Some buffer questions

[montana]

You would be correct about the reduction of pressure entering the gas key..The barrel port pressures were an unknown in the early days as Colt, Stoner/Armalite or Remington never had a way to measure them..It was Springfield armory who first invented a way to measure port pressure..The lack of port pressure specs is what caused the problems when ball powder was first accepted for use..The cycle rate and fouling were the main concern when they first were considering a switch to ball powder..Colt's very capable engineer Foster Sturtevant made a very bad claim he would later regret when he first stated the extra port pressure would make the M16 more reliable.. Barrel port pressure for ball powder could accede 17500 lbs while staying well within the safe chamber pressure spec..When shorter barrels and gas port locations come into play, the burn rate changes drastically, creating a much higher residual pressure curve..

In one of the graphs, the lightest buffer had a longer lock time than the heavier ones..My main point is it is the residual pressure that is effected by buffer weight and spring tension, not the bolt un-locking cycle..Even Stoners claim that the higher port pressures with ball powder caused the bolt to unlock prematurely (as the case was still expanded to the chamber wall) that caused the catastrophic stuck cases, ripped off rim malfunction has been dis-proven..It was the lax case hardness in pitted chambers that caused these extraction problems..