recoil buffer question
03-16-2014, 05:05 AM
#3
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: MICHIGAN
Posts: 2,568
I'm guessing you are talking about A recoil pad. Yes you can put one on any gun. some just have a rubber sleeve that slips over the stock and you don't even have to take the butt plate off. Many you remove the two screws holding the butt plate or stock recoil pad on then fit the new pad. Hard to get perfect fits with the later type and most require some carful filing and sanding.
Al
Al
03-16-2014, 05:40 AM
#4
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 1,780
NjHunter85
Although I am sure you are a good guy, maybe gunsmithing is not for you.
You have written that you work on guns but the various questions that you have posed to strangers on the internet leave some doubt as to the wisdom of that (" so what does it mean to 1) Recrown the barrel 2) Bed the stock? and also how do you polish a bolt?").
Please do not take offense, as none was meant.
If you want to change a recoil buffer on a 10-22 that's is OK (although some doubt if it really helps anything), but maybe everything else is best left alone. The rifle designers knew what they were doing.
Although I am sure you are a good guy, maybe gunsmithing is not for you.
You have written that you work on guns but the various questions that you have posed to strangers on the internet leave some doubt as to the wisdom of that (" so what does it mean to 1) Recrown the barrel 2) Bed the stock? and also how do you polish a bolt?").
Please do not take offense, as none was meant.
If you want to change a recoil buffer on a 10-22 that's is OK (although some doubt if it really helps anything), but maybe everything else is best left alone. The rifle designers knew what they were doing.
Last edited by Big Uncle; 03-16-2014 at 06:45 AM.
03-16-2014, 06:30 AM
#5
Typical Buck
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 749
are you talking about a mercury recoil tube. that fits in the butt stock.
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/678...-7-8-x-4-14-oz
or a 10/22 recoil buffer.
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/554...ProductFinding
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/678...-7-8-x-4-14-oz
or a 10/22 recoil buffer.
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/554...ProductFinding
03-16-2014, 09:47 AM
#6
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Kansas
Posts: 3,905
C'mon fellas... Recoil buffers....
Two types of "recoil buffers"...
1) Recoil buffer in an AR-15, which is a buffer that rides between the bolt and recoil spring, in the buffer tube. It's a calibrated weight to slow the cyclic rate, and even some spring loaded or hydraulically dampened buffers are available.
2) Rubberized or plastic buffers that pad metal on metal impact in semiauto actions. This helps protect the bolt and action against "peening" or cracking if the bolt or slide might impact the action. Some guys will use stacked buffers to produce a stand off to prevent an action from over-cycling and "crushing" the mainspring.
Dollars to doughnuts he's talking about the latter...
I used action buffers in the past, but frankly, I've seen the light and realized why they're more hype than help.
To answer the question, no not all semiautomatic weapons have recoil buffers, not all of them need them, and not all of them have buffers available. A truly skilled cutter could make a buffer, had he the right materials, for any action, but to be blunt, if there aren't buffers available on the market for a given gun, they probably are not needed.
Firearms, by design, should NOT NEED recoil buffers, because they are not designed to have hard stops of metal on metal - their spring rate is calibrated against standard power ammo, which means the bolt will slow, stop, and rebound against spring power, not a hard stop impact with the action (or slide against frame for semiautos). Buffers will only help protect your weapon 1) it is damaged in a way that it has caused it to over-cycle, 2) you have ALTERED it in some way (reduced springs, overgassed) to cause it to over-cycle, or 3) you are shooting inappropriate ammunition that is over powered and causing the weapon to over-cycle.
Action buffers in a nutshell: consider parking in front of a brick wall. Normal people will pull up and stop before their bumpers hit the wall. Normal people do that. Some people, however, might just let the car drive straight into the wall, and let the wall stop them. Then these people realized that their car and/or the wall gets damaged with they run into the wall. So rather than simply stopping early, they put a rubber bumper on their car, and continue to run into the wall.
