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Old 09-24-2013, 10:17 PM
Yournamehere Yournamehere is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by funkychinaman View Post
Just a general question, does the forward assist just ram the round into the chamber and force the bolt closed? If so, wouldn't it be a bigger problem if the shell casing got stuck in the chamber? (I never had a gun with a forward assist.)
Yes. If you examine the bolt carrier of an M4/M16 type rifle, there are these little notches in it. The forward assist interfaces with those notches to, yes, ram the bolt and carrier forward into battery. This is only useful for this failure to return to battery type jam, and only as long as the gun isn't too fouled by carbon buildup or external debris.

Certain guns have no need for this as they have inherent forward assists, like the AK's charging handle being directly on the bolt, or the slide on a handgun, the piece that interacts with fed rounds. Additionally, you'll hear people refer to the slide as the "bolt" because they probably also handle M4/AR type rifles and it's just the vernacular, but there isn't really a "bolt" with handguns (except maybe the Desert Eagle), just a slide, which more or less serves the same functional purpose. The More You Know.
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