06-13-2012, 03:01 PM
It has been said that the vent is to drain water if the gun gets dunked. The buffer has flat sides to vent air but if the gun goes in the water and it is not turned muzzle down there will be water in the buffer tube. I put a custom Limbsaver pad on a vintage A1 stock for an AR10 and everything that I learned said that if you don't dunk the rifle you will be fine without the vent. If you don't have the vent and you dunk the rifle (I would cry if I dunked one of my rifles) you need to tip it muzzle down to make sure the buffer tube is free of water. I don't think firing a precision rifle with a barrel full of water would be a good idea either. If you have a lathe and a few nuts (or a coupler nut) the correct size you could drill a vent hole in just a few minutes.