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Aluminium shok-buffs?


Danva

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Hello all and Happy Holidays,

I see that Dawson Precision is selling aluminium shock buffs and have'nt heard of them before. Are they in use by many shooters and do they work or is this a gadget for your gun?

Danva

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I am using an aluminum shock buff in my p16 Para. It has a very positive feel and lasts a lot longer than the plastic buffs. It's hard to describe the difference, but it has made me a little faster with the gun just feeling more positive.

By the way, I just made my own out of aluminum bar stock. It's not very hard with a dremel and a belt sander.

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I've been shooting the past 2 or so weeks with a Dawson aluminum buff in my open gun and I do not notice any difference between it and the Red Buff I usually use, except that it takes a gun than ran 100% all season and makes it a little finicky. I think this is due to the thickness of the Dawson aluminum buff (0.150" I think).

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I added one to my shorty. My shorty is a true commander slide. The first thing is you have to make sure your slide is still cycling the full stroke.

As far as feel. I really like the feel of the gun with the aluminum buff compared to without. When I first built the shorty it felt extremely violent. I added the buff and modified the slide a little bit to get the full stroke and now it feels very nice. Its almost like comparing a dead blow hammer to a normal hammer.

ON my full size gun I have been running regular buffs. I tried one of the aluminum on that and it really made no difference.

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Theory is the alum is softer, than steel of frame and slide, true, but I don't see it as being elastic, which means it will deform and stay that way. Probably better than nothing but not an improvement over the hard plastic buffs.

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That's what I thought. So anyone know how these are supposed to "cushion" the impact?

I talked with Dawson Precision at the Natl's about these and was told that the Aluminum buffs provide a "softer" metal to metal contact. Aluminum on steel is softer than steel on steel. That's how I understood it.

Makes sence to me, but it definitely shortens the stroke by 1/8" or however thick they are.

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I actually cut into the slide a little towards the recess and reverse plug area to allow for the full slide travel. This was very important since I have a true comander slide.

If you want I will put some pics up tommorow of what I did.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, the demonstration from Dawson goes sort of like this:

Set buff-o-choice on an anvil. Take a medium to light-weight hammer and smack the buff while holding the hammer loosely at the tail end of the handle so it can recoil back up.

Some buffs cause the hammer to almost bounce back to it's starting point. Some buffs have less bounce. The aluma buffs have almost no recoil... less so than even the bare anvil.

Whether or not this fits your particular shooting equipment and style is another matter. Physics geeks can start considering the implications of elastic versus inelastic collisions and energy transfer. They only come in .100 and .150 widths, so you also have to make sure your blaster will feed with a shortened stroke (me, I'm considering cutting one down and sandwiching in a thin Red Buff as well)

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Physics geeks can start considering the implications of elastic versus inelastic collisions and energy transfer.

Is this a call to our resident engineer's? Rhino, Bill, Erik, Eric? Hello?

Don't look at me Dave, I've forgotten that portion of undergrad studies :huh:

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What I learned in fizzicks skool is that you can hypothesize and theorize till the freaking cows come home, but it won't make you a better shooter. It also won't teach you jack sh*t about how to build a particle accelerator or a cell phone. But I digress...

Off to dry fire.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I like the feel of my Limited gun without a buff in there, but I don't like the steel on steel idea. The aluminum buffer could cushion the blow a bit while still provide a "solid" feeling.

I can't find anything about them on Dawson's site.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Physics geeks can start considering the implications of elastic versus inelastic collisions and energy transfer.

A single experiment can invalidate a thousand theories. I say pay the $5 and find out if they work.. then report bak to the forum and declare yourself to be the aluminium shok buff expert.

You will be a huge hit at cocktail parties with your stunning anecdotes on mattallic compression rates versus acceleration in a Newtonian Universe. The women will go wild....

Sorry, it's been a long day... <_<

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