My Dissipator

[Candyman]

I remember back in the 80s when I saw my first Dissipator, man did it look so cool. I wanted one bad. About 3 or 4 months later I was able to hold one in my hands and I was disharted. It had a heave barrel under the handguard that was right at an inch thick. This made for a very heavy carbine.
Years later I read about Dissipators with light barrels, but these were barrels with carbine lenght gas systems with the sight tower mounted at rifle lenght. I didn't care much for the setup and pretty much gave up on the idea of getting one.
Last month a friend went off the deep end and spent $2000 for one of the Tiger McKee Katana carbines.
http://shootrite.org/katana/katana.html
After having a look at it my love for a Dissipator came back.
I checked with my Gunsmith friend to see what options I had for building one with a light barrel. He told me I could get a Dissipator barrel and he could trim it to a lighter conture for $50, or I could get a 20" barrel with the light conture and he could cut and rethread it to 16" for $75.
Well I had a 20" FN barrel in my shop and a few days later I was at my friends shop having it cut down. We did some horse treading for the work and my out of pocket cost was about $10.

Here is the barrel after having it cut,






Then mocked up to see how it would look.


I started getting the parts.


I went with an old styl three prong flash hidder and coated the barrel with Aluma-Hyd II Matt Black.
I wanted it to have a little different look so, I coated a few other parts with Aluma-Hyd II FDE.
I took it to work and fuction tested it and it wirked great. I hope I can make it to the range with it next week.

[Cobar]

Looks slick.

Yay, Palmetto! Everyone keep them in business so they help keep us in business. Not that I have any clue if their stuff is any good or not.

[Netpackrat]

<arhater>
I had to Google what a "dissipator" is. So, basically, an AR with a 16" barrel, that's had the front sight moved out to where it should have been all along. Apparently ARs of this configuration have a bit of a troubled history that's mostly behind them now, but I will note that M. Kalashnikov had a functional equivalent (with emphasis on functional) back around 1947 or so. And I still didn't find out why they call it a dissipator.
</arhater>

That said, you've got a nice looking rifle, and it's crying out for a red dot. Your friend does good work, too.

[Old Grafton]

Years and years ago I did that because I wanted an AR with full-length handguards and a shorter barrel. Showed it to a friend and he said "Oh. You built a Dissipator." (The tone of voice was "Yeah, so what? BFD") I think the name might have come from somebody like SARCO or NESARD (Gerry Drasen).

[Candyman]

The name Dissipator???? That's the name Bushmaster came up with. I guess back in the '80s you could give your rifles an eivel name and no one caried.
Depending on who you talk to or where you look up your info, you will get a different story on what gas systen and barrel the first Dissipators had.
The first Dissipator I picked up in the mid '80s was made by Bushmaster. I think at that time Bushmaster was the only ones making them. The rifle had a 16" barrel with a rifle lenght gas system. The barrel was heavy as hell. Later on when I put my hands on one with a shorter gas system, the barrel was still on the heave side, I didn't care for it after shooting it. The handguard would get hot where the gas block was.
When building one with a rifle lenght gas system, you have two issues to worry about. One, like with any AR, is ammo. There is stuff out there that is not loaded to Mil Spec and can cause problems.The maine issue is the gas port. Most often the gas port needs to be opened a little more depending on the barrel you use. The barrel on my build is a FN Govt. profile made to GI spec.
When I had the barrel cut my friend checked the gas port and side that it was large enough and would work, he was right.

Oh! I do have a red dot for it, just haven't put it on yet.