Hoot

I'm doing good and Dad bagged a nice doe that is already in the freezer. I could have stuck to my philosophy that whatever God and good fortune send your way, you take it. I had two similar sized does walk up to me on opening morning and I let them pass, figuring it was opening morning and more opportunities would come my way. They wound up being all I saw the entire season, aside from a fawn that emerged seconds after the does walked away, trailing them. My Dad and I are normally meat hunters and take what we're offered. I now have a year to think about that decision. ::) Melt down is a colloquialism for removing all the razor sharp edges from the barrel extension using one of several methods. Fine stones work, but I prefer Cratex grinding burrs in a Dremel. They are rubber with different grades of grit embedded in the rubber and different form factors that remove metal at a very slow rate, leaving a mirror finish behind. I d the same for any surfaces that the cases come in contact with during stripping and extraction, including the underside of the feed lips in my mags. It smooths out the action incredibly well and lends a small degree of feed reliability to the operation. If you're running an upper receiver with no forward assist and occasionally find yourself having to ease a round into battery quietly, the reduction in friction is a big plus. The obvious key is knowing when enough is enough and as slow as the Cratex burrs go, it's easy to gauge with my B&L stereo microscope. Disassemble and reassembly takes longer than the actual time spent removing the sharp edges. I emphasize that no dimensions critical to lockup integrity or strength are impacted. As a reloader, I like my brass to come out minus the "vampire bites", nicks, dings and scratches. Many shooters do this to their firearms or farm it out. There may be a youtube video or two out there on it, not to mention plenty of how-to threads. It's not restricted to just the AR platforms, but usually not necessary in more conventional "hunting" rifle platforms. The look after you are done, resembles a sharpy cast piece of work that had all the rough or sharp edges melted off, hence the term. Google will turn up plenty of examples and images. Hoot

I am so sorry for not replying to your post sooner, but have been busy, first with deer season and second with my 80 yr old Dad visiting from Maryland. Certain things I do with any new AR class of rifle after stripping it down to components to clean and lube include doing a "melt-down" on the barrel extension to save undue wear and tear on my brass and polishing the feed ramp. So I can not say whether it made a difference. Hoot

Terry's experience, which preceeds mine, may well be a testimony to the "diversity" of DPMS tolerances. With my barrel, I can take my stripped bolt and drop a Go gauge into the chamber. Then put the bolt into battery by rotating it firmly pinched between my thumb and index finger. Ditto on factory new brass. That having been said, fired brass exhibits zero shoulder advancement, which probably is not the best setup for the pressure curve. Feeds and extracts fine though. Again, I need to spend more time with it aside from the functional test and a couple of loads I tried last spring. Hoot

Yes Tom. A 24" DPMS 260 Rem barrel to be precise. Fit like a glove. A bit front heavy though given how light the Predator HP is. Some weight in the A2 stock rebalanced it out though. Also yes, a DPMS nut wrench. Seems like this is a well kept secret for some reason. Triple Deuce used one also, but in his case, I believe he kissed the chamber for a little more breathing room. Mine headspaces tight, but not dangerously so. Actually feels like a custom lap to fit job. Perhaps I was lucky though. I guess a lot depends upon how closely DPMS barrels are toleranced from one to the next. I probably should get a dedicated bolt for the 260 instead of sharing the 308 bolt between the two. This summer was a poor one for disposable time and I didn't get as much opportunity to work up both calibers as I would have liked. Now we're sliding into deer season prep, followed by a long, cold, winter up in these parts. I look forward to having back at it next spring though. Hoot

As much as it pained me to do so, I took my 3-pin nut wrench and ground off the center pin. NBD getting two pins to line up. I don't like not having the 3rd pin like every other nut I own uses (thanks a lot RRA), but the two remaining have not shown any undue suffering from having the shoulder the burden. $70.00 for a proprietary nut wrench is extortion. Unavailability is insult to injury. Message received. "We want you to buy entire uppers and not be able to save a little money by discovering that DPMS barrels fit just fine." >:( Hoot

Not sure why the board put my post in this thread instead of the barrel nut wrench one. Erased it here and moved it to the other thread. Very odd. Hoot

Hornady match 308 with the 168gr Amax bullet shoots 5-shot, 100 yard groups around .6 inches, as in one enlarged hole at 100 yards from a benchrest setup and my Predator HP. I have not shot it on a longer range. Hoot

I asked the same question on the RRA Support Forum over at arfcom and Steve assured me they use only anti-seize, which was exactly what I discovered once I got that miserable thing off. Not my choice in anti-seize, but for sure not Loctite. Did you ever see footage of those oil drillers adding a section of shaft. I suspect RRA uses one of those torque units to match up the next gas tube hole. ;) I've had mine on and off a dozen times using what I consider to be "prudent torque" now and I still can not get it "worked in" enough to line up to that original factory setting. Life goes on... Hoot EDIT: A standard Bernzomatic torch will work as well. The finish is very heat tolerant as you would expect parkerizing to be.

