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You're going to feel
a little pressure...
posted
Hey all-

I'm shopping for buffer tubes to complete a rifle build. Besides milspec vs commercial, I see choices between 6061 and 7075 aluminum. I've done my homework enough that I can see that 7075 is considerably stronger and tougher.
My question is: Does it matter? Does anyone have a 6061 buffer tube failure story to share? Did it fly off the back of the rifle, bend, or strip out the threads?

I ask because I tend to overbuild and overspend. I'm also the kind of metal geek that chooses between knives based on the metal used so choosing the 7075 tube seems like the natural choice for me, if not necessarily the smart one.

Does it matter, apart from cost?

Bruce






"The designer of the gun had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. 'Make it evil,' he'd been told. 'Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sort of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with." -Douglas Adams

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Posts: 4245 | Location: AK-49 | Registered: October 06, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of myrottiety
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I don't have any experience with 6061 tubes. But unless it's a super fancy PWS or other tube. They are pretty cheap even at 7075. So I would just stick with a AL 7075.




Train how you intend to Fight

Remember - Training is not sparring. Sparring is not fighting. Fighting is not combat.
 
Posts: 8838 | Location: Woodstock, GA | Registered: August 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of cas
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Just like the commercial vs mil spec argument, usually the only failures you hear about are mil spec ones. Not because of how they're made, but how they're used. Big Grin

If you're not jumping on them, or butt stroking mulfunctions clear, it probably won't matter. Wink


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Sliced bread, the greatest thing since the 1911.

 
Posts: 21052 | Location: 18th & Fairfax  | Registered: May 17, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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I have never actually heard of a 6061 buffer tube failing but the 7075 buffer tubes from Aero Precision and BCM aren’t really cost prohibitive so I don’t think you would really go wrong splurging on either for that extra bit of piece-o-mind.

I think it is kinda like the 4140 & 4150 barrel debate. I have never seen a 4140 barrel that has been worn out by the average shooter but that isn’t stopping me from considering replacing my, as yet unfired, FN-15's 16" 4140 barrel with a BCM 4150 CMV 14.5" SOCOM barrel.


Laughing in the face of danger is all well and good until danger laughs back.
 
Posts: 496 | Location: Oklahoma | Registered: July 08, 2017Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Did you sweat this much on the rest of the parts? But in any case across many personal guns and many guns of others abused by all, I have never seen a buffer tube fail. But that said given your post just get the 7075 one and be done with it.


“So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak.”
 
Posts: 10966 | Registered: October 14, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Not Today
Picture of badcopnodonut!!
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Buy a mil-spec buffer tube not a commercial.
Far easier to find the stock of your choice in mil-spec.


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Posts: 2926 | Location: sunflower state | Registered: January 31, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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beer aficionado
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You can find reasonable quality 7075 mil spec tubes for around $20. Anderson and Delta Team have them and I'm sure there are others.



Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.

-D.H. Lawrence
 
Posts: 11524 | Location: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: February 07, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Buy a Mil-Spec 7075-T6 tube and forget about it. If you are building it, go for the standard military size and material. They aren't that much more.

PSA offers them, Mil-Spec size in both. The 7075-T6 isn't that much more, and PSA has a combo with a forged 7075-T6 charging handle. Good deal.

Not saying if you get the other it's junk, but the Mil-Spec is better, and more stock options.

I have a commercial sized 6065-T6 buffer tube on a old carbine that I bought, the only factory built AR 15 I own. I got it in the ban days, for what was then a good price. Because it wasn't a top tier maker. It has never failed and I have beat the living snot out of it. It's been mortared in training and just rough handling. It's still going strong.

That said, when I built, I buy Mil-Spec size in Mil-Spec 7075-T6 and call it a day.

If the old commercial one ever dies it will be replaced with a Mil-Spec 7075-T6 tube, until thin I'm not really worried, it's not my "go-to" or "go to war" or any of that "tacicool" stuff. It's just a fun range rifle now.


ARman
 
Posts: 3146 | Registered: May 19, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of xl_target
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quote:
Originally posted by DrewR:
I have never actually heard of a 6061 buffer tube failing but the 7075 buffer tubes from Aero Precision and BCM aren’t really cost prohibitive so I don’t think you would really go wrong splurging on either for that extra bit of piece-o-mind.

I think it is kinda like the 4140 & 4150 barrel debate. I have never seen a 4140 barrel that has been worn out by the average shooter but that isn’t stopping me from considering replacing my, as yet unfired, FN-15's 16" 4140 barrel with a BCM 4150 CMV 14.5" SOCOM barrel.

Shoot it first.
in my experience FN's barrels are very good.
 
Posts: 2322 | Registered: January 15, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Plowing straight ahead come what may
Picture of Bisleyblackhawk
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Tom's Tactical has them with free shipping...plus you can change the buffer weights for a few dollars up-charge when you order.

http://www.tomstactical.com/To...er-Tube-Assembly-Kit


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Posts: 10580 | Location: Southeast Tennessee...not far above my homestate Georgia | Registered: March 10, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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