Re: AR Question
True John, but the gas piston is cleaner!
The AR is a self-loading rifle that performs a basic set of functions without manual assistance from the operator. After the trigger is pressed, the gun must fire a cartridge, extract the fired case, eject it, pick up a fresh cartridge and transfer it from the magazine into the chamber, lock the breech and cock the hammer (or striker) to return the rifle to battery—a round in the chamber, ready to fire with another press of the trigger.
It’s really a straightforward mechanical operation. The best and brightest firearms designers have achieved it for the past 120 years with a variety of ingenious solutions.
Two of those solutions are the direct gas impingement system and the short stroke gas piston system. Eugene Stoner utilized the impingement system in the AR. It works by bleeding propellant gases through a port at the end of the barrel and channeling the gases back through a tube to directly strike, or impinge, a bolt carrier, thereby pushing it rearward to extract and eject the fired case and, as it’s propelled forward by a spring, to strip a fresh round and push it into the barrel’s chamber.
A short stroke gas piston system is what Mikhail Kalashnikov used on his AK-47. The piston system also relies on propellant gases that are bled through a small hole in the barrel, but instead of the gases traveling through a tube to impact a bolt carrier, the gases are contained in a cylinder in which there is a piston, like in a car. The gases push the piston, which in turn is connected by a rod to a bolt carrier that moves rearward to extract and eject the fired case and, moving forward from spring pressure, strip a fresh round from a magazine, chamber it and lock into battery.