New Griffin Enhanced BCG

[Aragorn]

This makes me wonder if a piston gun should be quieter than a DI suppressed.

[alamo5000]

This makes me wonder if a piston gun should be quieter than a DI suppressed.

Why would you say that? Just wondering. Can you explain what makes you think of that?

I don't think it will be quieter at all, especially with this new BCG.

The sound mitigation for this particular product vents the gas into a pocket on the left side of the carrier. It gives it space to expand and cool the gas, at least a lot longer than before.

It basically changes the dynamics to be 70% bolt gun in terms of gas.

I don't know a lot about piston systems but it would be interesting to nerd out learning about it.

[Aragorn]

I understand the design principle, venting the gas where it doesn’t exit the ejection port to quiet it down. But if just moving the vents makes that big of a difference, then it seems reasonable to me to assume something like a PWS or LMT piston gun should be quieter as there are no extra gases requiring venting in the first place.

Is anyone with an LMT or similar able to speak to this?

[alamo5000]

I understand the design principle, venting the gas where it doesn’t exit the ejection port to quiet it down. But if just moving the vents makes that big of a difference, then it seems reasonable to me to assume something like a PWS or LMT piston gun should be quieter as there are no extra gases requiring venting in the first place.

Is anyone with an LMT or similar able to speak to this?

The vents are only half of the equation. The other half is the geometry on the left side of the carrier itself. It creates a pocket, or rather, an expansion chamber as a halfway house for gas. Halfway between being fully contained and being dumped directly into the outside atmosphere is where the magic happens.

[gatordev]

This makes me wonder if a piston gun should be quieter than a DI suppressed.

Maybe, since a lot of the gas is going forward and might be quieter to the shooter's ear, but you still have the gas coming out of the throat of the chamber, so I'm not sure if it would be measurable to the human ear. You also have the additional mechanical noise of the op-rod interfacing with the piston and then the carrier.

It basically changes the dynamics to be 70% bolt gun in terms of gas.

No, it doesn't. Quit blindly folllowing GA's PR stuff. It's the same amount of gas. The laws of physics say so. It's just going to a different place.

Something else to consider is a lot of "gas in the face" is coming from the barrel/chamber, not through the gas tube, which can be helped by delaying the bolt from unlocking, but the gas is still there and it has to go somewhere eventually.

If this or any other BCG works for you, great, but at the end of the day, the "cheapest" solution is to have a properly gassed rifle from the beginning.

[UWone77]

If this or any other BCG works for you, great, but at the end of the day, the "cheapest" solution is to have a properly gassed rifle from the beginning.

Underrated comment right here.

Having said that, Surefire should bring back the OBC

[alamo5000]

No, it doesn't. Quit blindly folllowing GA's PR stuff. It's the same amount of gas. The laws of physics say so. It's just going to a different place.

The comment about 'bolt gun's was mine and mine alone. I was trying to iterate the design PURPOSE that they talked about on their podcast.

Something else to consider is a lot of "gas in the face" is coming from the barrel/chamber, not through the gas tube, which can be helped by delaying the bolt from unlocking, but the gas is still there and it has to go somewhere eventually.

If this or any other BCG works for you, great, but at the end of the day, the "cheapest" solution is to have a properly gassed rifle from the beginning.

I am not in any way whatsoever disagreeing with literally anything you said, especially the last part(s). I agree with that way more than you can imagine actually.

In general (generically speaking) the firearms community as a whole has been trained to think about certain things the same way as any previous iterations of 'the same thing'.

I imagine if we made a list we could come up with a ton of examples of various companies making bolt carrier groups with all sorts of bells and whistles. Especially when talking about 'suppression' in general I can't think of a single example where the purpose of the product was not intended to 'help rifles be more reliable'. I would probably say among these examples the biggest category by far is "gas management", as in 'to tune your rifles do you use an adjustable gas block or a whiz bang BCG? (Or some other solution?)'

I'm not an expert in industry history, but ever since I've owned ARs almost everything I can remember right now was in some form or another was a competing product to an adjustable gas block.

This one however does none of that stuff. It was not designed nor created, nor introduced to be a better mouse trap in the gas management niche. At least according to their own podcast this was introduced with the primary objective to make an AR-15 quieter (without sacrificing semi automatic functioning of the rifle).

[alamo5000]

At the end of the day does gas in the face matter? Does reliability matter? Do I prefer an adjustable gas key or do I prefer an adjustable gas block?

That stuff is important to consider and figure out but none of that is why I bought these new carriers. Those things never even once entered the discussion (for me). The sole reason why I bought them is because they make at least a couple of my rifles quieter for the shooter. It depends if 8DB to 10DB is a lot or not though.

For me I like the idea of sound mitigation wherever I can get it. Without purchasing another suppressor or NFA item, with my existing gear, in a 1:1 one time swap, I knocked off 8 to 10DB depending on which rifle.

[gatordev]

The comment about 'bolt gun's was mine and mine alone. I was trying to iterate the design PURPOSE that they talked about on their podcast.

Gotcha. You were first talking about gas, so I thought gas in the face was your primary purpose, but in your post below, you state otherwise (and apparently that was GA's purpose). Personally, I don't know how excited I'd be trading off a little bit of noise for dumping everything into the magazine, but as you said, we each have our preferences.

And just a small point of order (and I don't think you were arguing against this), but a bolt gun has the same amount of gas as an AR, it just goes fewer places.

[alamo5000]

Gotcha. You were first talking about gas, so I thought gas in the face was your primary purpose, but in your post below, you state otherwise (and apparently that was GA's purpose). Personally, I don't know how excited I'd be trading off a little bit of noise for dumping everything into the magazine, but as you said, we each have our preferences.

And just a small point of order (and I don't think you were arguing against this), but a bolt gun has the same amount of gas as an AR, it just goes fewer places.

Not at all arguing about that. What I was inferring though was at the back of a bolt gun, generally speaking, unlike an AR, there is nowhere for the gas to go.

A traditional AR, the back end and especially the ejection port is wide open. Those back pressured gasses have a lot of options on where they go. A normal Carrier even has ports that empty gas right into the open air (at the ejection port).

This new carrier though makes it sort of 'in between' those two book ends. Not only are the ports moved to a much more enclosed area, they also have an expansion chamber for those gasses milled right out of the side of the BGG.

Sound wise this is kind of trying to bridge that gap while still having a semi auto.

[alamo5000]

I finally got around to testing out my other carrier in my 6 ARC this morning.

I made a couple of observations. I figured it was worth following up on as it was mentioned before by others in the thread.

1. No gas really to speak of gets in the trigger. At least not any more than normal, actually maybe a little bit less. Magazine yes, trigger not so much.

If you look at the left side of the carrier there are relief cuts as well as a pocket for gas expansion.

Usually energy will go through the path of least resistance. On a traditional BCG the back pressure gas just goes where it goes. With this though it has a large enough channel and relief cuts on the side to direct gas in a certain direction.

I have not measured it specifically, but that initial gas gets directed down towards the magazine through generous relief cuts in the side of the carrier. After the initial gas puff it has a couple of inches of rearward travel (with the ejection port open) before it gets to the trigger.

At this point I'm tempted to say you could have a lot LESS crap in your trigger with one of these vs the traditional carrier. It really just depends on how effective you think those relief cuts (and pocket) would be at changing the direction of that gas.

2. With the longer gas system in today's test it was really nice to shoot. With no hearing protection there was zero discomfort at all. They claim a reduction of 10DB for the shooter's right ear (with that gas length), and I believe it for sure.