SCENARIO WHEN BUFFERS ARE NEEDED:
For competition action shooters. These shooters will often shoot minimum power loads to make their power factor, which means they must reduce their spring rate to ensure function. Finding that balance is sometimes difficult, so an improperly tuned action may make metal on metal contact, battering the weapon. This is also a high speed, high volume game, so that damage can add up fast. Some misguided action shooters will also tune down their springs to increase their cyclic rate to "shave milliseconds off the clock", so they intentionally underpower their springs relative to their load. This actually works against them because it increases their felt recoil, which slows their recovery time more than it speeds up their cycle time - all it does is leave them open for failures to feed while on the clock.
Select fire/fully automatic weapons, especially those altered to increase rate of fire. Fully automatic fire is a high volume world that is, by nature, damaging to firearms. Work a spring quickly and it gets hot, and it experiences heat fatigue, reducing it's power. This doesn't mean they NEED a buffer, it mostly means a shooter shouldn't put 2,000rnds out of their rifle in 4min and damage their rifle... This heat induced fatigue is temporary unless it happens a lot, and then the damage becomes permanent. This doesn't mean they need a buffer, it means they should replace their springs. Many select fire/fully auto weapons have their spring rates reduced to increase their rate of fire, or to increase reliability for ejection (decreases reliability for feeding). For select fire weapons specifically, i.e. burst fire weapons, this helps keep the shots on target, as the recoil has not moved the rifle as far as it would if the shots were longer apart in time. However, these guys are usually firing full house loads. Just like in competition weapons, the springs are weak, so full house loads will batter the weapon over time. The proper way to combat this is STAGED SPRINGS or HYDRAULIC BUFFERING, not buffer pads.
For guys that shoot over powered ammunition (i.e. hot loads or +P ammo) with standard rate springs. These guys run the risk of overpowering their actions, which can often lead to cracked frames, broken slides, broken springs, peened bolts or action parts (which eventually lock up). THE BETTER SOLUTION is to run a heavier spring, not to plan on letting the gun destroy itself and installing a rubber bumper.
Buffers are also needed for the idiot that puts reduced power action springs in his weapon because he thinks he needs to build his plinker like a competition gun and then runs standard power ammunition. This guy doesn't understand WHY or HOW he's harming his firearm by using lightened mainsprings and full power loads. It's basically like a person that needs to wear a helmet because he intentionally runs his face into walls a lot. The smart solution is to stop running your head into the wall, not buy a helmet.
WHEN BUFFERS ARE NOT NEEDED:
99.99% of semiauto firearms will not show any effect with the use of buffers.
Not needed for shooters that don't shoot high volume. Unless you are shooting in the neighborhood of 10,000rounds through it each year, meaning you're rebuilding and rebarreling that weapon frequently, you don't need recoil buffers.
A lot of guys buy buffers because they are cheap, and it makes them sound like they're really knowledgable about guns. In my experience, adding buffers to most firearms does the opposite, it tells me that you don't know what you're doing, so you're abusing your gun in some way by causing it to not function the way it was designed.
I'm going to assume since your other questions were about an SKS that you are considering adding a buffer to that weapon. However, buffers are not necessary for SKS's unless you have broken or damaged (which would mean you just need to replace it) or altered (which you should not have done) the mainspring guide(s). The SKS uses a captured spring with a telescoping spring guide (the rod inside the mainspring). This has a minimum length hard stop already built into the SKS design.
Also, in an SKS, if you note the wear marks inside the action, you'll very likely see, unless your rifle has a mechanical flaw (weak springs, light bolt, over-gassed piston) that the bolt does NOT travel all the way to make metal on metal contact with the rear of the action.
A DOWNSIDE to buffers is that they are consumable items, and they do wear out quickly if you're running an improperly tuned weapon that NEEDS a buffer. They need to be replaced frequently. They can also break, or become dislodged and actually cause your weapon to malfunction by wedging into the action, or binding and blocking the action from fully cycling.
Long story short: sure, wearing a helmet walking down the street would protect you if you ever needed it. Buffers are cheap, so knock yourself out.
