fngmike

You can almost duplicate bolt gun loads in an AR, no op rod to worry about. Generally if it's too hot of a load for the gun you'll pop primers. It's more related to the chamber dimensions from what I've seen. I've run 4064 in my 16" with no ill effects, but that's as slow as I will go. Currently working with Varget but don't have anything conclusive yet. I have been using strictly LC brass and it looks like I'll be around 40.0 gr. with a 175 SMK. RE15 is supposed to be the powder to duplicate M118LR from what I've read. Haven't gotten around to trying it yet. Maybe next.

Yes, I understand the OAL is limited by the mag, I'm using all factory Armalite. That's not my concern, I'm just wondering if what I've measured regarding the throat is about average. If I had to guess I'd say this chamber was probably cut with something along the lines of an M852 reamer by whoever supplied this to Armalite. Sierras seem to be pretty tolerant to jumping and that's all I plan on reloading for this. It seemed like it wanted to be sub-moa with 175s and Varget, but then my $1k scope took a crap. Yesterday was also the first try with a PWS PRC replacing the A2 hider. A lot of recoil reduction but LOUD. Swapped out scopes again and will be back at it for another try next weekend.

I have a 16" EA upper that I'm trying to work up some new 175 gr. SMK loads for. Rather than measuring OAL, I'm not measuring to the ogive using the Hornady Lock n Load comparator tool. This is the first time using the tool but I have previously checked OAL with Hornady's version of the old Stoney Point tool. Anyhow, here's my question if you've gone to this extreme yourself. How much of a jump are you measuring to the lands if you're loading to magazine length? To stay in the 2.800 - 2.810 ballpark, I'm measuring about 2.225 to the ogive which seems to be alright based on what I've read on some other forums. This works out to be a jump of about .115 to the lands. I'm not surprised by this as it's actually a shorter throat than my old 700 had.

My go to load for .308 was always 168 gr. SMK, 40.0 gr. IMR4064 in LC brass, WLR primer, and seated to 2.800. Now that I know better, lmao, I'm trying to not measure to OAL but rather to the ogive. 4064 is probably the slowest powder you want to use in a gas gun and I actually came up with this in a 700 bolt rifle, but it does seem to work well out of my 16" EA carbine upper. I know that back in the M1A high power reloading days, most were using 4895. I think either Varget or RE15 will work fine. I'm putting together some Varget loads right now for this upper which brings me to another question but I will start my own thread for that.

I upgraded my router to N a few months back. When I bring home my work laptop I just use a $20 Buffalo Tech USB N card. My bandwidth usually averages about 65 meg. For best performance you should set your router to run only N if you can. No wireless is truly full duplex like a fast ethernet network card, but N emulates it pretty well.

Matt, very well put. And yes, I'm over on the 'hide too where everyone knows you can't shoot without 7k in rifle and optics. Is it just me or is that site really a private club and the rest of us are simply tolerated so we might buy something from their sponsors? LOL, mostly j/k, but they do have expensive tastes over there. Seriously though, I have no problem dropping the coins (if and when I ever have them again) on the optics, but if I WAS going to spend 2.5 or 3 grand on a rifle I'd be looking at a custom bolt or saving for a DTA SRS. To me, it's like pumping a bunch of money into a M14/M1A. You can do it, but that doesn't mean it will shoot any better than a $1,500 Panther or AR-10, or $500 Remington 700 for that matter. I just think those prices are ridiculous. Then again, isn't every AR or 1911 starting around a grand these days? Here's a link to what I was referring to about the shims for the OP of this thread: http://308ar.com/forum/index.php/topic,971.0.html

I really like what I've HEARD about POF. They use Rock Creek barrels and are quite accurate I've heard. But if you look at what their prices are, you'd probably be just as well buying the eintire rifle rather than just the upper. As far as what I mentioned about their pin dimensions I would imagine it's just more proprietary BS to encourage you again to buy a complete rifle. I can't blame POF as I truly believe they make the best piston .308 out there. BUT I believe that they, POF, and LWRC, Larue, and LMT are all out of their minds if they believe they're tapping as much of the market as they could when all their rifles start around 2.5k. I guess they haven't heard of the economic downturn? Then again, as far as DGI vs. Piston? The AI AS50 is DGI as is practically every M4/16 in the armed forces. My justification for wanting a piston upper is simply cleaner running suppressed in the future. And again, that's what I HEAR.

I haven't handled a POF personally but it is my understanding that they use smaller pins, smaller than .154 in their rifles. If you didn't put shims within the holes in your upper I think this is what would be causing the "play" which resulted in the damaged buffer. I know you couldn't use a POF .308 upper on a DPMS lower unless you opened up the holes to accommodate the larger pins.

