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Why No Forward Assist?


JimmyZip

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At one time I was actually in the Army, and I remember there being a forward assist on the A2s we carried. I am noticing that many of the AR types used in competition lack that and why? It seemed to come in handy once in a while back then. Is there something that you guys are doing today that negates the need?

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Case gauging the ammo, keeping the guns relatively clean, lubing them well and things like that eliminate most of the jams. After my early exposure to the type it has always been my opinion that the forward assist is just there to jam the gun up so badly that you will not be able to clear it. I would much rather have a good charging handle to get the bad round OUT when it doesn't chamber all the way instead of trying to beat it into the chamber until it will fire.

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The Forward assist was an over kill solution to the original AR15's out there. Not that it is a bad thing.

At the time, the rifles in the field.....had tight chambers, not chrome lined and the ammo was poorly designed. When the rifles started jamming and our boys in the field were dieing as a result, they implement design changes to the original rifle. Went with a looser chamber, chrome lined the bore and chamber, added the forward assist, put a cleaning kit in with every rifle (hence the longer trap door butt stock) and gave every solider a comic book on how to keep their M16 clean. They also changed the ammo as well.

Now a days, it seems that the forward assist is used as more of a 'tactical thing'....to silently close the bolt in a stealthy operation. But that was not the original intent.

Rifles that we use today don't see the harsh conditions of the jungle, nor for that matter, days in the dessert. I suspect that it is still used alot over in the sand box and it is quite a security blanket but for the 'casual' operation that we use it for.....it's rare, if ever that we use the forward assist in the civilian role for what it was originally intended for.

It was the only US rifle that was originally designed with NO feature to push on to help close the bolt. The Garand, M1 carbine, and M1A could use the bolt handle to push or jam the bolt forward. The forward assit was actually a neat idea and actually more useful than just pushing on a bolt handle....again....how many people actually have to push on the handle of an M1A to help it go into battery?

Further more.....there are lots of battle rifles out there now that have no provisions for help a round go into battery.....FN FAL come to mind I believe.

Just a neat little history FYI.......from what I remember, probably about 90% accurate (I hope)

Tim

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The Forward assist was an over kill solution to the original AR15's out there. Not that it is a bad thing.

At the time, the rifles in the field.....had tight chambers, not chrome lined and the ammo was poorly designed. When the rifles started jamming and our boys in the field were dieing as a result, they implement design changes to the original rifle. Went with a looser chamber, chrome lined the bore and chamber, added the forward assist, put a cleaning kit in with every rifle (hence the longer trap door butt stock) and gave every solider a comic book on how to keep their M16 clean. They also changed the ammo as well.

Now a days, it seems that the forward assist is used as more of a 'tactical thing'....to silently close the bolt in a stealthy operation. But that was not the original intent.

Rifles that we use today don't see the harsh conditions of the jungle, nor for that matter, days in the dessert. I suspect that it is still used alot over in the sand box and it is quite a security blanket but for the 'casual' operation that we use it for.....it's rare, if ever that we use the forward assist in the civilian role for what it was originally intended for.

It was the only US rifle that was originally designed with NO feature to push on to help close the bolt. The Garand, M1 carbine, and M1A could use the bolt handle to push or jam the bolt forward. The forward assit was actually a neat idea and actually more useful than just pushing on a bolt handle....again....how many people actually have to push on the handle of an M1A to help it go into battery?

Further more.....there are lots of battle rifles out there now that have no provisions for help a round go into battery.....FN FAL come to mind I believe.

Just a neat little history FYI.......from what I remember, probably about 90% accurate (I hope)

Tim

Not quite 90%. The Army requested the change in the early 60's and i quote "The Army's argument was that a round could not be chambered silently in its current configuration, and if a bolt failed to close a forward assist would get the cartridge chambered and the bolt locked over it". The air force and Eugine stoner were both opposed to it as they felt it was a way to further lock up the rifle by trying to jam a bad round in to the chamber if it were to be used in such a manner. In 1963 it was adopted by the Army and Colt produced all Army contract rifles from then on with the forward assist, the Air force still got it with out for a while. Then the powder issue came up and the use of the forward assist evolved into what most think about it today. In the 1980's when i was in the Army pushing on it was taught as part of the loading sequence. I don't know if it still is.

