Omni Robusta is a firearm accessories manufacturing company located in Virginia Beach, VA. Their main product is an AR-15/AR-10 buffer that has built-in neodymium magnets for felt recoil mitigation. They call these buffers MARRS which stands for Magnetic Adjustable Recoil Reduction System. Let’s see how these buffers work and what advantages they have.

The Omni Robusta MARRS buffer consists of the machined aluminum body, a plunger protruding from the buffer tail, a large adjustment set screw installed from the buffer head end, and magnets located inside the buffer assembly. The magnets are oriented to repel each other constantly pushing the plunger out and working as a magnetic spring. Upon reaching the rear wall of the buffer tube, the plunger starts retracting into the buffer body thus cushioning the impact of reciprocating parts. The adjustments are done by turning the set screw in or out which changes the distance between the magnets. This allows tuning the MARRS buffer to work properly with different loads, calibers, barrel lengths and gas systems as well as for use with suppressors.

Rendering of MARRS buffer’s internal design.

Here is how the company describes the advantages of their MARRS buffer system over other recoil dampening solutions:

Key Advantages over other buffer replacements:

Hydraulic Buffers:

•   $$$ Pricey $$$
•   Seals that can fail
•   Not Adjustable, and with much less travel on recoil dampener

Captured Spring Drop-in Buffers:

• Not Adjustable
• Too heavy? Enjoy double feeding, stovepipes, and ejection failure
• Too light?  You win extra recoil, bolt wear, bolt bounce and breach lock failure, and rounds ramming onto the breach

Heavy Duty Spring:

• Not adjustable, with the same problems as the captured system and you may still need to replace your buffer anyway

Gen1 MARRS buffers have polygonal bodies.

The Omni Robusta MARRS is a drop-in product simply replacing the existing buffer of your rifle. Due to the risk of damaging the magnets, the company does not suggest disassembling these buffers. There are several versions and two generations of MARRS buffers listed on the company’s website. Gen2 is the latest generation and it can be externally distinguished from Gen1 by the round buffer body as opposed to the polygonal body of Gen1. It looks like previously these buffers were called MagnaBuffer.

MARRS Gen2 buffers. Left to right: ELITE-LITE, Standard, Heavy. Note the different materials of plungers.

The Gen2 buffers are available in three versions: ELITE-LITE (2.2 oz), Standard (3 oz), and Heavy (4 oz). Apparently, the weight difference is primarily achieved by the material of the plunger which is made of brass, aluminum or Delrin in heavy, standard and lightweight buffers respectively. There is also a Gen1 5oz PCC buffer, a prototype 3D printed polymer 1.75 oz ultra-lightweight buffer, and a short 2.5″ AR-10 3oz buffer that is available for preorder. The prices of Omni Robusta MARRS buffers vary from $42 to $119.99 depending on the weight, type and availability. The Omni Robusta products are made in the USA and covered by a 1 year/ 30,000 round warranty and 90-day satisfaction guarantee.

The prototype 3D printed polymer ultra-lightweight buffer.

To learn more about the Omni Robusta MARRS buffers, watch the following video.

Pretty simple and interesting concept, isn’t it? I wonder if the plungers also slightly move into the buffer body (for a fraction of a second) upon the forward impact of the BCG thus also working as anti BCG bounce mechanism? Tell us in the comments section what do you think about the MARRS buffer design.

Images by Omni Robusta LLC, www.omnirobusta.com