I’m purchasing a LWRC rifle, however I’m struggling to decide if I go DI or piston. I own plenty of direct impingement AR’s, Colts, Rock River, and an Sig M400. I want one top shelf that will most likely be a 12.7” barrel. It’s going to run with a Dead Air Sierra 5 or Sandman suppressor. I just don’t have much personal experience running suppressed AR’s. So other than getting bogged down in the endless back and forth or reading online I wanted to tap into the vast wealth on the forum.

The intended purpose of the rifle is nothing more than having a top tier platform suppressor host that will be shot aplenty.

Any and all input is appreciated.

Suppressed Piston will run cleaner with less gas in the face. I run a couple of braced PWS uppers with adjustable gas blocks very nice. I’m not as familiar with lwrc set ups but an adjustable gas block on a piston with that higher end set up I’m sure would fit well suppressed.

I have an LWRC IC Enhanced piston upper with a 14.7" barrel. I won it in a multi-rifle match a number of years ago.

The NiB coated BCG is easy to clean after shooting a couple hundred suppressed rounds. More of a wipe down than a cleaning. None of my coated DI BCGs clean up so easily.

The barrel does not clean well. It carbon fouls worse than any barrel I've ever owned, of any type or caliber. I can run patches and brushes down the bore until next week, and the next patch will show carbon. The LWRC barrel is absolutely the least accurate of any AR barrel I've owned. I can achieve 1 MOA accuracy only with Federal GMM 69. The barrel sometimes produces sub-MOA groups with Hornady 55 Vmax, but then the next group can be ugly. It's 1:7 barrel should handle 73-77 grain match ammo well, but I've yet to find ammo it likes. The barrel can't hold good accuracy much past 300 yards, even with FGMM 69.

I've contacted LWRC to see if they will sell me a replacement barrel -- both to improve the accuracy, and as a replacement for when I shoot out the current factory barrel. LWRC offered no options, almost as if they questioned how I could wear out one of their barrels.

My IC Enhanced upper is heavy for its size. I see much better balance with my 14.5" and 16" Wilson Combat DI uppers, using similar optics. And way better accuracy than the LWRC, with a wide variety of ammo.

When I shoot out the LWRC's barrel, I will throw the upper away. Until then, I'll just shoot it -- and not worry about what ammo goes down the tube or how hot the barrel gets. It's a short-range training rifle for me, out to 200-ish yards with generous steel & paper targets.

YMMV, but I no longer recommend LWRC rifles.