Is an adjustable gas block even needed?

[LRRPF52]

Thanks. So it simply restricts flow (as opposed to "dumping" it somewhere, somehow), like most adjustable GBs on the market. Interesting idea. It has four settings, one being specific supposedly to suppressor usage. Might be marked with an "S"? Is this setting the most turned down/restrictive of the range? Some of the opinions I've read state that with just four settings, as opposed to an "infinite" range of adjustment like an AGB, it's not the best device for tuning your recoil system to various ammo. It's said this the ideal application is confined to a rifle that wears a suppressor on a sometime basis, and that's mostly it. Would you say, from your experience with yours, that this is overstating the "limitations" of this ABC?

Last and least, can you close the dust cover on this BC? I've read that you cannot. The mfr doesn't seem to mention it one way or the other.

Most adjustable gas blocks use a small set screw to choke flow into the port in the block. You can see the set screw penetrate into the large port inside of the block. With most adjustable blocks, I've found that you need to allow the system to carbon-up before making adjustments, because there is leakage that eventually seals off, then the gas system gets additional flow into the carrier.

What has always bothered me is needing to cut a hole in the handguard or jimmying through vent holes for access to the set screw, which then carbon-welds anyway and is unable to be adjusted.

The Bootleg has an "S" position, which is the fully choked one. With the Bootleg, you have a mechanical advantage with the flat head driven adjustments, so I don't see it carbon-welding, especially being nitrided.

There isn't an infinite range of adjustments with set screw gas blocks, but a very defined and limited range where the set screw will intrude into the normal gas flow path up front. When fine-tuning a gas system, it's important to understand that you are fine-tuning for:

* The conditions you're shooting in, namely temperature and air density on that day
* The specific ammunition you're shooting
* The lubrication state of the action
* The cycle state of the action spring (new/worn-in well/on the edge of its life)

What I have found with adjustable gas systems is that you can find a setting that works great one day, a week, a month, 2 months, then all of a sudden, it doesn't. Then you go back to the set screw to wrestle with, hoping to find the happy window again. That isn't always the case, but will happen when you really try to dial it down for minimum reciprocating mass effects of secondary recoil impulse.

When I have been generous with the gas flow and leave it in place, they work fine year-round. That gas position setting won't be too far off I imagine from the positions on the Bootleg.

My ejection port door closes and stays closed.