OK, now I'm tracking. My critical thinking was not too critical for a moment there, but I'm back now.

I mean, duh, the ejection of the spent casing from an AR has almost nothing to do with the gas or the action of the BCG. In fact, it's all about the ejector and ejector spring. I don't know why I didn't make that connection before. I guess I was thinking of how the pistols work.

You see, in a pistol the ejection is directly proportional to the strength of the movement of the slide. This is because the ejector is fixed and it's the moving casing hitting the fixed ejector that kicks the shell out. In an AR it's completely different. The ejector is under spring pressure/tension and the ejector moves in relation to the bolt face. It's that movement that kicks the casing out.

Of course the speed of the BCG will affect the landing pattern because it will dictate when the casing hits the deflector. Though it isn't a significant indicator of BCG speed, it is a factor.

The Mini-14 is a poor example because it has a fixed ejector. It works just like the pistol in that respect. In the case of the Mini, the ejection pattern/distance IS directly proportional to the action of the bolt and therefore, is an indicator of how the gas system is working. Of course the Mini is a piston system and that's also different.

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