If you’ve ever suppressed an AR-15 your familiar with the over gassing and function issues with it. There’s a plethora of buffers, springs, gas blocks and other home remedies out there. Spend a little time on the internet and your sure to find a myriad of solutions. But let’s say you already have a carbine or a SBR you want to suppress and you don’t want to experiment, you just need it to work.
Today we take a look at the GemTech Suppressed Bolt Carrier. The usual way to take care of the excess gas that’s present when you add a suppressor to an AR-15 is either a heavier buffer to slow down the unlock time on the bolt or with an adjustable gas block. With the buffer system you may need to try out a couple of different weights to to get it right, and with the gas block it will need to be tuned. The major downside to either of these solutions is as soon as the suppressor comes off the buffer needs to be changed or the gas block needs to be retuned.
GemTech has come up with a unique solution. It’s basically a bolt carrier with a valve. On the suppressed setting it bleeds off all the excess gas. Switch it to normal and it acts like a normal bolt carrier.
The Suppressed Bolt Carrier comes as is. So I pulled out a spare bolt, firing pin, cam pin and firing pin retaining pin. Fitted everything into the bolt carrier and check to make sure everything functioned. Since my normal AR is already tuned in the normal way for a suppressor I also took a normal lower I have that has a normal buffer and buffer spring in it. Next stop was the range. First thing was to try everything out with my normal BCG. Results were as expected. Weak ejection patterns, gas in the face and the bolt wouldn’t lock back on an empty mag. Threw in the GSBC on the normal setting and got the same results.
Next was the suppressed setting. Pulled the BCG out, flipped it to the suppressed setting and put everything back together. Instantly the problem was solved. No more gas in the face, strong 3-4 o”clock ejection pattern and it would lock back on an empty mag.
The difference was night and day. What normally would take multiple range trips and multiple experiments to make everything run right was corrected with the flip of a switch. If your looking to suppress an AR you already have built or bought. An do not want to have to experiment with buffers, buffer springs or gas blocks and need it to run right because it’s your duty, home defense or training rifle. Take a look at the GemTech Suppressed Bolt Carrier.
C Smith
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I also experienced shooting this an AR15 and did notice some gassing. So I used what you recommended and it did minimize the problem, not totally but it works better now.
I ran this bolt yesterday in a rifle training class.
It definitely vents off gas.
I had an interesting thing happen, I was running a can, a Knights Armament and I was getting short strokes every once in a while. I thought perhaps it’s the mag so I swapped mags around. Same deal. Then it occurred to me, the barrel I was running is a Ballistic Advantage, they run smaller gas ports and aren’t overgassed, one of the reasons I like them so much. And I also run a Vltor A5 buffer setup. I was undergassed, I excused myself from the range, went to the loading table and flipped it back to the non suppressed setting. Gun ran fine.
What’s neat is that all I had to do was remove the rear take down pin, swing the upper up, pull back on the charging handle and pull the bolt back to expose the left side lever. I was able to flip it with my finger and was back shooting in another minute or two.
So, that really shows it definitely vents off the gas.