I use a car buffer and spring with a low mass carrier in almost ALL of my rifles (including several cals larger than 556)… but I tune with adjustable gas.

Maybe my BA Hanson barrel is gassed perfectly for my A5 setup. This is my first A5 setup. The recoil pulse is smooth and almost non-existent. The only way I can describe it is smooth. It also piles my brass regardless of which round I'm shooting at 4 O'clock and about 4 to 5 feet away. No FTF. No FTE. Just smooth and reliable.

You have a point for semi auto fire though I prefer to just have proper porting instead of additional parts.

The Hanson barrels are gassed perfectly. I could care less about ejection pattern. As long as it ejects. People spend too much time over thinking on stuff like ejection pattern and not nearly as much time becoming proficient behind the trigger. Shooting is much more enjoyable, especially suppressed, when your weapon is not over gassed

The A5 is moot point. The Hanson is just gassed how it should be

Well, all I can say is that this is my initial setup and it runs great both suppressed and unsuppressed. Didn't play with buffers, springs, etc. Just assembled it and started shooting. Smooth and zero issues.

Because not everyone wants some weird gas block that can change adjustment or seize up.

I don't play spring roulette, but a buffer swap is easy. Once you find one if likes, you forget about it unless you've got ADHD and can't ever leave anything alone.

Have you tried on a carbine lower?

All my carbine setups do that.  

If you want it to get erratic use a Tubb flatwire.

No. I built this setup from the ground up and decided to try the A5 System out for a change, having heard good things. I have many carbine lowers that function just fine, so thought I'd try something different. It works perfectly so I see no need to try it on a carbine lower. I assume it would work like most of my carbines with a decent quality spring and H2 buffer. With regards to the Tubb Flatwire, I got to experience that on my 7.62 Larue AR. I heard it was a must have for an AR 10. It was flat awful. Feeding and ejecting was erratic and as soon as the gun got dirty it would not work worth a damn no matter what buffer I used. I sold it off. And just for the record I don't use adjustable gas blocks on anything.

Well,

Compared the 13/14' production spring with a 20/21' production one, and seems u were right!

The newer ones are weaker, I less my older one was an oddball.. Although,

It has about an extra inch of length (after being in a lower to 6-7 years and also the coils appear to be thicker on the older one)

May only have a mag of live fire on it but probably 100 dry cycles over that long (at minimum) and the coils STILL appear to have more space between them than the new one!

When racking the CH with the new one, its a tad weaker than the Aero, while the original still feels like an XP spring.

Being polished SS, in talking very stiff. Used my fi gers to compress 2 coils and it was incredicable stiff.

It doesnt even flop over when holding like most springs, its stays rigid!

NOW, wondering if the heavy "original one" coupd cause issues in a Middie with H Buffer
(weakest ammo would be 223 Bronze but mainly Xtac)

The other one feels like a well broken in spring (tension wise) as you noted, with thinner coils amd seems the inside of them isnt as rounded off, may be wrong.

The length difference can ve normal with springs, but its the different in thickness that makes me wonder why a Spikes rep says the springs havent changed in the 10 years he has been there.

In summary:

Wondering if this would serve best in an overgassed Carbine with H or H2 rather than a Middie with an H (the original spring I mean)

-Maybe that Damage industries spring would serve best in this Middie with an H buffer (rather than in carbine with H2 buffer)

-And the stiff/longer Spikes spring put in a gassy Carbine with H I stead of H2 buffer due to the stiffer spring (also the carbine has an S/A carrier)

May could just use an H buffer on the carbine being the spring has extra tension than most and avoid the H2 altogether.

Any advice?

Left (original 7 yr old Spikes spring)
Right (new out of package 2021 version)

I would shelve those springs, order some known good springs, use a verified H buffer, and fix the guns to run with that.

All the spring and buffer tuning is BS and just trying to bandaid fix improperly built barrels.

This is true, but it's not necessarily a huge detriment. FN makes amazing barrels, but their commercial line of barrels have huge gas ports, so an AGB or BRT tube is a cheap fix opposed to sending a barrel out to be rewelded for a new gas port or scrapping the barrel if you already have one (which, if you shoot it and figure out it's overgassed, you're clearly in too deep to be returning a barrel, lol).

The problem is EVERY manufacturer messes up gas ports. Colt to Ballistic Advantage, Bear Creek to KAC. You pick any brand and make their gas ports the standard, they’re still going to require and recommend different buffers for each barrel.

From Colt recommending different buffers because of barrel profile, to companies making intermediate gas systems that can’t function below 32 degrees, it’s one of the easiest to fix modern black eyes of the AR15. Instead we have multiple buffers and intricate approaches with gas tubes and gas blocks. None of this should be required for a non suppressed gun but here we are, and the buffer is still the easiest and cheapest fix.

Colt ships semi-autos with an H buffer because they’re good enough for semi-auto.

EVERY full-auto gun Colt builds starts with an H2 because it’s the optimal buffer. It’s better than the rifle and A5 reliability-wise.  

I too have AJBs on my high use ARs. 10.3, 12 and a couple 16s. Some have lower mass steel BCGs. Standard buffer springs from Brownells. But there isnt any weights in the buffer at all. Semi auto only. Soft shooters.

Easy. With the rise in ownership of suppressors, people need a more capable system. With standard gas port sizes being between .0625 and .080 and typical systems utilizing a barrel less than 14.5", carbine buffers are no longer relevant.

The H buffer should be the standard. The H2 was the one that was standardized for full auto.

The 16 inch barrels have a longer portion of the barrel after the gas port than a 14.5 inch, so the gas system is pressurized longer than intended. That was the main reason the midlength was first created.

The only reason the "carbine" buffer (named for marketing reasons) really exists is that the tungsten weight in the H is twice the cost of the steel weights.

A 16 inch should really have an H2 as standard, and almost every one will work fine with a H3 especially the companies that have the massively oversized .08x and .09x gas pots.

Unless you're using a suppressor, the only reason to use an adjustable gas block is to cover up a problem with a barrel that has an oversized gas port. If it's the proper size, then there's no need to play with springs or buffers. An H2 will be just fine.

I personally think this is too general of advice... for example my midlength 5.56 ejects in the "ideal" zone with the carbine buffer whereas my 16" 300 prefers an H2. Shouldn't the buffer weight be based on how an individual rifle is functioning?