Why don't you hear much about ZM Weapons AR's?

[Chills1994]

Hi all,

It seems like since our Service Men and Women have been in the Sand Box and A-stan this whole notion of piston driven AR uppers keeps popping up to the front burner.

To me anyways, ZM Weapons AR's (or just their uppers?) have been a well kept secret.

Why is that?

Here is the link to their website:

http://www.zmweapons.com/index.htm

The Shooting Gallery episode showed Todd Jarret at a match back sometime in the 90's I'm guessing, shooting a ZM AR.

(Note to Derek45: yeah, I already know what you're gonna say. Colt did some experimenting with piston uppers back in the day and they were no more reliable than the direct impingement M16's they were currently making)

Mucho grassio, all!

PS: I did a search here first for "ZM weapons" and got 6 plus pages of results. I tried surfing through those, but nothing. Then I tried doing a search for just "ZM". Nothing.

[Religious Shooter]

I think part of the problem is the constant lack of supply.

I looked at them years ago. Problem was they didn't have any stock.

Looked at them a month a go. They don't have any stock... again.

http://yhm.net/store/lr_outstock.html

[uscbigdawg]

Piston driven rifles, in my experience don't replace basic rifle maintenance. Take care of your rifle and your mags, and it'll run forever.

Rich

[Tom D.]

Piston driven rifles, in my experience don't replace basic rifle maintenance. Take care of your rifle and your mags, and it'll run forever.

Rich

Hey Rich,

That's one thing that hasn't changed since, well, forever. Good to hear an active rifle toter make the point, AGAIN.

[Kingman]

In the secent Special Weapons, they do a nice little article on piston rifle uppers. It is worth reading.

[Cactustactical]

We have 1 of the ZM gas impingement rifles with a YHM suppressor that we use for a fun gun. It runs and runs, very well made, needs little maintenance. We don't clean it that often specifically to test how long it can go before it needs cleaning.

Supply was pretty good until a few months ago, we kept some in stock and they sold quickly. YHM and ZM do little advertising on this system, I personally believe that is the reason it is not mentioned in the same breath as the piston and other style guns. Some of the others being made are in every magazine and the wait on their guns stretches 4 - 6 months.

A mistake perhaps on ZM and YHM's part or perhaps intentional due to the numbers being made. YHM is also tooling up to produce their own line of top ends, perhaps they are going to come out with their own gas impingement or piston system in the coming months ( my speculation only).

Edited December 2, 2007 by Cactustactical

[Catfish]

Sheesh, for the cash, I could buy a pretty serious "regular" AR and a bunch of bullets.

The gas piston things look cool, and obviously work well, but like the dawg said, keep it clean and life is good. I just couldn't (can't) justify spending over a grand on just the upper alone.

[Kingman]

I think they look interesting and the idea is very solidly based. Though my Bushy upper runs and runs, but it is still fairly new.

[Adam B]

piston or no piston the carbon still has to build up somewhere and you will still have issues without proper cleaning and maintence

[Dan Sierpina]

There is a mistaken thought about Aldo's uppers. They are not piston driven, they relocate the recoil spring assembly so that a true folding stock can be used on the gun. It's more like a FN Para FAL. I've known Al for over 20 years and shoot with him fairly often. He laughs when people ask him about his "piston" uppers.

Edited December 2, 2007 by Dan Sierpina

[EZ Bagger]

I have two, and I gotta tell you. That folding stock is the best. Those rifles fit in the smallest places

[Topmaul]

Recently I ordered a custom lower with a cool logo and some other cosmetic stuff I plan to build my 3 gun AR around it. For me the cost for just an upper is too high. I realize some of you have a lot more money than I do, but my current AR has never once let me down, it runs like a clock and shoots accuratly. Yes I clean and oil it so I just don't see the justification plus I live on the east coast and we don't have an environment that is adverse to AR functionality.

