I think current military doctrine has dropped SPORTS in favor of tap, rack, bang.

Good to hear.

A fair number of LE cadets I train are former military, and SPORTS is still commonly encountered among them. However, it may just be that SPORTS was only recently dropped and they're old enough to have still received that training initially, however many years ago.

The SR-25 does not have one but then Stoner was involved with the design.

Since I'm left handed the forward assist can be a pain when charging from the right side with my right hand, so I prefer not to have them. My more "mil" style AR's have them, but my "custom" guns do not. If I want to press check I can pull the charging handle back enough, then push the depression in the BCG forward through the ejection port. Again, that works fine if you shoot left handed, more awkward if you are right handed.

quote:

Originally posted by FenderBender:
Here is the Good Mr. Stoner discussing it.

This was helpful to me.

I've shot a lot of stuff but not a lot of center-fire rifle. Own a couple, but don't shoot them often. But I've never shot anything that had anything like this, and it wasn't clear what the need/purpose was.

I am completely new to the world of ARs, but shooting my son's has got me thinking about getting up to speed and maybe joining the AR-owners' club. As an engineer, it felt odd that none of my other weapons had a feature/button like this - had me wondering, was this an omission in their design?

If I could paraphrase what I think this is saying, it is that the designer didn't think this feature was needed, but the Army wanted some way to emergency-close the bolt if it didn't close normally, in field conditions. And it appears from the above discussion, that the feature also helps if you want to close the bolt quietly and/or press-check loading conditions, and want to ensure the bolt is completely closed thereafter.

If that's correct (and I may be way off) then this may be optional for my particular use-case (range/fun) and presence/absence wouldn't be a criteria for selecting an AR model.

How far off am I?

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:
If that's correct (and I may be way off) then this may be optional for my particular use-case (range/fun) and presence/absence wouldn't be a criteria for selecting an AR model.

How far off am I?

No, that's pretty much it.

It's one of those "might be nice to have, even if you will likely never need it" things, but its absence isn't a deal-breaker for 99% of users.

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:
As an engineer, it felt odd that none of my other weapons had a feature/button like this - had me wondering, was this an omission in their design?

As to why other rifle designs don't have it, it's because the designers/end users didn't feel that it was needed, or in some cases because that design's charging handle could be used as a forward assist if needed so a separate feature was redundant.

As mentioned earlier, in the case of the AR-15, the designer initially didn't think it was necessary so it didn't feature one, but it was later added at the Army's insistence.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
They look much cleaner without the FA.

To my mind, fancy non mil-spec billet jobbers aside maybe, non FA uppers look "cheap" to my eye. Maybe because for the longest time that's all you saw them on, cheap discount models.* But that's what I think when I see them.

I've had uppers with FA's that didn't actually FA Which always made me think, if it doesn't bother me that it's there and it doesn't even do anything, why does it bug people when it does? To each his own I suppose, doesn't effect me what you do.



* (obviously that's not counting early early M16's and Colt 9mm's)

quote:

Originally posted by cas:
Maybe because for the longest time that's all you saw them on, cheap discount models.

You must be referring to those cheap discount GAU-5 carbines used by the Air Force, all the cheap discount Colt SP1s, and the various cheap discount Colt 6XX models used by numerous LE agencies.

quote:

Originally posted by cas:

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
They look much cleaner without the FA.

To my mind, fancy non mil-spec billet jobbers aside maybe, non FA uppers look "cheap" to my eye. Maybe because for the longest time that's all you saw them on, cheap discount models.* But that's what I think when I see them.

I've had uppers with FA's that didn't actually FA Which always made me think, if it doesn't bother me that it's there and it doesn't even do anything, why does it bug people when it does? To each his own I suppose, doesn't effect me what you do.



* (obviously that's not counting early early M16's and Colt 9mm's)

I’ll agree with you on the full slick side uppers.
Mine still have the brass deflector and look nice.

My USAF M16 and GAU had no FA. I shot both of them quite a bit and never needed it. That said, its an option probably worth having. Options are good!

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

Thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by FenderBender:
While I'm not specifically digging on the FA, would you ever push forward on a slide to get a handgun into battery? Why no forward assist on other MSRs?

