Quote Originally Posted by TactAdv View Post
......I've had the "pleasure" of repairing a few fullauto M1918A2 BAR's over the years and one of the more common issues is that the steel portions of the "cups-and-cones" buffer (all FOUR) inside the buffer stack are VERY hard to keep free of rust, the buffer tubes being inside the stock more often than you'd want to think get heavy accumulations of not just dust and lube, but also a lot of moisture gets trapped in there and that is one area that is invariably overlooked when cleaning the guns. Many guns start to have trouble, especially when set to "semi-auto" setting as the sliding actuator plug stops moving freely as required, and the buffer stack can get either very sluggish or possibly even just jam solid from years of rusting inside the tube. That buffer assembly is almost never completely cleaned, except when the gun stops working and the whole thing is torn down to find out why. Usually, it appears people just try and keep dumping more applications of some kind of spray lube in there which quite happily accumulates and combines with whatever amount of dust and grit that finds its' way inside too.

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-TomH
The late Roy Dunlap had "been there and done that" in WWII, and his comments on the frailties of the BAR rate-of-fire/buffer assembly are instructive. Bellville washers are great in theory, less so under combat conditions. See his classic memoir, Ordnance Went up Front, p. 304-307.

M