Forward Assist - Do you "need" it. Why?

[indiucky]

Man...This thread is making my brain hurt...

I need to shave my head, grow a beard, and get some cool tats.......To me a tactical reload is putting the ball down the barrel without a patch on it...On a good day I can get three shots off in a minute.....

 

[indiucky]

I have no idea what this means.

Does the bolt get hot enough to burn you or cause a pain response?

They're Canadians of soft English stock and feel things such as "pain" and "discomfort"...To Scots-Irish Hilljacks such as ourselves that's an alien concept...

"Wait a minute...Your rifle HURTS you??? Okay...Huh..."

 

[Kirk Freeman]

Ah, thanks. Still not seeing how thumbing the bolt is preferable to the FA, then.

So one does not blow up the gun. Leave the fidget spinner alone and use Gosport Gene's original FA, your driving finger.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

I have no idea what this means.

Does the bolt get hot enough to burn you or cause a pain response?

You simply must block off a day and watch Point Break until you can quote lines. THEN you will be cool enough, like Johnny Utah, not to gear up when you shoot. (Johnny Utah did not use protective gear in the opening scene while shooting in the rain. "100 percent, Utah"). How I love that movie.

You will call me Bodhi as I reject materialism, such as the fidget spinner toy of the Forward Assist.

 

[ru44mag]

Man...This thread is making my brain hurt...

I need to shave my head, grow a beard, and get some cool tats.......To me a tactical reload is putting the ball down the barrel without a patch on it...On a good day I can get three shots off in a minute.....

If ya drop da barrl like dat fella in yer picture, without no patch, ya gion' get yer ball wet.

 

[mammynun]

The lack of an FA would not be a "deal breaker," but given two otherwise identical uppers I'd take the one with the FA.

 

[asevans]

Malfunction = S. P. O. R. T. S
Slap. Pull. Observe. Reliece. Tap. Squeeze.

 

[dtthomps]

based on my own experience I have never needed one (my PWS rifle doesn't have one) but I have personally witnessed a couple of guys in a few classes who actually had to use theirs.

 

[BehindBlueI's]

Malfunction = S. P. O. R. T. S
Slap. Pull. Observe. Reliece. Tap. Squeeze.

Maybe people are confused and think the "T" in SPORTS stands for "Thwack" instead of "Tap".

Worth repeating. I get it, if you have the coordination of newly born deer, wearing bowling balls for shoes, walking on freshly waxed hardwood, the FA may not be for you. If you have ADHD and need to play with it constantly, it may not be for you.

 

[freekforge]

I used my forward assist today during a rifle class. i was probably 220-250ish rounds in and the bolt on my bcm didn't drop all the way. normaly i would do as kirk says and thumb the little cut out but it didn't even make it that far. a little push on the fa with my thumb sent it home and all was well. i think it was a mag issue i accidentally picked up another guys pro mag 20rd mag and had a few malfunctions just with that mag before i started investigating the cause and realized it wasn't my colt mag.

I like the fa for chamber checks and for situations like what happened today. Im not going to jam a round in the chamber by waling on it.

 

[michaelward50]

It was quickly added to the M16 when powder fouling started causing stoppages that required disassembly, resulting in a significant number of soldier deaths in Vietnam when the first batches of M16s were fielded. Their bodies were found next to disassembled rifles that had FTC stoppages. The gas impingement AR-15s eventually powder foul, and the hot gases burn and/or evaporate lubricants. The M16(Ax), M4 and gas impingement AR-15s must be cleaned often and kept lubricated. In terms of more recent history, the 507th Maintenance Company ambush in Iraq suffered many M16A2 failures. I've very little doubt it was caused by the rifles not being cleaned frequently enough (not so much powder fouling as the silt-like sand), and not being kept sufficiently lubricated. As soon as I read a detailed report on that ambush that cited all the rifle jams, I knew exactly why that had occurred. They were a maintenance company that turned wrenches fixing broken stuff. Periodic rifle maintenance was pushed to priority so low that it was very rarely performed. This had long been a culturally systemic flaw in many of the the US Army's combat support and very nearly all combat service support units. I carried a M16A1 a little over five years before graduating to a M1911A1, and would not want any rifle based on the M16/AR-15 gas impingement system without a forward assist.