[Chills1994]

Dan Sierpena wrote:

There is a mistaken thought about Aldo's uppers. They are not piston driven, they relocate the recoil spring assembly so that a true folding stock can be used on the gun. It's more like a FN Para FAL. I've known Al for over 20 years and shoot with him fairly often. He laughs when people ask him about his "piston" uppers.

Okay, thanks for clarifying that.

EZ bagger wrote:

I have two, and I gotta tell you. That folding stock is the best. Those rifles fit in the smallest places

On another forum I kept reading about all these posts about having an AK with an underfolder and I kept thinking "Why? That thing has got to be so hard to get a good cheekweld with and it's got to be uncomfortable."

Then one guy replied back with:

They will easily fit into a tennis racquet case.

He might have gotten that idea from watching the movie Munich. I don't know, but he brought up a good point.

[mwx40x40]

Sheesh, for the cash, I could buy a pretty serious "regular" AR and a bunch of bullets.

The gas piston things look cool, and obviously work well, but like the dawg said, keep it clean and life is good. I just couldn't (can't) justify spending over a grand on just the upper alone.

At Fort Benning this weekend, Para Ord had ZM weapons on their table with Para USA stamped on the reciever. They plan on marketing these in '08 according to the guy behind the vendor table. They have a Tacti Cool factor, but I agree with Catfish. These rilfles are pricey . The one I picked up was quoted to me as $2600 and it was the cheaper of the two on the table.

[Cactustactical]

At Fort Benning this weekend, Para Ord had ZM weapons on their table with Para USA stamped on the reciever. They plan on marketing these in '08 according to the guy behind the vendor table. They have a Tacti Cool factor, but I agree with Catfish. These rilfles are pricey . The one I picked up was quoted to me as $2600 and it was the cheaper of the two on the table.

Thats interesting. Might also be why YHM does not have any currently available and is developing their own product lines of uppers and lowers. Our salesman has been very tight lipped around the whole 'not available' situation.

The Para price, as described, is marked up considerably more than YHM used to charge. Greedy, who knows? Bushmaster did the same thing when they bought 1500 POF uppers a year or so ago. The exact same upper was $400, iirc, more from BM than from POF.

Personally, I can't wait for Magpul to get the Masada out on the market. HK has also announced that they are going to make a civilian version of their gas piston gun. Who knows that that will cost, though.

Edited December 3, 2007 by Cactustactical

[Blockhead]

I squadded with Frank & Tim when they were shooting the POF rifles at the 2006 SMM3G. The rifles seemed to run well enough but then so did the std. AR rifles in the squad. I was pretty green at the time (well, greener than I am today) and didn't really comprehend the issues related to a piston operated rifle vs. the original gas operated bolt carrier concept. I do remember that the machined-from-billet lower looked cool.

In response to the original question, I think the main thing that keeps the piston operated rifles out of our sport is cost. The standard AR-15 will run great as long as it's clean. If I don't clean it and it gaks, 99% of the time it's gonna be my fault. If you were going to pick a rifle to take overseas, particularly the sandbox, that might be a different question.

I too am interested in looking at the Masada at this year's SHOT show. Sure looks cool enough from the Magpul website. I wonder if one of JP's barrels would fit...

Edited December 3, 2007 by Blockhead

[Kingman]

The Masada looks nice, what will cost be and accuracy wise what are we going to be looking at.

[Cactustactical]

At the last Shot in Orlando, projected prices were $1200 - 1500 or so. Accuracy? it probably won't be as accurate as a JP, but it should be comparable to other rifles on the market. Time will tell.

[Gregory_k]

The cost of a piston driven AR upper is not worth it, in our sport.

Do your little bit of PM on an std Ar platform and you will have no problems.

[joer]

+1 with Dan - Al's rifles are not piston driven. I have one, well made, shoots under 1 MOA, has a 16" barrel, and is great for all the hoser stages we shoot in multi gun. Points well, light.

