Breaking News: Speed Tac Bolt Carrier
Your Biggest AR Problems — Solved!
Two rounds. Does it make a difference to you?
If you’re plinking, probably not. If you’re in a competition, it might make a difference, but during a real-deal gunfight those extra two bits of bang could mean life or death. Fortunately, now you don’t have to give up the safety of full magazines in order to ease your loading drills.
The Trouble
A universal problem with the AR-15/M16 platform is the fact a full magazine is virtually impossible to seat on a gun when the bolt carrier group is forward, live round or not resting in the chamber. Technically-speaking, it can be done with most magazines (but not all), provided you have the strength of Hercules and perhaps a rubber mallet handy. However, in most cases you’d be better off trying to fit a hubcap into the gun than a full mag.
Furthermore, the number one cause of malfunctions in the AR platform is failure to seat the magazine fully regardless of the number of rounds contained therein. In fact, it’s common for push-ups or cases of beer to be invoked when someone experiences the old “magazine fallout” malfunction during training. Though we all laugh, it’s like death and taxes — everybody will experience it at least once. If it happens in a real-world engagement, it’s anything but humorous.
This is why the near-universal technique, taught since the days of Eugene Stoner, is to down-load your magazines by at least one, but usually two rounds, especially in the 30-round stick mags. Thus stoked, the magazines slide in and seat — usually — and you’re ready to go with your 28-shooter. Furthermore, good manual-of-arms dictates after shoving the magazine into the gun with authority, you double-triple-quadruple check things by tugging downward a couple of times to make sure the mag is well and truly seated. Now, after all this, you’re ready for whatever pew-pew fun life brings your way.
Do the Math
Let’s say your standard load-out for ‘social work’ is six 30-round magazines. Adhering to the suggested down-loading rule means you’re already light by 12 rounds — six percent — from the start. Does it make a difference? Maybe. Some folks reasonably will say No — this is all gilding the Lilly and if 12 rounds were critical to your survival then you should have shot better during the other 168. Fair ‘nuff. However, lots of other folks, especially those who have experienced hot lead inbound toward their soft pink epidermis, sure love the idea of loading all they’ve got to the top.
How it Works
Here’s the really stupid part: like most revolutionary things, this new technology is literally simplicity itself — one double-tapered cut on the underside of the bolt carrier. The concept has been sitting there all along waiting for someone to make the change and it’s a mystery why old Eugene himself didn’t come up with it. It took the likes of inventor and shooter Richard Aitken to look at the problem and go about solving it himself. After several attempts and iterations, he found the precise geometry necessary to make a magazine seat with ease regardless of payload and the Speed Tac was born. Checking another critical box headlined “Reliability,” the patented change in bolt carrier geometry doesn’t negatively impact operation of the rifle in any way.
Game-Changing
In my book, the best part of the Speed Tac isn’t even the ability to load your magazines to the top because I’m one of those curmudgeons who likes to point out, “you can’t miss fast enough.” Since I’ll never assault a machinegun nest in someplace sandy during my remaining days, extra capacity is nice but not mission-critical. More important to me is the ease of loading.
With the Speed Tac you can literally use one finger to seat a magazine. Richard even showed me how a loaded 30-rounder will seat itself via gravity, though he doesn’t recommend such sleight-of-hand for any serious work. However, if you’ve ever struggled getting a magazine to positively engage the magazine latch — and everyone has — it’s almost spooky how easy the mags insert and lock into place.
When you add full ammunition capacity of your magazines to the ease and positivity of loading, along with no operational reliability concerns, the Speed Tac is certainly a game-changer for AR shooters. It will also have lots of people scratching their head and saying “Why didn’t I think of that??”
As this is a new product, I can’t say it’s been personally tested in every type of field condition but as always, “Keep It Simple Stupid” applies here and this new cut is simplicity itself — it should work regardless. Now, for only $129.95, you can KISS your AR loading issues goodbye with the Speed Tac bolt carrier!
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