On the Steyr AUG, pushing the charging handle forward works as a forward assist to manually close the bolt. I'm not sure if the Tavor bullpup charging handle functions this way or not.

All the various M-16s and M203s I was assigned in the military had forward assists. I can’t say that I ever needed to use it that I remember.

+

A good point was made about the forward assist during an armorers course I attended. If you have to bash the round into the chamber and still have tons of rounds do you really want to chamber and attempt to fire something that is that bad? ARs really do not foul so much to the point where you would need to beat something in there IMO after many thousand-round classes. As for press checks I used to pop the FA twice after press checking however you can just put your thumb in the little dished out area in the carrier that accommodates the ejection port cover and push with that. If it wont chamber with thumb pressure then I personally dont want to shoot it unless I'm in a firefight and that's my last mag. YMMV

For those that haven't watched his videos, Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch is hilarious as well as wise. He knows more about gunfighting that I ever will, and he hates the forward assist, favoring a tap rack bang drill. His signature Aero lowers have the sides of the magwell milled out to make it easier to clear some very difficult jams.

Let's look at it a different way. The M1 Garand and M14 had reciprocating charging handles that could be used as forward assists. But what other rifles have them?

SCARs had reciprocating charging handles, but the latest ones do not.
HK G3s and variants of the basic action do not.
HK G36s do not.
FN FALs do not as far as I understand.

AK's and variants do.
Sig 550 series does.
FN FNC does.

For the ones without a reciprocating handle, is there any other forward assist mechanism?

The G36 has similar functionality to an AUG; you can lock the cocking handle in a way that allows you to apply forward pressure. The non-reciprocating SCARs have FA functionality as well, as far as I could tell from their literature. Forward assist functionality was made available on variants of the both the G3 and FAL, presumably at the request of particular military or police customers.

No one advocated the use of the FA, to close the action in any circumstance that it ought not be, in this thread. The FA does permit functionality that proves useful in more than one circumstance. It's presence doesn't create problems; it's absence disallows potentially necessary interaction with the weapon's action. I see no reason to argue against having a forward assist, unless you are a competitor or clone builder.

I am still waiting for someone to provide anecdotal evidence of the FA causing a problem, that wasn't caused by it's initial misuse.

Everyone here will agree with Clint Smith's favoring the TRB drill, as it omits what was a misuse of the FA in the first place.

^^^ For a left handed person the forward assist interferes with blading the charging handle with the right hand. Done wrong, you will bang up your knuckles, or worst case rip a fingernail off.

I can very easily close the bolt quietly by pressing on the recess in the bolt carrier if I ever needed to, so having no forward assist is preferable to me.

On a fully left handed upper, having the forward assist is not a real issue, but I got away from proprietary uppers and proprietary BCGs and barrels for a reason....

LeftySig has the only practical case against a forward assist, so far, outside of lightweight/competition builds. My apologies, Lefty; I thought your earlier contribution was quite valuable, but forgot about it, when writing that recent post of mine.

I recently created a thread in which I inquired whether folks loaded their mags to a full thirty rounds, and if it caused them any problems if they did.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forum...935/m/2480004805/p/1

In that thread, I shared that my rifle will choke on stripping the top round off a mag loaded to thirty rounds, if the weapon is sufficiently fouled.

I have since decided to load to twenty-eight.

In doing some shooting yesterday, I was using some mags still loaded to thirty. I reloaded the weapon, and encountered a failure to strip the top round. I promptly smacked the forward assist, and the bolt went home. This was, in my opinion, a proper employment of the forward assist. I wasn't force-feeding a problem, because I knew what was going on. The forward assist helped me avoid a lengthier process.

quote:

Originally posted by Lefty Sig:

HK G36s do not.
FN FALs do not as far as I understand.

FWIW there is an "Israeli" charging handle for the FAL that does have a Forward Assist capability. I'm not a FAL expert and I haven't seen one in person, but you can read about them on line.

Didn’t Rittenhouse need to use a FA to good effect ?

The military also wanted a safety on the 1911 and John browning thought it wasn’t necessary. But when they are buying hundreds of thousands of units, the customer is right.

Good news is the free market is alive and well and you can choose get a slick upper or not. I even installed a tear drop FA on one of my retro SBR fixed carry handle clones.