Do I really need a Forward Assist?

Double Naught Spy said:

Does anybody else perceive this to be a potential finger safety issue when covering the vent holes?

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I do. Try that stunt with a blistering hot bolt carrier and see what happens to you!

Reading some of the replies, you might need or at least want one.

I have them on most of my AR’s but rarely if ever have used one. If my rifle fails to go into battery, I generally figure out why vs forcing it to close.

Even if I am shooting a stage and have a malfunction, I don’t try and salvage the round it choked on. It’s ejected and the next round in the mag is given a try. Even if I could get the choke round to work, it’s faster and safer to rid yourself of the problem and move on.

That’s probably because I have seen two people bang the forward assist, closing the BCG on a round that didn’t want to go home because there was a bullet stuck in the barrel. The FA pushed the bullet into the case by the original obstruction bullet. Once I was the RO and stopped the shooter. The other time, it turned into a kaboom.

I guess the quiet loading might be a reason; however, in the field, I treat all of my guns like they are loaded, because they are.

If you think you are capable of ignoring the problem of a barrel obstruction and could potentially force the firearm into a dangerous condition like these guys.





I would say you are better off without the option. If you were the RO in the 2nd video that doesn’t stop the shooter even after the mag blows out the bottom of the rifle, you shouldn’t be an RO.

jmorris said:

.... If you were the RO in the 2nd video that doesn’t stop the shooter even after the mag blows out the bottom of the rifle, you shouldn’t be an RO.

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I suspect the shooter thought he did not have the magazine catch seated well, when the problem was the magazine had actually been blown out.
In the middle of excitement, calm reflection and problem analysis get short listed.

tark said:

I do. Try that stunt with a blistering hot bolt carrier and see what happens to you!

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That, and also an inadvertent discharge when forcing the bolt closed and you will have two high pressure super heated gas holes go through your thumb (or finger of choice).

someguy2800 said:

Sounds like you didn’t need it in that instance either. Whatever problem you had that required you to mortor it into the ground to get the bolt open would probably not have been solved by trying to beat the bolt shut. Had you been successful it getting it into battery you might have torn the rim off trying to get it back out, and had you been unsuccessful you might have had it so hopelessly jammed as to require removing the barrel.

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One had to be there, I guess. The round did not enter the chamber fully. Hence the butt stoke. Then that specific round fired normally and the arm cycled properly.

It’s disturbing watching people trying to power through a malfunction without determining the root cause.

tark said:

I do. Try that stunt with a blistering hot bolt carrier and see what happens to you!

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Why would someone due that? If my gun is blistering hot then I am no longer worried about a quiet close. The thumb in the cover detent recess on the bolt carrier is a trick for pushing a bolt closed quietly not in the middle of a heated firefight be that against carboard or for real.

In the middle of a shooting if the gun fails to fire I am not going to push the bolt closed for any reason. I will be racking the bolt as some point to get a fresh round into the gun.

C-grunt said:

For a range gun it is more of a convenience thing than anything. Though the guys talking about quiet chambering for hunting make a good point.

On a fighting rifle they are definitely needed. On a new rifle you are not likely to see a problem. But if you're on a mountain top in Afghanistan, you havent been to an actual FOB in weeks, it's dusty, and your recoil spring is getting up there in age..... or you are driving around in a Humvee/MRAP/whatever for hours and your rifle has been bouncing around...... or you are in a mutli hour fire fight and you are down to using partial mags, reinforcements are still a ways away, you load up a new 1/4 full mag and when you sling the charging handle it slightly catches on your gear as it slams forward...... In those situations a light tap on the forward assist to move the bolt that last couple mm for lockup, is a great idea.

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Yeah that's why I'm of mixed opinion on it. In certain situations it can be very useful but in other situations if can make an easily clearable malfunction worse, and it requires some experience and mechanical sympathy to know when is the time to use it and when its not. I'm by no means an expert but I have learned that the hard way myself a couple times. If a dummy treats it as something to beat on when the rifle doesn't work as in the above videos, it will do more harm than good, but there is definitely situations where its use is the fastest way to fix the malfunction.

