03-09-2012, 10:21 PM
I agree with rkflorey. A friend of mine recently purchased piston ARs and kept asking my opinion. I finally asked him how often he had a stoppage when he was in the Marines (with direct-impingement M-16s). He hung his head a bit and replied 'never,' and this was firing a lot of ammo at one time, full-auto, etc. Piston systems are great because you can have side-folders for a really compact weapon and cleaning is much easier. But, so what? They are also heavier and the extra weight is out front where your support hand has to bear it. I'm not opposed to pistons, but there are definite trade-offs. I'm sticking with DI because I'm not firing thousands of rounds per day and I'm willing to clean my rifle. I've heard some on this forum claim that DI is inherently more accurate, but that is beyond my knowledge level. Personally, if I was going to build a 20-24" barreled rifle, I wouldn't want a folding-stock and since there is already a heavy barrel (especially if it was a bull) I wouldn't want the extra piston weight. So, there you go ... 