Sadly, I'm starting to agree with Big Uncle. I've said it before, "cleaning" or "field stripping firearms" is not the same as "working on guns" and not the same as "gunsmithing". Firearms are designed to be disassembled by the users. Specifically, many military weapons, and many modern weapons are designed to be disassembled in the field without tools by someone with an enlistment intelligence requirement south of 100 (average IQ). I'd never discourage someone from chasing their dreams, and I'm a proponent that ALL shooters should full understand how their firearm operates.
BUT... At this stage in the game, your knowledge base is FAR too low for you to be able to safely work on firearms beyond standard service. As the saying goes: you only know just enough to be dangerous. Not knowing how a firearm works -and irrefutably based on your recent questions, you still do not (really mean no offense) - but still working on guns can lead to catastrophic damages. For example: cutting the mainspring on a gun to lighten the trigger pull might make the sear engagement unsafe, or cutting the hammer spring on a revolver might reduce trigger pull, but also might cause misfires, or altering the gas port on an AR-15 might cause it to fail to eject, adding cylinder bushings to aleviate endshake in a revolver might produce exessive BC gap and flame cut your frame, putting reduced power recoil springs in a 1911 might end up cracking the slide, etc...
So for your own safety, do NOT work on firearms beyond standard service (disassembly and reassembly) and cleaning for a LONG time until you have studied the ACTUAL FUNCTION of firearms and can describe, in detail, from memory, how every component within the lockwork functions and how it might malfunction and cause the weapon to become unsafe.
1) Recoil buffer in an AR-15, which is a buffer that rides between the bolt and recoil spring, in the buffer tube. It's a calibrated weight to slow the cyclic rate, and even some spring loaded or hydraulically dampened buffers are available.
2) Rubberized or plastic buffers that pad metal on metal impact in semiauto actions. This helps protect the bolt and action against "peening" or cracking if the bolt or slide might impact the action. Some guys will use stacked buffers to produce a stand off to prevent an action from over-cycling and "crushing" the mainspring.
Dollars to doughnuts he's talking about the latter...
I used action buffers in the past, but frankly, I've seen the light and realized why they're more hype than help.
To answer the question, no not all semiautomatic weapons have recoil buffers, not all of them need them, and not all of them have buffers available. A truly skilled cutter could make a buffer, had he the right materials, for any action, but to be blunt, if there aren't buffers available on the market for a given gun, they probably are not needed.
Firearms, by design, should NOT NEED recoil buffers, because they are not designed to have hard stops of metal on metal - their spring rate is calibrated against standard power ammo, which means the bolt will slow, stop, and rebound against spring power, not a hard stop impact with the action (or slide against frame for semiautos). Buffers will only help protect your weapon 1) it is damaged in a way that it has caused it to over-cycle, 2) you have ALTERED it in some way (reduced springs, overgassed) to cause it to over-cycle, or 3) you are shooting inappropriate ammunition that is over powered and causing the weapon to over-cycle.
Action buffers in a nutshell: consider parking in front of a brick wall. Normal people will pull up and stop before their bumpers hit the wall. Normal people do that. Some people, however, might just let the car drive straight into the wall, and let the wall stop them. Then these people realized that their car and/or the wall gets damaged with they run into the wall. So rather than simply stopping early, they put a rubber bumper on their car, and continue to run into the wall.
SCENARIO WHEN BUFFERS ARE NEEDED:
For competition action shooters. These shooters will often shoot minimum power loads to make their power factor, which means they must reduce their spring rate to ensure function. Finding that balance is sometimes difficult, so an improperly tuned action may make metal on metal contact, battering the weapon. This is also a high speed, high volume game, so that damage can add up fast. Some misguided action shooters will also tune down their springs to increase their cyclic rate to "shave milliseconds off the clock", so they intentionally underpower their springs relative to their load. This actually works against them because it increases their felt recoil, which slows their recovery time more than it speeds up their cycle time - all it does is leave them open for failures to feed while on the clock.