I want to address the Kyle Rittenhouse case that was mentioned. I was unaware that he had used it so I watched a video about it yesterday and the person that made the video (Military Arms Channel) mentioned that perhaps he had noticed that he had a dead trigger and that's why he noticed he was out of battery and needed to hit the assist. Well if the bolt in an Ar15 is far enough forward for the cocking surface on the bolt to be off the hammer, the AR15 trigger will function and let the hammer fly regardless of whether the bolt is in battery or not. There is nothing in the fire control group to stop that happening if the bolt is out of battery at all, but the firing pin cannot hit the primer unless the bolt is cam'd into battery. I just went and checked on 2 of my rifles and the hammer is of the cocking ramp and live when the bolt carrier is about 1.25 inches out of battery, which is well past where an AR typically fails to go into battery.

So if he had noticed he had a dead trigger with the bolt carrier partially forward, that would mean the hammer had dropped, and pushing the forward assist will not help you because you will then need to cycle the bolt to reset the trigger anyway, and you might have just made that very difficult to do by cramming a damaged round in the chamber. So if you get a dead trigger and see the bolt is out of battery by a little bit, your first reaction needs to be to cycle the bolt to both get the offending round out, and to reset your trigger. So really the only time you should be using the forward assist, if ever, is if you have a failure to go into battery after inserting a mag, or if you are absolutely 110% certain you did not just pull the trigger and you just happen to notice your out of battery. As the pretty lady in Top Gun said, "The encounter was a victory, but I think that we've shown it as an example of what not to do."

here is the video I referenced

I know I can’t push hard enough on the dust cover scallop in the BCG to force the extractor to clip over the rim of a cartridge. I know I CAN push hard enough on an FA button to clip the extractor onto the rim. Those two methods are NOT equal.

I do find that I like FA’s on any of my semiautos - as I mentioned here, I have FA’s on all of my personal AR’s, but I also noticed how uncomfortable I am when function testing Winchester 63’s which only have a “one way” operating rod - it pushes the action open, but is disconnected such it can’t be used to pull the bolt closed. Same discomfort I feel when using non-reciprocating side chargers - one-way opening, but no assist in closure… I’m just not a fan.

someguy2800 said:

if he had noticed he had a dead trigger with the bolt carrier partially forward, that would mean the hammer had dropped, and pushing the forward assist will not help you because you will then need to cycle the bolt to reset the trigger anyway,

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Alternative to the scenario you mentioned, when we have the hammer fall on an unlocked bolt, if it fails to fire, which it usually does then we do have to manually cycle to reset…

but…

In some cases (in my experience, MOST cases, unless poorly reloaded ammo is used), that failure to close, and resulting failure to fire, is caused because the extractor doesn’t clip over the rim. Which then means if you do NOT drive the FA, when you reset the action, you’ll leave a round in the chamber and cycling creates a double feed.

Varminterror said:

Alternative to the scenario you mentioned, when we have the hammer fall on an unlocked bolt, if it fails to fire, which it usually does then we do have to manually cycle to reset…

but…

In some cases (in my experience, MOST cases, unless poorly reloaded ammo is used), that failure to close, and resulting failure to fire, is caused because the extractor doesn’t clip over the rim. Which then means if you do NOT drive the FA, when you reset the action, you’ll leave a round in the chamber and cycling creates a double feed.

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I can certainly see that happening though I don't think I've ever had that happen to me. You have more experience shooting AR's than me though.

Varminterror said:

I know I can’t push hard enough on the dust cover scallop in the BCG to force the extractor to clip over the rim of a cartridge. I know I CAN push hard enough on an FA button to clip the extractor onto the rim. Those two methods are NOT equal.

I do find that I like FA’s on any of my semiautos - as I mentioned here, I have FA’s on all of my personal AR’s, but I also noticed how uncomfortable I am when function testing Winchester 63’s which only have a “one way” operating rod - it pushes the action open, but is disconnected such it can’t be used to pull the bolt closed. Same discomfort I feel when using non-reciprocating side chargers - one-way opening, but no assist in closure… I’m just not a fan.

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Out of curiosity I just went and tried on all my ARs with snaps caps. The only AR I could not snap over the rim was my 30 RAR. All my 556 guns, 300 BO, 450 Bushmaster and can-cannon, I could snap over. Interestingly the two that were the hardest of those I could do was my first AR an old Rock River and my newest AR a 5-inch 300 BO I built.

mcb said:

Out of curiosity I just went and tried on all my ARs with snaps caps. The only AR I could not snap over the rim was my 30 RAR. All my 556 guns, 300 BO, 450 Bushmaster and can-cannon, I could snap over. Interestingly the two that were the hardest of those I could do was my first AR an old Rock River and my newest AR a 5-inch 300 BO I built.

