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I don’t think I’ll argue with you on that. But it doesn’t matter. If the military says it must have a forward assist and a flapper on the ejection port, then that’s the end of your argument. Military wins, you lose.

Also, something else I didn’t mention is abraision between bolt and upper receiver. I don’t know how well carbon fiber stands up to abrasion. Also heat. THere is going to be substantial heat buildup in the upper receiver as long as the AR gas system is retained. I don’t know how well carbon fiber stands up to heat.

The lower carbon fiber receiver could very easily be modified with steel reinforcing inserts or ferrules molded into the polymer at the stress points, bearing points, and high friction areas if necessary. If heat and abrasion are a problem in the upper receiver, metalic inserts would be less effective/more difficult to apply effectively.

Unless your buffer spring is weak, you really don’t need the forward assist.

Besides it’s a throwback to when the M-16 had the “teething problems” after it was first introduced.

Partly true. The other parts are that as the use of the XM177/ *Car15* with it's 10 or 11.5-inch barrel became more common, it was found that a number of *fixes* were needed to keep the weapon, including the use of the CAR15 suppressor/moderator to increase gas pressure, different sized gas ports, etc. And things got progressively worse as some unit armorers began removing the CAR15 *moderator* and began other tinkering to try to get the things to work reliably. When the shorter gas tube became more quickly fouled, things progressed from full to semi to straight-pull bolt action in short order. Neither did it help that the cardboard sleeves of the M193 ball ammo would draw and hold moisture from the air and corrode in as little as two days time, making a *helper* during so-so feeding a useful device for those units whose weapons were in the field rather than in unit arms room racks.

The first M16 I got in-country was a USAF early M16 with a white parade sling and the stock/grip/foreend painted blue for the Ton Sohn Nhut USAF base honor guard. Only three magazines [20s] were available for it, nicely solving the problem I had about a lack of web gear- my shirt pockets got one mag each, the selector was rolled over to SEMI, and I was ready for business...with a rifle I'd never function-tested or sighted in. But it was night, and the other people had their own problems, and I figured that if things went beyond 60 rounds, there'd either be a couple of their rifles lying around unused, or I wouldn't be worrying about the things of this world any more.

I felt a lot better when I found out that the two USAF guys with me had M1 carbines, also with three mags each. I figured I could always shoot them with my last couple of rounds, and then I'd have at least one working carbine and 6 mags.... I was a lot happier when we got an M60 MG and 6000 rounds for it. Which I learned the USAF mechanics had no idea how to operate/load....