Ruger SR556

Not only no but heck no.

A good DI rifle could be less than half that price and never have issues with carrier tilt.
 
Wher that heck are you paying $2k. The highest price I've seen for one is $1700, which was at Gander Mt. Most I have seen are around $1300.

I'm pretty impressed with what I have seen of them, but my DR200 already does the same thing, so I don't need another.
That being said, I'd buy the Ruger, before I bought a normal AR. Guess I'm just a piston kinda guy guy;)
 
What a piston AR does is disable the one in the bolt carrier and add another, with all the extra weight and parts out on the barrel.

Temperature studies show the AR bolt carrier is only about 60 degrees warmer than piston, but the piston set up is at least 400 degrees warmer out on the barrel. You can fire a mag of ammo and handle an AR15 "piston," the bolt, barehanded. Don't try that with a piston conversion gun - which can't be shotgunned and removed in seconds like the Stoner design. You will have to remove the handguard/float tube to get to it all.

ALL self loading actions are timed to extract with a minimal pressure still in the case, so gas residue blows back into the action no matter what. Check the bolt on a .22 blowback, or HK91. Gets dirty anyway, no gas action at all.

There are NO studies to empirically prove one will be more "reliable" than another. It is guaranteed the piston gun will be heavier, and cost at least $400 more in equal quality. You will be stuck with a single source supplier who sells parts for what the market will bear, no competition to hold prices in check.

So, with no apparent advantage to them, what you are seeing is marketing to the American shooter who has no idea about firearms designs, but hears street talk and unfounded myth from piston marketers. POF is right out there spreading propaganda that DI is neanderthal, dirty, and unreliable. Ruger? A bit more understated, same stuff.

There is one application where owners prefer piston - using a suppressor. Piston guns apparently have less gas thrown back into the action from the blocking suppressor trying to control passage of it. Considering that is only the .061 port and gas tube's contribution that is different, many still use gas buster handles or attempt to seal the rear of the upper - anyway.

Like so much else marketed for the AR, it's an expensive accessory that's very hard to justify in concrete terms, like MOA improvement, or Mean Rounds to Failure. And that lack of stating numbers and slinging innuendo is a key to what is really going on.
 
I have one and its a good gun. The carrier tilt ranting issue, is almost all cosmetic and doesnt even manifest itself unless you put 10,000 rounds down the tube. Show me a ruger sr556 that has actually catastrophically failed DUE TO CARRIER TILT and I will adjust my statement.

It is just as good as the HK416 or the Sig516. You just have a lot of people who don't want to admit Ruger has anything worth a count. Just forget the legendary mark 2 pistol, 10/22, model 77 bolt action (at least the barrels dont have tooling marks in the rifling like REMINGTONs 700).

I don't like their cheaper version sr556. Mostly because of the non-chrome lined barrel which in my opinion will muddy up the marketing a bit.
 
What you have to to is weigh the pros and cons of the SR556 (Piston) vs every other DI AR15. This topic has been beat to death here and on many other forums. I will let you do your own home work, but I will tell you from what I have learned I would take a DI AR any day over a piston AR.:)
 
and I still own a Ruger SR556...

Show me a ruger sr556 that has actually catastrophically failed DUE TO CARRIER TILT and I will adjust my statement.
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Here is just one posted on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yckSWi31_a0


Keep in mind that I too had a Ruger SR556 "catastrophically fail" due to carrier tilt, which was sent back to the factory.

So, there are TWO examples. If you do some leg work on your own you will find many more. -Goodspeed :)
 
Certain piston rifles have been proven more reliable than DI rifles for combat usages. Here is a link to an article comparing the select fire US M4 vs the piston select fire HK 416. The HK 416 was shown to be at least 3 times more reliable than the M4.

In head to head testing vs the 20 inch M16, the M4 Carbine averaged one malfunction in 370 rounds vs one malfunction in over 1100 rounds for the M16. Assuming a soldier is carrying a large loadout of 300+ rounds, he would likely experience one malfunction in a prolonged firefight using the M4 Carbine.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/the-usas-m4-carbine-controversy-03289/

I think the M4 higher malfunction rate has something to do with the shorter carbine gas system vs the longer gas system found in the 20 inch M16.

Unless you are a Navy Seal behind enemy lines in the Iraq/Afganistan, I don't see much use for a piston system other than you want the latest techno fad. I recommend looking for a 16 in Midlength gas system AR and save some cash.

I think piston AR guns still get dirty and require cleaning too!
 
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Piston guns will certainly run cleaner, unless the gun is equipped with a can.
When the supressor is added, the chamber is still under pressure (from the gases still in the can) when the round is extracted and you get the accompanying blowback.
 
In head to head testing vs the 20 inch M16, the M4 Carbine averaged one malfunction in 370 rounds vs one malfunction in over 1100 rounds for the M16. Assuming a soldier is carrying a large loadout of 300+ rounds, he would likely experience one malfunction in a prolonged firefight using the M4 Carbine.
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I can't help but wonder about those numbers because they fly in the face of my own personal US Army experience. I was a 16H in an ADA battalion with the 25th ID in the late 80's. Then a Drill Sergeant after that. M16's that were properly maintained just worked. Always. Sometimes a soldier would get stuck with a bad mag that should have been thrown away but we would figure that out pretty fast. I worked as my unit armorer for a couple of years and I got sent to all live fire ranges to work on problems. M16 ranges almost never had any problems. Except for soldiers trying to find some way to use alibi fire so that they could qualify at a higher level!

