The victories and pitfalls I've experienced over the past two years while attempting to construct a functional U.N.C.L.E. Special has provided excellent exercise in non-linear thinking.
Case in point: by itself my carbine assembly with the steel barrel extension that Joe Hayes machined for me will function reliably. Although the abundance of mass created by the longer barrel has its negatives: The extension mass, combined with the rebounding of the action generated enough force to unseat the cosmetic handguard Joe Hays constructed for me (as chronicled in "The Back To The Drawing Board Affair. And prior attempts to fire my AAC suppressor off of it transformed the range session into an outright jam session without the benefit of musical instruments. The discovery suggested my suppressor added too much mass onto the end of my carbine assembly.
A solution came with the arrival of friends/fellow U.N.C.L.E. Agents Paul and Eric in the form of their contemporary, low-mass carbine assemblies (thanks to the presence of titanium). However, they soon shared my concern of excess inertial mass when I brought their attention to the amount of force the rebounding slide and barrel generates during reciprocation. Stress could cause wear on the barrel threads and the gun overall.
Then I recalled numerous conversations I'd had with my friend John Rhoda regarding linear-inertia-decouplers, (LIDs) and the subsequent research that followed to incorporate such a system in a U.N.C.L.E. carbine barrel. I shared my findings recently with Paul and Eric.
Judging by their reaction, you'd think I discovered the ballistic equivalent of the Holy Grail. Following our conversation I sent them a sketch of my idea of how to incorporate the idea, along with a device called a recoil regulator.
From conception to result, Paul and Eric's latest YouTube video provides a successful—not to mention extremely humbling—workaround for the long-standing problem of excessive inertial mass. They intend on producing a similar device of their own to incorporate into their barrels. The end result will enable suppressors to be integrated to the carbine assembly without hindering reliability or causing undo stress on the firearm. (A gracious tip of the communicator pen to the Oregon U.N.C.L.E. group, John Rhoda and his cantankerous counterpart Vinny the vicious Bengal for all their hard work and top-notch guidance.)
Enjoy!
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