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Most AR’s want to snap over most ammo. They’re designed to do so. When they don’t, they don’t.

Grendel bolts seem to be the most common perpetrators - I build a few Grendel/ARC rifles every year, and I can’t remember the last one which readily snapped over without reworking the bevel on the extractor the way they should.

My point is rather, that for the civilian firearm which isn’t finding itself on some imagined RECCE mission gone wrong where the rifle is dirty already then contaminated by diving into a muddy river then rolling through the desert sand to evade the enemy in a prolonged firefight, AND for any of these civilians but the new reloader who hasn’t yet learned how to properly set their sizing dies, it’s more common for an AR to fail to close with the extractor NOT engaged on the rim, rather than clipped over and failing to wedge an oversized round into the chamber. So having SOME means of forcing the extractor over is important for me.

When I worked at the Rock Island Arsenal Museum, before it closed for renovation, I met a LOT of veterans. About three or four years ago this subject came up, whether or not the F/A had any real use, so I started asking Veterans who were actually in combat . The answers I got were interesting. I asked them: 1. What years were you there? 2. did you ever have to use the F/A ? 3. Did it hurt or help.?

The vets that were there early in the war used the F/A the most. Those were the years that the M-16 was having the most problems. About 30% of these vets said that it saved their butts and another 30% said it made things worse. The other 40% did their best to find and carry another weapon. They were almost unanimous in stating that it was best to try to pull the offending round back out rather than going for the F/A first.

The vets that were there later in the war were almost unanimous in saying they never had to use the thing. The M-16s troubles had pretty much been sorted out by then and the guns were reliable.

I was never in combat, but I have never had to use the F/A on my Bushmaster in over 2,000 rounds, 500 of which were without cleaning.

In conclusion, I have no idea what to conclude.

Scout21 said:

On one hand I don't foresee ever needing to use the FA. I've even read that many U.S. military members aren't even taught how to use the FA in basic, which tells me it's probably an unnecessary add on if they don't bother to teach about it's use. I habitually leave my ejection port closed when using it in a non-range environment, so I don't think much foreign material will make it into the action.

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Not sure where you read that. But using the FA in Infantry school was certainly taught. Especially when it should be used vs not used. Maybe in non combat jobs the lesson is omitted, but in my training it wasn't.

As far as the practical use, that is up for debate. I believe it has a useful purpose and have used it, to effect, in training and combat. So my personal rifles have them. Most receivers also have a FA built in and ones without aren't as common. So there is a price and availability consideration in which receiver you go for.

Carl N. Brown said:

In the middle of excitement, calm reflection and problem analysis get short listed.

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Shouldn’t be an RO then. Same with squibs. If they are “in the zone” executing the plan they programmed into their head, they may very well miss something important. That’s why the RO is running along with them vs just hanging out and watching. Sometimes you have to be able to yell STOP! Like someone’s kid is about to run in the street and get ran over.

mcb said:

...tried on all my ARs...

...and can-cannon...

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You have one!

Tell us about it!!!

I’ve used the forward assist to fully seat the bolt after a press check on a dirty gun during range, competition, and training. I’d not recommend it to jam a round in the chamber that doesn’t want to go.

If its a range toy then no. If you are going to use it as intended build a proper AR with th FA! Good luck with the build.

Since there will never be a cut and dry answer...

Go with what's cheapest and then that will be the deciding factor

Given the option, I'd have it. I can tell when my SP-1 starts getting a little too dry or dirty because the bolt will lack just a little bit closing fully. Consequently, FTF. It needs so little encouragement that you can do it by pushing the bolt forward in the ejection port, but that isn't desirable at all, and takes a lot more time than a quick whack to a FA.

Ask Rittenhouse if he needed a forward assist.

It saved his life.

herrwalther said:

Not sure where you read that. But using the FA in Infantry school was certainly taught. Especially when it should be used vs not used. Maybe in non combat jobs the lesson is omitted, but in my training it wasn't.

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We were taught the same at Ft Leonardwood and it didn't matter if you were there for combat engineer or construction engineer school.

As I stated before, I have used the FA many times with both the A1 and A2 on the range and in combat situations. I went to basic in 1989. The FA does have its place. Again if it takes more than a light tap then you need to correct other issues.