Full-Auto Fast – Product Update – $99 Bump Stock

Editor note: This stock is no longer available due to patent issues that have now been resolved.

Read a review of the Century AK: https://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/the-new-american-made-ak-the-ras47/

Bump Fire for the AR-15: https://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/bumpfire-systems-stock-review-video/

There are multiple ways to get lead down range quickly. The most natural (and most heavily regulated) is the old-fashioned full-auto. These are expensive, require tax stamps and ATF paperwork, and are reasonably scarce. You can go with some of the trigger systems that have assisted resets. Those work, but have a steep learning curve. Then there’s the add-on option, like the Bump Fire System.

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What is Bump Fire? Bump Fire is essentially a stock/grip combo that changes the way recoil works in a rifle platform. The stock is built off of the grip itself. The receiver is joined to the grip and stock by way of a rail that can slide back and forth. This rail allows for a modest amount of travel, about the length of a trigger’s reset. When the gun goes bang, recoil drives the receiver back far enough for the trigger to reset, and then the gun bounces forward–or bumps forward. If you are still holding pressure on your trigger finger, the trigger will connect with your finger on its way back forward and the gun will fire again (just as fast as it bumps). Bump-bump-bump…. The rate of fire is exceptionally fast.

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The body mechanics necessary to make this happen are not intuitive, but they’re not hard to learn. You grip the hell out of the grip, and pull the stock into your shoulder. You trigger finger rides along the cut-outs that parallel the trigger guard. With your support hand on the forend, you push the rifle away from you. This brings the trigger into contact with your trigger finger. Push it far enough forward and it will go bang. Hold it forward and it will go bang bang bang… until you let go, or run out of ammo, or the gun jams.

The details

The system (because it is really more than just a stock) comes in right and left handed models. The trigger can still be pulled when the system is in place, though pulling with your non-dominant hand is much more difficult as access to that side of the gun is blocked by the Bump Fire grip’s finger shelf. You can turn the system on and off (so it bounces, or not), remove the stock, and install or remove the whole system at will; there are no permanent changes to the gun, except perhaps the charring inside the handguard from running the gun until your barrel glows.

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Any difficulties?

Usually when we review guns, we expect a near perfect standard of reliability. We’re not using that as the baseline for this review. There is too much potential for the user to screw up–especially during the steep learning curve. And once you have mastered the concept, you should consider the limitations of the platform. How many AK and AR variants are there? If the rifle doesn’t go bang when it is supposed to, do we blame it on the shooter, on the ammo, on the rifle, or on the Bump Fire System itself? Each deserves a look, I think–and you will get the opportunity to ask the questions. That I guarantee.

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Installation was easy. It takes about two minutes. I had it turned off to begin with, which made it difficult to achieve the full effect. Once I figured out that part, I worked through a couple of magazines at a faltering pace. I would get a couple of rounds through, then something would happen  (either the gun choked, a mag failed to feed, or I screwed up the trigger).

Once I got the hang of it, the speeds picked up and the gun ran much better. As far as I can tell, the Bump Fire System worked exactly as it was designed to. That said, I had very few start-to-finish mag dumps. I put 500 + rounds through in a very short period of time. It heated up the gun to the point that there is now visible charring on the outside of the handguard. The Century yanked rounds free with no problem, even when the gun was super hot–if we pulled the trigger slowly. Once it sped up with the Bump Fire, we had a few failures to extract.

The most prominent issue I experienced had to do (I think) with my management of the bump of the gun. If your form isn’t spot on, the system will hiccup. The trigger won’t hit your finger right, or you won’t have enough forward momentum on the return stroke to get the gun to fire reliably. There is certainly a sweet spot that allows for everything to run just right. The best analogy for this that we could come up with on the spot was “limp wrisitng”–even though that isn’t 100% right. But it felt like limp wristing a GLOCK. It felt like if I wasn’t holding just right, I could cushion the forward momentum of the gun (and weirdly, the bolt) in a way that would keep the bolt from stripping off the next round. The gun would run forward, but not bang, and I’d have to cycle the action again to pick up the next round.

