This is a long debated topic thatās been going on as long as the AR platform has been around, so Iāll give my opinion and share my results, we do have actual armors and professional shooters on here that could explain it far better than I could.
First off, youāll find 500 different opinions on the subject, so take what Iām saying with a grain of salt, my experience is based around tuning my guns to be 100% reliable with any ammo I feed it, not suppressed, and if I was running a suppressor Iād do things a little differently.
As it was mentioned above the heavier buffers were introduced to solve the issue of ābolt bounceā, this is done by slowing the cyclic rate of the action by making the rearward movement of the BCG slower, this is primarily a full auto issue, but the science is the same on a semi auto, slowing the rearward movement of the BCG when the rifle cycles will also tone down the āthumpā you feel in your shoulder, but the buffer alone doesnāt make a difference I can personally feel, but when combined with an adjustable gas block and a good brake/compensator you can get a carbine to shoot incredibly āflatā which will allow for faster follow up shots.
Iāve seen more than one person install so many āadjustableā gadgets and super whiz bang magic springs that they managed to do nothing more than turn the AR into a single shot rifle, they would have things tuned perfectly with spicific ammo on a warm summer day to only find out that things didnāt work when itās 20Ā° colder outside, so every couple of range trips they had to spend time ātuningā their rifles, screw that noise lol.
I basically have a standard buffer spring, H2 buffers, adjustable gas blocks and decent brakes on all of my ARs, Iāll buy a box or two of the cheapest ābulk packā .223 or Russian .223 and tune the gun with that, if it will shoot mouse fart loads, itāll shoot nearly anything and still cycle perfectly , yes I do lose some of the effectiveness of the tuning, but my rifles still shoot night and day different than an untuned carbines, basically my carbines recoil about like shooting a 20ā rifle but āflatterā if that makes sense.
Every ānewā AR owner that has shot my ARs after shooting theirs canāt believe the difference and immediately want to start āupgradingā their guns, then I spend 2 weeks telling them to NOT buy a bunch of useless crap lmao, itās a double edged sword sometimes.