You are correct in that I should have prefaced that with from my experience, it was not hard. Quite honestly, it looks harder than it is and though I used but one approach, it is certainly not the only approach. It does hinge upon having some junk lead, a short length of left over EMT conduit, a bernzomatic torch, sandpaper, hacksaw, a vise (or hammer) and some JB Weld. There were times in the earlier years of my life, when I didn't have all of those at my disposal and I should have considered that. Many members of the forum I wrote that on, have different degrees of talent and equipment, but they improvised and pulled it off. Hoot

Put your money to better use and Make Your Own. It's not hard. Just think outside the 9-dots. Hoot

Not to rub salt in all the wounds, but I must be the luckiest RRA owner in recent history. Between here and the RRA specific sub-forum on Arfcom (the only forum I read there), it borders on ridiculous. I'm sorry, but its just plain ridiculous, how long it takes for them to produce deliverable goods. Are they a lot cheaper that way? Anyway, last July, I read about the LAR-8 Predator HP and starting saving my farthings (remember saving) to come up with the MSRP before looking for one. On Thursday, October 13th, the day before the payday when I would have enough, I Googled the make and model name, noting the phone number or visiting the web site of every hit. It didn't take long to realize the expression "Stocking Dealer" is an oxymoron where RRA is concerned. However, on the 4th or 5th site I visited, I found a paintball supplier in Idaho, who said they had it in stock (false claims should be a crime). On Friday, I called to make sure they indeed did have one and ordered it for like 10% less than MSRP. On Tuesday the 18th, my transfer FFL called me to say it arrived. I suspect I should have purchased a few lottery tickets at the same time, but the horse shoe eventually passed out in my stool. Now, I'm back to my unlucky, buy high / sell low, should have been here last week, self ;) The quality of the Predator HP is spot on and though comfortable shooting weather ended shortly after deer season which was a distraction shorty after I got it, it appears to shoot very well. If I hadn't apparently gotten lucky with mine, no way I would wait 60-90+ days for one though. I probably would have either bought an LR-308 off of GB or built an AR-10 from components. For those of you in the "waiting cue", my heart goes out to you. That's my idea of purgatory. Hoot

Thanks for the dimensions. While I got my modded metric FAL mag to run, it is hit or miss at times, so I'll probably order two mags. A shooter and a spare. The web site says "Polymer .308 Mag" or similar. I'm assuming its synonymous with their polymer .243 or 7mm-08 one? Do they kill you on shipping & handling? Hoot

I use one of those Midway, multi-caliber, brush-in-a-blue-box sets. When I got it, about 15 years ago, I tried the Mica powder that came with it, but I wasn't too thrilled with it. I have many kinds of dry lubricant powders I buy for making up my one lubricating concoctions and shot-plating bullets. I use a mix of 600 mesh PTFE and .25 micron HBN. It works great for tight expanders.Those powders are not cheap and I try not to waste any more than I have to. For me, the indicator of sufficient powder is whether the expander shows brass buildup where it contacts the necks. Allowed to go unchecked, that build-up opens the necks up further than the expander intended and brass on brass has a lot of friction, with or without lubricant. If I see a brass ring starting to form on my expander, I stop, clean off the buildup and use more lubricating powder to where it stops. After a get a tray of them done, I blow out the excess powder in each one with a blast of air from my compressor. I don't want that powder getting into my tumbling media when I tumble them the second time, which I do after wiping off the excess Imperial lube, cleaning the primer pockets, trimming to length and de-burring them. Consistent and adequate neck tension is the name of the game for consistent groups. You can get small quantities of PTFE powder or HBN off of *See Site News*, or directly from the manufacturers. I put a teaspoon of HBN in each of my crankcases each oil change. Yes, it really does help the engines and the .25 micron stuff stays in suspension. The oil still has a milky look to it when it comes time to change it. More like coffee with cream actually, but I digress. I've been working off of the 8 ounce jar of PTFE powder for over 10 years now and it's only half used up, so the cost for reloading using it is not too dear. Since I use the HBN for more than resizing, I go through it faster, but it's still about 10 cents worth per 100 resized cases and its a great bullet coating material to boot. That having been said, its overkill as the PTFE powder is all you need. I just like to experiment and came up with using a little bit of each in my resizing powder. If you want to make it go further, you can mix it with your mica. Say 50% mica, 25% PTFE and 25% HBN. Hoot

Now that is illuminating! The changes in the lips make total sense to me, having spent considerable time slowly sliding the 260 cartridges forward and watching how they behave, or misbehave to be exact. Looks like the lip widening done about 1/4 the way back from the front, was done after they are molded. Thanks a bunch. Hoot

This is good stuff! Not to be greedy, but could you also post a looking down inside view, so we can see the followers from above? Looks like the raised part of the followers on the plastic mags is wider than the L1A1 mag. The roll-off of the narrower one seems to contribute to the problems I've seen stripping 260 cartridges. Thanks, Hoot