Why I chose to buy a gas piston AR15 over a D.I. AR15?

You probably hear this statement all the time in the AR15 world...

"Just run your AR15 wet and it will run reliably all day"

Well thats fine and dandy if you are ok with carrying a bottle of oil with you all day and dont mind periodically adding lube to your bolt throughout the day. What if you are like me and you dont want to run my AR15 wet in the first place?

While I do have military and law enforcement experience, I am not a high speed low drag operator type guy and I do play out in the desert with my guns. Thats the beauty of living in Las Vegas. There is alot of open desert to go shooting in. When I had my D.I. (direct impingement) AR15, I would run it wet and it in deed ran flawlessly all day. But every few hours I would have to remember to stop and lube my gun to keep in running reliably.

Also, all that "wet" lube on my bolt attracted fine desert dust. After a while I noticed that a sort of crud would develop in and around the bolt and chamber which obviously is not good. Get enough grains of oily, sandy, crud under the extractor and you'll probably experience malfunctions? I know I did. So the claim that merely running my AR wet would keep my AR reliable all day just wasnt 100% true. 

Excessive oil = crud collection.

Of course if you mostly shoot in a forest type or grassy plains type environment then you probably dont have anything to worry about other than remembering carry a bottle of oil with you. And if you are a bench shooter, again a wet D.I. AR15 probably isnt going to be an issue?

Another thing I hated about my D.I. AR15 was that at the end of the day (or whenever I decided to get around to clean my gun) that dang star chamber was a pain in the ass to clean. I often had to use a dental pick to reach inside the hard to reach crevices of that star chamber. I bought a specialized brush made specifically for the AR15/M16 chamber and even that was a pain in the ass to use. 

I hate cleaning the star chamber back in my military days and I still hate cleaning it today! If you shoot a whole ammo can of ammo and you claim your D.I. AR15 doesnt get that dirty if you keep it oil... I might have to call bullshit? But hey, I guess anything is possible?

 

So me being an older and lazy guy, I wanted to try the newest craze in the industry..."the gas piston AR15".  After much research and a limited budget (due to the recession) I chose the Stag Arms model 8 gas piston AR15. (link to why I chose Stag here) 

I have already passed my first year with the Stag piston gun and I have to admit its good. Very good to be honest. It does everything my D.I. does but with the benefits of only oiling it once in the morning before we head out into the desert and cleanup is a cinch at the end of the day. 

No more carrying a bottle of oil to keep the bolt "wet" all day for reliability and no more oily crud build up arond the chamber and no more irritating dental pick star chamber cleaning at the end of the day!!! Those are all more than enough reasons for me to justify my transition to a gas piston AR15.

To be honest it is not perfect. No gun is. If I were a precision distance shooter then I probably would not want a piston AR? The piston system by design does not allow for a true free float barrel like a D.I. AR allows. The less the barrel flexes, the better the accuracy will be usually. Pistons involve pressure on the piston head and a few ounces of solid metal mass that reciprocates above the axis of the barrel. Either inside a tube or a spring cup design.

Is it significantly less accurate? Absolutely not; at least not at BZO ranges of 200 yards or 200 meters (Marines use yards/Army uses meters) I personally intend to use my AR as a home defense/desert fun gun so the piston AR fits my needs and performs what I need it to do at closer ranges.A piston AR may not be for you if you are a precision long shot bench shooter? Its a short stroke system vs a long stroke system but thats a whole other blog topic in itself also. From what I have learned is that long stroke systems tend to have more stabilization when the bolt travels rearward and tend to experience less carrier tilt because of the support. For the record, I have seen carrier tilt even on direct impingement systems.

I also went with Stag Arms because in the world of piston AR15's, you quickly learn that top tier piston guns are ridiculously expensive. I am talking $1800 just for a POF piston upper. AddaxTactical does make a very high quality piston upper at an affordable price but its still $800 just for an upper and their website didnt openly say what their warranty was? I am sure its great but I didnt see it on their website. Stag offers a complete piston rifle for $1000 and it clearly comes with a lifetime warranty. 

It may not have top tier features but for what I intend to do with it, I dont need it to be. Like I said, I am not a hard core shooter. I dont attend a lot of carbine courses so, I don’t need a top tier featured AR15. But if I were to do it all over again, I would go with the Stag Plus Package which is their top tier featured AR15 for only $100 more than the regular rifles. That’s a killer deal no matter if you need it or not in my opinion.

I will close with this. If I had a bigger budget of say $1500, I'd probably buy a PWS MK114 but that is a whole other blog topic. LOL.

Thanks for reading

Stay safe...