Ok, hold the phone. I finally pried, beat the cam pin out of my carrier. I even took some pics of it to show how tight that cam pin is. I can't believe they aren't made like the 15s. The panther's owner couldn't get his bolt out either so I certainly wasn't going to mess with his rifle. I'm going to borrow the rifle again when I relocate my headspace gauges. I want to see what I get if I swap the bolts.

I noticed the 12 days of Armalite this Christmas didn't feature any EA uppers. Now that they sell Armalite branded stripped lowers I wonder if that's the last of EA? It's too bad, the uppers seem to have about a $250 difference. I don't think you're getting that much more $ out of the barrel between the 2 different names.

I thought I had posted back to the forum but ran into yet another question. Even though I found DPMS instructions online, I couldn't remove the bolt from the carrier. And since I only bought an upper and stripped lower, I had no manual for my Eagle Arms. So I guess my next question is who has removed their bolt for cleaning? Because on both these rifles you'd have to remove the gas key to remove the bolt. I'm considering filing or dremeling one side of my cam pin so I could actually rotate and remove it. But I did learn a couple of things. First, my EA upper from Armalite doesn't have a floating firing pin. There is a spring on the firing pin to prevent the primer from being struck when the action closes. Second, since I couldn't remove the bolts, I swapped the entire BCAs between rifles. And guess what? The actions would cycle. Now I didn't headspace these and I am NOT saying I recommend this in any way shape or form. If you try this and fire a round, you're on your own and consider yourself warned. I wasn't able to take any photos and didn't bother with any measurements. Visually the bolt faces appear to be about the same. And they definitely fit into the other's barrel extension. So I am back to my original question.

I'm not sure what you mean. Yes, you'd only need the bolt to headspace. I've been trying to find this info, could you use a dpms bolt in an armalite carrier? From what I've found so far the answer looks like no to me. It looks as though the dpms uses a different cam pin. If I have time I might run over to a dpms owner's house and find out for sure. This is the most frustrating thing to me about the .308s, nothing is standard between the manufacturers hardly. I was hoping with the adoption of the M110 we might see some standardization but I doubt it.

Well any forum I join lately I always stick the fng on the front of my name. If you were in the military you know what an fng is. If you weren't ask a vet and thank them for their service, lol. Sorry, I crack myself up. I started shooting competitive small bore position YEARS ago. And I don't think I have to tell anyone here once you start shooting you generally can't stop. It's kind of funny because even though Uncle Sam loaned me a M16A1 for 4 years, I only recently acquired BRD. I thought it was a durable platform, I just wasn't a big fan of 5.56. I'm still not really, but I like it for target shooting. In fact my only assembled 15 is an A2 assembled for service rifle highpower. I found this site through another site, SnipersHide, and this is really what I've been looking for as my interests are really lying with the bigger gas guns now. Right now I have 2 purchased uppers, Eagle Arms 16" carbine and 22" version of the 10T. I purchased 2 stripped EA lowers and only have had funds to complete one. I'm running a Geissele match trigger in it currently as it's all I have at the moment. I can't say enough good things about their triggers, but it's also the only "good" brand of AR trigger I've owned. I'm running a Magpul ACS, Slash buffer, and rifle spring currently. Right now I'm running a 4X ACOG in a GG&G qr mount. The 2nd lower will end up with a PRS and this trigger. I really want to build a dpms lower that takes G3 mags now. I'm thinking that I want to have one piston upper and might go either POF orhold out until Adams Arms compoletes their .308 kit. If any of you guys are in FL on the west coast we might run into each other at Manatee or the Wyoming Antelope Club. Good shooting to you all.

I know this was an old post but I'll put in what I know in case it helps someone. All I've ever found on the web related to EA was reviews on complete rifles. Can't find squat on Armalite's website about them either. But if it's been like it has the last 2 or 3 years, wait until Christmas time. That's when Armalite does their good sales, IMO. And that's the only time I've seen EA branded uppers for sale. 3 years ago I picked up a carbine upper in .308 and 2 years ago I picked up a 22" 10T upper. I want to say I paid around 550 for each of them. The differences are that both have chrome moly barrels whereas an Armalite upper would have a chrome lined barrel on the carbine and a stainless barrel on the 10T. I also ended up getting 2 EA marked stripped lowers just about 2 1/2 years ago. They were going for 170 a piece at the time. Of course this was pre-presidential election. I don't think I need to tell anybody what happened to prices and availability after that.

I'm also running one of Slash's buffers and springs on an Eagle Arms Armalite lower. Started off with a CAA 6 pos. and left the buffer tube on and changed over to a Magpul ACS. No problems at all with my 16" upper.