The recoil and reciprocating buffering action

[MGMike]

......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.

...

-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

[forti-cinis]

Here's my recoil and reciprocating action

[Brit plumber]

Is that ground away section to the front to clear a full auto denial piece in the body?

[browningautorifle]

the frailties of the BAR rate-of-fire/buffer assembly

Apparently water would freeing accumulate from the field and this was known. Two rates wasn't necessary anyway.

[forti-cinis]

BP: yes, machined away to clear the denial feature

[tr63]

Here's my recoil and reciprocating action

So with your system the buffer still operates on the Bren Gun ?

[forti-cinis]

Yup, I had to clearance the back of the striker enough as to not mark either the striker or the lower. An earlier striker design bruised the lower.

[AmEngRifles]

I can attest to the very well thought out design of for forti-cinis striker system. I used the system in a Project Guns Bren that was giving me some trouble. It has cleared up and cleaned up the operation of that semi auto design. It is the best solution for the semi auto conversion of a Bren gun.

To those in the UK. A good number of design changes have to be made to a reman'd full auto as our ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms), as I still call them, has to approve said designs in order to not be in violation of Federal Law, or "making machine guns". They tend to vary between makers, but the denial pin set up means there are two protruding pins inside the receiver to keep a full auto or unmodified Bren bolt from going home. Each gun has slightly different "denial" features. But they all (except for one ill fated hammer design) have to be a striker system. No Open Bolt guns any more here, unless they are full auto or a grandfathered design like some of the early open bolt semi auto MAC-10 copies.

It IS a complicated collection of laws and restrictions.