Select fire/fully automatic weapons, especially those altered to increase rate of fire. Fully automatic fire is a high volume world that is, by nature, damaging to firearms. Work a spring quickly and it gets hot, and it experiences heat fatigue, reducing it's power. This doesn't mean they NEED a buffer, it mostly means a shooter shouldn't put 2,000rnds out of their rifle in 4min and damage their rifle... This heat induced fatigue is temporary unless it happens a lot, and then the damage becomes permanent. This doesn't mean they need a buffer, it means they should replace their springs. Many select fire/fully auto weapons have their spring rates reduced to increase their rate of fire, or to increase reliability for ejection (decreases reliability for feeding). For select fire weapons specifically, i.e. burst fire weapons, this helps keep the shots on target, as the recoil has not moved the rifle as far as it would if the shots were longer apart in time. However, these guys are usually firing full house loads. Just like in competition weapons, the springs are weak, so full house loads will batter the weapon over time. The proper way to combat this is STAGED SPRINGS or HYDRAULIC BUFFERING, not buffer pads.
For guys that shoot over powered ammunition (i.e. hot loads or +P ammo) with standard rate springs. These guys run the risk of overpowering their actions, which can often lead to cracked frames, broken slides, broken springs, peened bolts or action parts (which eventually lock up). THE BETTER SOLUTION is to run a heavier spring, not to plan on letting the gun destroy itself and installing a rubber bumper.
Buffers are also needed for the idiot that puts reduced power action springs in his weapon because he thinks he needs to build his plinker like a competition gun and then runs standard power ammunition. This guy doesn't understand WHY or HOW he's harming his firearm by using lightened mainsprings and full power loads. It's basically like a person that needs to wear a helmet because he intentionally runs his face into walls a lot. The smart solution is to stop running your head into the wall, not buy a helmet.
WHEN BUFFERS ARE NOT NEEDED:
99.99% of semiauto firearms will not show any effect with the use of buffers.
Not needed for shooters that don't shoot high volume. Unless you are shooting in the neighborhood of 10,000rounds through it each year, meaning you're rebuilding and rebarreling that weapon frequently, you don't need recoil buffers.
A lot of guys buy buffers because they are cheap, and it makes them sound like they're really knowledgable about guns. In my experience, adding buffers to most firearms does the opposite, it tells me that you don't know what you're doing, so you're abusing your gun in some way by causing it to not function the way it was designed.
I'm going to assume since your other questions were about an SKS that you are considering adding a buffer to that weapon. However, buffers are not necessary for SKS's unless you have broken or damaged (which would mean you just need to replace it) or altered (which you should not have done) the mainspring guide(s). The SKS uses a captured spring with a telescoping spring guide (the rod inside the mainspring). This has a minimum length hard stop already built into the SKS design.
Also, in an SKS, if you note the wear marks inside the action, you'll very likely see, unless your rifle has a mechanical flaw (weak springs, light bolt, over-gassed piston) that the bolt does NOT travel all the way to make metal on metal contact with the rear of the action.
A DOWNSIDE to buffers is that they are consumable items, and they do wear out quickly if you're running an improperly tuned weapon that NEEDS a buffer. They need to be replaced frequently. They can also break, or become dislodged and actually cause your weapon to malfunction by wedging into the action, or binding and blocking the action from fully cycling.
Long story short: sure, wearing a helmet walking down the street would protect you if you ever needed it. Buffers are cheap, so knock yourself out.
Sadly, I'm starting to agree with Big Uncle. I've said it before, "cleaning" or "field stripping firearms" is not the same as "working on guns" and not the same as "gunsmithing". Firearms are designed to be disassembled by the users. Specifically, many military weapons, and many modern weapons are designed to be disassembled in the field without tools by someone with an enlistment intelligence requirement south of 100 (average IQ). I'd never discourage someone from chasing their dreams, and I'm a proponent that ALL shooters should full understand how their firearm operates.