For about a six month stretch I assisted with building radio controlled planes that we would then fly in front of infantry units while they blasted away at us in full auto. You really see the stress on individual weapons then. We would always have a couple of weapons fail right away but a quick teardown would show it was a maintenance issue. Soldier had cleaned the weapon with brake cleaner and then didn't lube it properly or something like that. The vast majority of the weapons would go throw thirty round mag after thirty round mag and just keep going. I do remember one overly enthusiastic Private who was having so much fun firing continuous full auto that all his buddies were passing down their mags. (So their cleaning job afterwards would be easier!) He fired so many rounds so fast that his weapon just stopped functioning. We cleared it (which you just about needed oven mitts to do) and let it cool down. (You could literally see some parts of the weapon glowing.) Then we checked it out. I had to laugh. The guy has so over heated the weapon this his gas tube went soft and just slumped to one side in the handguards. It wouldn't pass any gas anymore. But I can't really say that's a DI "problem" since God knows how many hundreds of rounds that soldier had fired continuously.

My personal AR-15's are as close to 100% reliable as any machine I'm aware of. I would bet you a thousand dollars that we could take 500 rounds of M193 out to the pasture and fire them off without any malfunction. It would take a long time and a lot of ammo with no cleaning before I would expect to see a failure. One every 370 just seems crazy. That's one failure every 12 mags. I just don't see it!

Gregg
 
Piston systems ARE more reliable but heavier than DI systems. I suggest a Sig 516 for about $1400. Much better deal and a more refined AR.
 
Good story Tulsamal. Your experience is noteworthy, but I don't think you can completely compare US, peacetime training to deployment in a third world sandy, dusty, unkempt hellhole like Iraq or Afganistan. Likewise, I think the shorter, higher pressure gas system of the M4 Carbine versus the longer, lower pressure gas system of the M16 puts more stress on the rifle making it more prone to malfunctions in adverse desert, dry conditions.


That being said, in the US for probably 99 percent of all uses other than suppressed rifles, DI AR guns work just fine and I don't see a significant advantage to any piston driven AR.


There are other alternative piston AR guns made by SIG, Stag Arms which are priced more competatively than that of the Ruger SR556. The SR556 comes with lots of notable aftermarket upgrades like free float quad rails, mags, Troy sights, etc so I guess it would be competitive with other piston guns if you like those upgrades and if it were priced in the low $1300.
 
From what I've seen, Ruger SR556's are hit or miss when it comes to carrier tilt. I've seen ones that have tilted so bad the gun can no longer cycle. OTOH, there have been others that are flawless after 5,000 rounds.

My opinion? Either spring for a vetted Gas Piston like a LWRC, LMT or HK416. Otherwise, stick with a good DI (Daniel Defense offers great value).
 
Is it worth $2000?? No way!!!

$900-$1200 is what I would be willing to consider them "worth".

That being said the carrier tilt can vary a lot. Some people have seen carrier tilt in as little as 1000 rounds others make it to 5000.
This leads me to think that while it might not happen at any given round count it will happen eventualy.
Also keep in mind that the round counts people give on the internet are often overestimated. Someone that say's 1000 rounds is probably more like 750 and 5000 probably means 2000-3000.
 
Good story Tulsamal. Your experience is noteworthy, but I don't think you can completely compare US, peacetime training to deployment in a third world sandy, dusty, unkempt hellhole like Iraq or Afganistan.
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True, I was never deployed to true desert conditions. But I think it is worth noting that the original M16 developed its bad reputation in the jungle conditions of Vietnam. Back then a lot of people were saying it would be fine in dry conditions but the perpetual wet of Vietnam was destroying them.

In my case, I was deployed all over the Pacific basin. Some pretty dry and dusty areas in Australia. Philippines many times. South Korea every year for over a month. (So I've seen them in action in heavy snow.) The jungles of Thailand. Plus the many inter-island deployments we made. There are still some rough areas on Oahu for things like Light Fighter school. Or the volcanic hell of PTA on the Big Island. We went to Kauai quarterly for ADA qualifications.

Likewise, I think the shorter, higher pressure gas system of the M4 Carbine versus the longer, lower pressure gas system of the M16 puts more stress on the rifle making it more prone to malfunctions in adverse desert, dry conditions.
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I have to be honest and say that is a true factor. All my experience is with the 20" rifle models. Nobody I knew in the US Army was carrying M4 style carbines in 1988. On the other hand, a couple of my personal AR-15's have 16" barrels and I haven't noted any real functional differences with them.

Finally, the M16 is "different" than a weapon like an AK from a supply standpoint. We used to say the M16 required a long "supply tail." Soldiers need daily time to do weapons checks and maintenance. And they need ready access to the consumables that maintenance requires. So while I'm sure the sandy conditions in the ME creates problems, I'm sure those have been addressed years ago by this point. I seriously doubt there are shortages of cleaning patches or lubes or whatever field experience has shown is necessary. There will always be support troops who are more worried about vehicle maintenance and it shows up to bite their ass when they get ambushed. But I'm sure even that is much less likely after all these years of hard won experience.

Gregg
 
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