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Early AR15 / M16 pics. :cheers:

also note the shape of the charging handle, and lack of a "fence" around the magazine release button

Copiaper20diper20chper20080.jpg

DSC01705.jpg

apg042kt4.jpg

Please don't tell me the pics are from your collection. If so I am jealous.

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I wish. I love these early rifles.

I stole these pics from various gun threads, mostly on ar15.com "retro" forum

If I remember correctly, the middle pic still had the anti-rust straw in the UNFIRED bore. The first colt Model 601's sent to the USAF with greeen painted furniture. He stated it went to the cutting torch.

I do have an old COLT SP-1 :cheers:

MVC-144F.jpg

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If you're using your forward assist to clear a failure to chamber, something is wrong and it should be as a last ditch effort to get back into a fight... Period.

I've seen many people use the forward assist after doing a "chamber check" to see if the rifle is loaded, not that I suggest doing chamber checks with an AR. I always teach that if there is a doubt your chamber is loaded, rack the charge handle swiftly. Whether it is loaded or not.... it will be when after you rack the action.

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Heres an excerpt from an article in Infantry Magazine

Immediate action is action taken immediately

Infantry Magazine, July-August, 2004 by James B. Couch

Tap the forward assist. The intent of this step is to correct a failure to lock. Unfortunately, what it actually ends up accomplishing is something completely different. The forward assist was not present on the original M16, but was added on the M16E1 to enable a manual way to correct failures to lock. Why would the weapon fail to lock'? Either the action spring didn't drive the bolt carrier hard enough, or something is physically preventing the bolt from rotating. If the problem was caused by the accumulation of fouling causing a short stroke, the "pull charging handle to the rear and release" steps will have already solved the problem. The only times l have ever seen an M16 series weapon consistently fail to lock from carbon fouling is from blanks. On the other hand. I hate witnessed on many, many occasions Soldiers ramming on the forward assist when the problem is a physical obstruction in the chamber, usually a double feed. If they were performing SPORTS by the book, they never would have gotten to this point, since they should have caught the problem on the "observe." All that pounding on the forward assist is going to do is jam the bolt and carrier harder into whatever the obstruction is. We've all had or witnessed bolt-over malfunctions. How did that cartridge get up there and wedged in so tight? There's a darn good chance that the shooter did it by performing SPORTS. Whamming on the forward assist is more likely to make any problem worse than it is to fix anything. Beyond its dubious(at best) ability to fix a failure to lock, the extra motion adds at least a second to performing immediate action; forcing a right-handed shooter to take his firing hand off the pistol grip. I again point out that avoiding being shot becomes more difficult when performing extra motions during immediate action. At best "tap" is a waste of motion and time, and at worst--will cause irreparable damage to the weapon (for example bending a gas tube where it fits into the bolt carrier key). Like 'observe," this step needs to be completely removed from immediate action.

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I couldn't care less about the FA (I use a JP LMOS SS carrier so it doesn't work anyway) but I do like the idea of the dust cover. I like to keep my carrier nice and wet and the dust cover just seems to be less messy from an oil in your gun case, oil on your clothes standpoint. So for that reason I have a JP-15 upper. If the CTR-02 came w/ a dust cover I'd buy it.

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I've seen the forward assist work as it's supposed to, and I've seen them jam the jgun so bad it took two of us to get the gun apart and running again. I've never seen a malfunction that could not have been handled better through other means than the forward assist. The problem is it can be too complicated to train every military weapon carrier to the point where the forward assist isn't a viable option. In my career field, we have the advantage of being trained to a higher level than the normal AF person, and run a "malfunction alley" drill in our combat course. The forward assist is never used if the failure is identified and cured properly. Use that bad boy on a bolt over jam and see what the results are...

Personally, I can do without it on the modern versions of the M-16, M-4, and AR. I also appreciate the higher quality manufactured uppers are devoid of this mechanism, Sun Devil, JP, Firebird, etc. This says a lot to the necessity of the forward assist, IMO.

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I don't know why manufactures are not putting the foward assist, but they should put them back on. Before I started to shoot in ICORE and USPSA, I was into NRA highpower. All it will take is a case separation during a match to convice you that they should be on all AR's. You use the assist to ram the next shell into the separated one and pull it out of the action, and if you get it done quick enough then you should be able to get you shots off. Before I developed proper case/reloading cycling, i was using 200 cases and didn't realize that I had mixed them in with my 2000 case supply. At this point I don't know which ones are going to separate on me, so I just use them to hunt coyotes and let them lay out in the field.

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