Cheap Bump Fire Stock

[Johnny Rotten]

This is what happens when you do too dam many mag dumps...

http://youtu.be/Kzfm4pYhIyY

[wileecoyote]

its not the muzzle climb alone, it is splitting your attention between forward pressure, keeping it just-so in the shoulder, and aiming while under recoil (which is mild) that makes it a lot harder than normal.    It also depends on expectations...  I was expecting that on a stationary target at short ranges and short bursts (as you said 15-25 yards) the rounds would all be in the vitals (say, a 4 inch group or so), not just on the paper.   At that range a novice can double tap the head in the same amount of time it takes to put a 5 burst all over the torso.   In that sense, its harder to aim.  But I agree, that sounds about like what I have experienced as well.    Enough practice will probably overcome it but I stand by what I said -- its significantly more difficult vs semi auto.

 

Agreed about typical scenarios, but would you really use this thing in a typical scenario?  I would think a long range gun that has a high chance to produce many stray rounds would not fit typical scenarios.

 

Its good to know that the heat is not doing any real harm.  I worry when things get that hot that fast as I do not have the experience to know when too much is too much. 

 

I agree that firing the Slide Fire stock in rapid fire mode is different than firing in semi-auto mode. I never really noticed the need to keep the rear of the butt stock "just-so in the shoulder", however, as the Slide Fire buttstock does not move any more or less than any other stock, and the recoil when firing rapidly keeps it firmly in place. So I never focused on anything different, other than to push my weak-side hand (holding the forearm) forward whenever I wanted to fire, and holding it forward whenever I wanted to fire bursts. When I say novice shooters, I am meaning mostly brand new shooters that have never or only rarely fired any guns at all, and in many cases my AR was the first and only rifle they had ever fired at the time. I have had a number of younger kids try it too, and all that I ever told any of them was basic safety rules, how to stand and operate the major controls, and then to just use the weak-hand as the trigger and push forward when they want to fire, or hold forward for bursts. With that short bit of instruction, every single one of them to-date have been able to fire single shot, bursts, and full mag dumps without any special practice. So I wouldn't call it difficult by any means, just different.

 

Regarding accuracy, I would not expect any novice (as I defined above) to get all their shots within the head area even at short distances, unless they were firing from a supported position such as a bench, kneeling, sitting, or prone. This is because the rifles are fairly heavy, especially for young kids, and they are not used to recoil or proper sight alignment / follow-up / rapid shooting of any kind, so in my experience the new shooters firing from the standing position (without a sling or support device) are pretty accurate with their first shot and then subsequent shots start to roam a good bit, whether semi-auto or rapid fire. For more experienced shooters, or for new shooters that have just completed a rifle class, I think it is entirely reasonable for them to be able to keep all their rounds within the torso area during rapid fire, either through use of the Slide Fire or just rapid fire in normal semiauto mode.

 

But I get what you mean in that benchrest or precision accuracy will certainly suffer significantly when firing rapid fire, so if you are firing for a high target score or you are a sniper taking out a bad guy holding a hostage then obviously the Slide Fire is not for you. But I would not hesitate to use my Slide Fire on a home defense gun, where ranges will be short, and where my skills are sharp enough to keep them all in the same general torso area. I don't think any shooters should be going for a head shot in defensive shooting scenarios, unless they are very highly trained, and even then I think the head shot is only necessary in limited scenarios, and a very highly trained shooter could likely keep them all in the head even with the Slide Fire stock (or real full auto mode) at short distances.

 

Also, while I wouldn't consider the Slide Fire stock or any full auto gun to be unusable for self defense, I generally don't find them particularly helpful either, as most defensive shooting should be over very quickly with only a few rounds fired, and in those cases you should be able to easily solve the problem with proper use of a standard semiauto action. So I am not recommending use of the Slide Fire or full auto mode for defense, just noting that it is certainly possible and could work just fine provided that the shooter had at least basic instruction and was firing from short distances.

Edited September 23, 2014 by wileecoyote

[TMF]

So I take it a trigger like the SD3G will shorten the pull and speeding up and smoothing out the action of a bump fire stock? 

 

Absolutely, but I haven't had any issue with a normal milspec trigger group; there is plenty of recoil on your average carbine.  When I was looking to run one of these on my S&W 15-22, I lightened up my trigger to ~ 3 lbs with the help of our resident SME, Dolomite.  I was able to get it to run, but not as consistently as I wouldn't like.  If I had one of these single stage 2.5-3.5 drop in triggers I could probably do it, but just not going to spend that kind of money.  I wouldn't recommend anyone spend that kinda cash if they're just going to run it on a 5.56 rifle.  It will run fine once you get the hang of it.  It took me one mag, practicing bursts of 3-5 rounds to master the technique.  After that I could shoot it accurately just fine.

 

I haven't had the chance to use one of the AK SlideFire stocks, but they look like they jump around too much due to the way they're designed.  The AR version is far more manageable.