Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1086092
sense in it but one cannot fire too intensively because gas system gets hot very quickly and zipties are just piece of plastic with low melting tem- perature. I do own a sport GROT and had at least dozen of those from dif- ferent production batches and none of them had the gas block mounted so loose to turn by itself. In some of them I was forced to use leverage to turn it for disassembly. I think there might be a different reason. There is a possibility, when you assemble the weapon so the gas block will be put to its place and turned so it will hold to the socket but will not fall down the latch so it might thanks to vibration twist and fall off. It is good practice during to mount the gas block down the sock- et, turn counterclockwise to the limit and then twist a little bit both sides to make sure it is properly secured. According to the statistics number of lost gas block is decreasing, similar to the number of overall malfunctions or reported damages. It turns out users start to get familiar with the weapon system and educate themselves how to properly care and use it Despite that we cannot understate either gas block problem or any other problems, all cases must be carefully analyzed and determine whether fault is on user side or it is result of way the weapon is designed or built. Then manufacturer should take over the problem. This should be done with the gas block problem. Gas block should be redesigned to make impossible to come loose, having in mind that in wartime, the weapon might be used by rookie. Problem cannot be either ignored or demonized. Here little digression about differ- ence in numbers of lost gas blocks and pistons. It would seem that it should be 1:1 ratio, because gas block keeps the piston inside gas chamber. Yes and no. In more exploited weapon, the piston is covered with some residues build-up that might cause that even purposeful taking out the piston may be difficult. So, if the rifle had some round count and it wasn't cleaned, gas block might fall off but there is a chance piston will stay in inside. Gen- erally speaking, GROT does not like dust and dirt and requires more care that Beryl, not to mention AKM. My GROT has a problem with bolt catch. Sometimes after last round, the bolt carrier does not hold on the latch and fall down to forward position. Is doesn't matter wheth- er weapon is clean or dirty and it doesn't matter which magazines I use because from one malfunction to another it happened on every kind of magazine I have used, including facto- ry one. That problem appeared also in TDF and I assume the manufacturer will take a closer look soon. TDF re- ported also 21 cases of cracking bolt release lever, those little paddles near trigger guard. Here I will allow myself to paste part of the report: „Lack of broken elements from the main part does not allow to state, whether damage was caused by me- chanical impact. In the cracks there were no material defects. FB repre- sentatives in their facility conduct test to brake few different pieces – there were no damage of those parts. We like to inform that FB will be con- stantly monitoring that situation." Speaking frankly, I don't know how to relate to this report… I can hardly imagine how to break that part in the first place. It is built into the receiver and damaging is not that easy. Maybe weapon was dropped onto something hard or hit something hard because I cannot imagine situation where it can be damaged by finger… TDF also reported 12 cases of cracked firing pin. Here nobody can blame the user, that's evident material flaw. Firing pin is just a hardened metal bar. Mass production might cause some flaws which resulted the that's durability of number www.fragoutmag.com