John

Very helpful description. Good field stories to support your point as well. Thanks

 

[Falschirmjaeger]

I never used the forward assist on any of my issue M16a2s the entire 11 years I was in the Army.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Never used one once, of course I've never been in combat, crawling around in mud or a sandbox. I was of the understanding that the powder fouling early on with the initial batches of M16s was due mostly to the use of powder recovered from WWII surplus ammunition, which didn't burn right for a gas impingement system.

 

[BigMoose]

It has a couple uses.

If your trying to hunt hogs and need to silently chamber a round, it's damn useful.

It is however not a good idea to use it to jam in a troublemaker round.

 

[Slow Hand]

I’m of the opinion that if a Round doesn’t want to chamber, I don’t want to force it in there. If you donfcfamnit in and it fires, you’re generally ok. If not, you don’t have a lot of leverage to get an out of spec round out of the chamber.

On my .300 BLK SBR I made a ‘gas vent’ to replace my FA. It helps with gas in the face when shooting suppressed. I can actually feel a little puff of air on occasion on my hand when shooting so I know it’s helping some.

 

[Excalibur]

I've been taught about the scallop that's on the bolt itself. If the round isn't chambering and if I can't push the bolt into battery, than there's something wrong and I need to eject that round out and if it repeats, then there's something wrong with the bolt and I need to take it apart. Smacking the forward assist does make things worse

 

[rhino]

I've been taught about the scallop that's on the bolt itself. If the round isn't chambering and if I can't push the bolt into battery, than there's something wrong and I need to eject that round out and if it repeats, then there's something wrong with the bolt and I need to take it apart. Smacking the forward assist does make things worse

That's the standard operating procedure for everyone with whom I have trained and most with whom I would train or will train some day.

 

[Drail]

"..if a round doesn't want to chamber I don't want to force it in there.." Exactly right! Jamming it in there is easy - getting it back out - not so much. In boot camp our D.I. referred to the FA as the "slush pump". It was a desperate Hail Mary attempt to solve a very serious issue. Pounding rounds into your gun is just attempting to solve an engineering problem with brute force and ignorance. If your rifle won't feed find out why and fix it. If you're in a battle toss it away and pick up something else. In the words of Sam Elliot - "There's gonna be plenty of 'em laying around".

 

[Mrmeseeks]

+1... who is going to turn down a feature that could potentially fix a problem?

pounding a round into battery is always a good idea

 

[Ljungman]

Of the rounds i put down range in an M4 - i never touched mine. SLAP procedure and misfire procedures have changed a bit over the years - some units train a bit different. For our boarding officer/LEDET training - we didnt pop the FA, we pulled the cahrging handle and moved on wqith the thought its faster to just dodge the issue than push it - thought behind that being if it didnt want to go, get rid of it - if on the new round it still fails, swing your carbine out of the way and 1) grab handgun,or 2) remove self from self from situation and investigate from a safe place. i only had one and i wasnt going to force an issue by popping the FA. I racked and next round seated well and looked at rifle after situation. found nothing with rifle and bad round mustve rolled overboard. As far as do i need it on my current models - only if im press checking at a competition/range. If im on the range and a round doesnt seat - im investigating right there. in a fight - make your gun work as best you can - you gamble with the gun malfunctioning when you need it. At the range - you gamble the darn thing going boom in your face for no good reason. To be honest my HK G3 jams more than my current M4s. and it has no means of FA. As a patrol officer i would want one to be ale to press check the weapon for safety. for simple plinking and what not around the farm - nope dont need one. my fingers are not covered by TRIcare any more - so i pay for what happens to them. And im not risking fingers cause im too lazy to drop a bad round and investigate my gun then and there.
My 5 cents.
Also - i do have them on my guns - they are great as mine all have a little spring window in the side of the FA that is absolutely perfect for a wire rod so when i hit my rifles with powder break or a de-greaser they can hang in the back yard in the sun and i can spray them and walk away and let them dry on their own.....kinda like laundry put out to dry on a line - wife has her linens....I have my artillery .