[kurtm]

Piston guns have been around a long time, I haven't seen one yet that wasn't just a "glorified AR-18/180" and I used to be quite hooked on 180,s and they ran just like my Colt runs so I don't really see much difference. If you like them cool, BUT I would like to point out that an AR-15 piston gun is WAY $$$$$$ while the same piston type gun is available from Armalite as the AR180B for about $600.00 complete! Makes one think doesn't it! KURTM

[blkbrd]

The standard for our "Sports" rifles is the 18-20" JP with a lightweight carrier.

Others have followed behind John with lightweight carriers and efficient comps.

The piston driven rifles I have shot have all been carbine size with lots of carrier-piston weight moving back and fourth moving the rifle around, they don't shoot anywhere near as quickly for me as a rifle with a lightweight carrier.

Even JP recommends a full weight carrier for combat reliability in SHTF user rifles.

Over on AR15 dot com you will here lots of good talk about them in the tactical arena by gun store commandos and maybe even some real users but cost and parts interchangeability are a huge issue.

They are trick for there intended use though and collapse down to nothing.

I have the impression they try and make the claim they are as reliable as an AK, but I still don't see how as the loose bolt lockup steel rails and cartridge taper of the AK are key contributing factors to its reliability.

Edited December 6, 2007 by blkbrd

[Cactustactical]

Piston guns have been around a long time, I haven't seen one yet that wasn't just a "glorified AR-18/180" and I used to be quite hooked on 180,s and they ran just like my Colt runs so I don't really see much difference. If you like them cool, BUT I would like to point out that an AR-15 piston gun is WAY $$$$$$ while the same piston type gun is available from Armalite as the AR180B for about $600.00 complete! Makes one think doesn't it! KURTM

The AR180B has been around at least 6-7 years, at least my faulty memory recalls selling one at least that long ago. Nice little gun, but I think what separates it from the latest wave of impingement / piston guns is that it is bare bones. It does not have all of the "cool" stuff hanging on it such as 4 rail forearms, flip up sights, grips, etc. The sutff that all looks cool in print ads and internet ads. POF has guys hanging out of helicopters holding their guns in Shotgun News, for example. Looks cool, but isn't very realistic.

On that line, I wonder how much the impingement / piston systems would be if they were sold as bare bones uppers only? If these companies would offer just uppers at a lower price, people might be more willing to buy one and test it out. That being said, most of these companies have a current 3-4 month weight for their products, so a lot of people are buying them and perhaps the companies don't really need to offer a bare bones price break.

[bladewurk]

Piston guns have been around a long time, I haven't seen one yet that wasn't just a "glorified AR-18/180" and I used to be quite hooked on 180,s and they ran just like my Colt runs so I don't really see much difference. If you like them cool, BUT I would like to point out that an AR-15 piston gun is WAY $$$$$$ while the same piston type gun is available from Armalite as the AR180B for about $600.00 complete! Makes one think doesn't it! KURTM

The AR180B has been around at least 6-7 years, at least my faulty memory recalls selling one at least that long ago. Nice little gun, but I think what separates it from the latest wave of impingement / piston guns is that it is bare bones. It does not have all of the "cool" stuff hanging on it such as 4 rail forearms, flip up sights, grips, etc. The sutff that all looks cool in print ads and internet ads. POF has guys hanging out of helicopters holding their guns in Shotgun News, for example. Looks cool, but isn't very realistic.

On that line, I wonder how much the impingement / piston systems would be if they were sold as bare bones uppers only? If these companies would offer just uppers at a lower price, people might be more willing to buy one and test it out. That being said, most of these companies have a current 3-4 month weight for their products, so a lot of people are buying them and perhaps the companies don't really need to offer a bare bones price break.

"Piston ARS" like the FNC, AR180, SIG550 series,and the Daewoos have all been available in the past and nobody wanted them! Okay I realize these are not all ARs but you get my point?