BUT... At this stage in the game, your knowledge base is FAR too low for you to be able to safely work on firearms beyond standard service. As the saying goes: you only know just enough to be dangerous. Not knowing how a firearm works -and irrefutably based on your recent questions, you still do not (really mean no offense) - but still working on guns can lead to catastrophic damages. For example: cutting the mainspring on a gun to lighten the trigger pull might make the sear engagement unsafe, or cutting the hammer spring on a revolver might reduce trigger pull, but also might cause misfires, or altering the gas port on an AR-15 might cause it to fail to eject, adding cylinder bushings to aleviate endshake in a revolver might produce exessive BC gap and flame cut your frame, putting reduced power recoil springs in a 1911 might end up cracking the slide, etc...
So for your own safety, do NOT work on firearms beyond standard service (disassembly and reassembly) and cleaning for a LONG time until you have studied the ACTUAL FUNCTION of firearms and can describe, in detail, from memory, how every component within the lockwork functions and how it might malfunction and cause the weapon to become unsafe.
03-16-2014, 10:22 AM
#7
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Kansas
Posts: 3,905
If you ARE asking about recoil REDUCERS (not buffers), like spring powered inertial reducers or mercury reducers, then in general, yes, most long guns will accept a reducer, if you know how to install it (easy in wood, sometimes complicated in synthetics). Not all, not even many, firearms have them. Yes, they could be upgraded if it already has one, but I don't know why you would be motivated to do so.
If you are talking about AR-15 Recoil Buffers, then yes, all AR's have them, yes, they can be replaced, no, it's rarely necessary or beneficial. No, these cannot be installed in ANY gun; only in firearms designed for one.
If you are talking about AR-15 Recoil Buffers, then yes, all AR's have them, yes, they can be replaced, no, it's rarely necessary or beneficial. No, these cannot be installed in ANY gun; only in firearms designed for one.
03-16-2014, 07:14 PM
#8
Fork Horn
Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: south jersey
Posts: 189
i dont get what the problem is here.. i am not doing these things that i ask you guys about...i am asking because i just wanna learn..its that simple. i never said once on here that "ooo im working on a gun and its in pieces and how do i do this or should i do that etc etc" I will be either reading a magazine or looking at pics or articles online and see something and just ask about it becuase i dont have a gunsmith book nor have i attended classes for it yet. That is the reason why when i said i messed around with guns in my other post or 2 that i clarified what that meant and what i have done so far...how did you guys learn? did you just pick up an ar15 and just know every single thing on it and how to build it and how to replace crazy parts all right then and there? i doubt it.. im not really taking offense to some of the responses but i am a little pissed. NOMERCY you have given me plenty more info that i needed when i asked a question and thats awesome. thats all i want. as much info as i can. but everyones comments on other stuff i mean come on now. i know i cant learn it all by asking some random guys on internet questions, but whether its that or going to school, reading books, working with hands on, thats how i learn.
03-17-2014, 08:06 AM
#10
Giant Nontypical
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location:
Posts: 5,130
i dont get what the problem is here.. i am not doing these things that i ask you guys about...i am asking because i just wanna learn..its that simple. i never said once on here that "ooo im working on a gun and its in pieces and how do i do this or should i do that etc etc" I will be either reading a magazine or looking at pics or articles online and see something and just ask about it becuase i dont have a gunsmith book nor have i attended classes for it yet. That is the reason why when i said i messed around with guns in my other post or 2 that i clarified what that meant and what i have done so far...how did you guys learn? did you just pick up an ar15 and just know every single thing on it and how to build it and how to replace crazy parts all right then and there? i doubt it.. im not really taking offense to some of the responses but i am a little pissed. NOMERCY you have given me plenty more info that i needed when i asked a question and thats awesome. thats all i want. as much info as i can. but everyones comments on other stuff i mean come on now. i know i cant learn it all by asking some random guys on internet questions, but whether its that or going to school, reading books, working with hands on, thats how i learn.
http://www.fieldandstream.com/photos...ode-1001365362
