AR Sponsor
Posted: 1/5/2008 10:12:58 PM EDT
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It's late and I'm up with a horrible cough so I'm waiting for the cold medicine to kick in..... So while I was laying in bed waiting I thought of this: A sub sonic round will generally not cycle a bolt on an AR. What if I used a buffer that had all the weights removed (a hollow tube with the rubber bumper). Would that be light enough to cycle the action? Or maybe perhaps I'd be better off with a shorter buffer spring? Or maybe a 'shaved' bolt carrier. Anyone ever tried this? I guess I could go little by little removing weight from the buffer to see if this would work. By the way, for those that shoot suppressed and sub sonic what loads do you use? Factory of do you "roll you own". |
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"Subsonic" and .223/5.56 generally don't go well together in automatic firearms. In the AR-15, the buffer and BCG are too heavy and the spring has too much compression force. I've never tried tuning all these parts together. I'd imagine it could be done with alot of tinkering. Rolling your own subsonic rounds that will cycle the AR usually includes using a very heavy bullet ( > 75 grain) and a slow burning powder like Trail Boss. There was a company that sold a subsonic .223 that they claimed would cycle semi-autos. IIRC, it was longer, much heavier, and the tips were blunt profiled. Commercial subsonic .223 is very pricey - at least the decent, reliable stuff is. The ballistic problem with subsonic .223 is that you basically end up with a long .22, albeit with a bit more smack. Slowing down the .223 to just under 1050 and less has some pretty bad effects on drop and energy. I played with this for several months when I first got my can. They are nice for wowing folks on the range, but that's about it. Removing too much weight from the buffer could result in feeding and chambering problems. IMOH, it just isn't worth it. If you want subsonic, just find some TTI and recharge it manually, or get yourself a Ceiner kit and shoot Remington Subsonic .22LR. Very very fun through a can 
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Extreme Shock .223 HP/Frangible 100 grain - 975 FPS It exists, but it is way too expensive for my tastes. |
It may be too expensive but any subsonic ammo is expensive. An altralight buffer makes the rifle only able to shoot that one ammo... it wont shoot full powered rounds. A Ceiner conversion would be a faster and easier swap than to mess with some proprietary buffer. If you dont want to us a Ceiner than whtever you do will be expensive. |
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