If I shimmed the gas plug out would this not do the same? Bit at a time of course. Thanks for the heads up and all of the great info From prior posts.
Short answer about shimming the plug... No, do not do this.
The only accepted ways to increase gas volume are:
1) to adjust piston dwell time at the piston/oprod interface. This is done by 4 jaw chucking the piston in the lathe and shaving the tail end only. The tail is the solid end that contacts the oprod.
2) By honing the gas plug to increase it's volume. (The SEI socom gas plug is an example of this in action)
Other than that, there is nothing that can be done that will not cause other problems.
Examples:
Shimming plug or, shaving top end of piston, allows piston to travel to high, changing port alignment and timing. Cycling issues will be a result.
Shaving gas lock thickness below designed minimum- same problem being created with negative port alignment/timing
And finally, shimming gas plug or shaving top of piston, can lead to insufficient piston protrusion from the cylinder and only so much can be shave from the cylinders piston tail opening. If the piston tail end hangs up in that opening during the firing cycle it can lead to a violent cylinder rupture.
If it were me, I'd find a smith enterprise SOCOM gas plug and measure it's depth and diameter and replicate that in a chinese plug.
My guess is it will only take a hair more volume in the chinese plug to get some rifles cycling all ammo. Just my guess tho.
