctions caused by (or correlated with) JP parts than all other malfunctions combined. My impression is that JP parts work great when the gun is clean, cool, and running the right ammo. Several of the guys whose carbines I've either had to unfuck during a class or match--or was unable to and ended up loaning them one of mine--said something like "...it always runs great. I've never had this happen..."
Last edited by Clusterfrack; 06-29-2021 at 07:41 PM.
“There is no growth in the comfort zone.”--Jocko Willink
"You can never have too many knives." --Joe Ambercrombie
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