How much do you chalk up to user error? Most of it–but remember what you’re doing. If you run the gun like we did–flat out fast–you will be heating the gun up. That heat causes expansion that, hypothetically, can cause issues. And then there are mag issues to consider. We used Magpul, U.S. Palms, and Thermolds.

And when we’re talking 7.62×39, you need to take into consideration the material construction of cases. Some surplus ammo has a lacquer coating over the steel case. Others coat the steel with a polymer. Both of those should be slick–but both of those materials melt. Run enough of them through a smoking hot chamber, and you will foul up the guts of an AK. The coatings deposit in the chamber, burn out, and make a mess that doesn’t make extraction any more reliable. And, as is typical for cheap ammo, we had a few duds.

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Is this a tactical replacement for full-auto?

If anything, the Bump Fire stock requires more concentration. As you pull in with your trigger hand, and push out with the support hand, you counteract a lot of the forces of recoil and muzzle rise. In order to get the stock to work, you have to be holding the gun securely.

While I wasn’t focused on accuracy during the get-to-know-you phase of the Bump Fire, I am concerned with accuracy. After I’d gotten the hang of it, I put up a 10″ target square on the berm and stood about 15 yards back. I ran a full mag through and then counted the holes.

9 of the 30 rounds hit the 10″ square. I was pleasantly surprised. Consider again that this was my first date with the Bump Fire. From that distance, I could get all 30 in with individual trigger pulls–even running the gun fast. But it wouldn’t be half as fast as it would have been with the Bump Fire. I timed 8 rounds from a fast string on the video. 8 rounds in just under 1 second. That’s 480 rounds a minute. The cyclic rate of an AK is 600 rounds per minute, if you believe common repositories of internet factoids. So that’s pretty close.

I’d like to know what I could do with a full auto AK. And it would have to be an exact copy of this RAS-47, too. But I think this is missing the point. If the tactical advantages of the Bump Fire seem to be limited (at least when we’re talking about Youtube style mag dumps), there is something more to this system–and I think it is more important to understanding the whole concept.

Shooting guns is fun.

Absolutely. No doubt about it. 100% Even with the occasional jam, the Bump Fire is awesome. How awesome? So awesome that I’m reverting to the well worn adjectives of my 80s youth. It is that awesome.

I’m hard to impress. I shoot all the time, and get more trigger time behind full autos than most. I know exactly what these systems do, and I’ve been to range events where members of the Bump Fire staff will blow through mags like seasoned experts. So I had assumed I’d be able to evaluate it critically, but my giddiness took over. I couldn’t help it. There is just something about setting a gun on fire with heat from the barrel that I like. It brings out the kid in me.

But don’t take my word for it. Ask a real kid (like the 12 year old bow-hunter who I flushed from the woods–he’s at the end of the video above). We’d gone down to do some work on a farm where we’ll be hunting in a few weeks, and set up there where we do some shooting occasionally. Black powder season hadn’t started yet, and we didn’t think they’re would be anyone bow hunting in the middle of the day–but never underestimate the resolve of a motivated kid. He was still hunting. And when he had his day ruined by sounds that he could only associate with Call-of-Duty, he and his dad came to check it out. After apologizing for running off any remaining deer, I asked if he wanted to shoot it.

Surprise surprise. He did want to shoot it. And the look on his face told me everything I needed to know. And his ability to master shooting the Bump Fire stock on an AK-47 told me everything I needed to know. He’d never shot an AK before. I hate to think how boring his next AK might be.

In the end, I can’t think of a better way to blow through a case of 7.62×39. The Bump Fire System is $99. That’s nothing compared to the ammo bill you’re going to rack up. Still–it is worth it. This is reason enough to buy an AK. The guns are cheap, the ammo is cheap… why not have a dedicated fun gun.

Buy a Bump Fire System: https://www.bumpfiresystems.com/product/ak-47-blk/

Buy a RAS 47 on GunsAmerica: https://www.gunsamerica.com/Search.aspx?T=ras%2047

Read a review of the Century AK: https://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/the-new-american-made-ak-the-ras47/

Bump Fire for the AR-15: https://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/bumpfire-systems-stock-review-video/

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