mineralman55

Welcome aboard. Tell us about yourself. Why can't you build your own rifle? Good Italian food is a wonderful thing, but I'll put New Orleans food up against any food, anywhere, anytime.

I have an even more extensive workbook page for 30-06, but I felt I'd be cluttering up the works. If anyone wants that one, I can send it

Once or twice a year, I get a sense of altruism, and do something that doesn't benefit me at all. I thought I'd share my Excel reloading spreadsheet. I've accumulated all this info over the years. Lots of folks have spreadsheets to record their loads, but I like to graph up the loading data published by various powder and bullet manufacturers. This gives very good insight into what various classes of powders are expected to do in a given caliber/bullet weight combination. The beauty of this is you can add/customize any info you want to the spreadsheet such as adding new load charts and then graph up what you want from them. If you find a loading chart you like, just screen capture it and paste it into the proper sheet. There are spreadsheets for 9mm, .357, 45acp, 5.56 and 7.62x51. There are burn rate charts from numerous sources, service rifle loads from the NJHiPower association and a milsurp cross reference chart, charts for case weights. You can add your own tabs for keeping inventory of bullets, powders, primers, etc. Keep good comments. Record "bad" things in red font, "good" things in blue. Then, one of the things I do is duplicate a spreadsheet, then custom sort on "Powder -> Bullet wt. -> Style ->Charge". This give me a chance to review the trends of bullet/powder combinations and see what works best. Understand this: I DO NOT WARRANTY ANY OF THE DATA YOU SEE ON THIS SPREADSHEET!!! IT IS FOR DEMONSTRATION ONLY!!! CHECK AND VERIFY ALL RELOADING DATA FOR YOUR OWN DAMN SELF!!! reloads_datasheet.xls

Welcome from the swamps of LA.

Got to the range again on Saturday. Dodging thunderstorms the whole time, had a great range session. Again, no FTF or FTE with a bunch of reloads, all 77 grain BTHP Noslers. Some BLC2 and AA4064. Okay groups, but the IMI 77 grain BTHP gave me a 1.75" group at 100 yds. With iron sights and these old eyes I'm pleased. I spent a good portion of the day ringing steel plates of various sizes at 100 and 200 yds. That's always satisfying. The Noslers shattered extensively upon striking the plates. One 6inch plate was about 3 feet underneath the pink silhouette, and you can see the shrapnel effects on the target. With the parts breaking in now after about 200+ rounds, this is coming into its own. I'm enjoying the ALG trigger even more. Wish I'd tried them sooner.

That was how I did it... 308AR first (three to be exact), then the AR15s. As Gene Wilder said in "Young Frankenstein", it's easier to work with the bigger parts.

Welcome from the swamps of LA

Sad, but true.

I've found TAC to work very well in 77 gr BTHP. Not the best, but very respectable. TAC is lights out in the 762x51 with 168 BTHP!

Gotta smack the gators and snakes away in the morning.

Welcome aboard from the swamps of LA. Can't speak about the weights of the buffer. I have two stock DPMS regular buffers, and one Heavy Buffer carbine model. They all work great.

Here's a one year update on this build. I took it to the range many times, function was perfect, but the accuracy was unacceptable. Black Hills match, Federal match, IMI match, reloads, mil-surplus, didn't matter, nothing gave good groups. Groups shot from another rifle on the same day were great. Nothing made sense and I couldn't figure out why. So I wrote AeroPrecision and sent targets to them to document my accuracy problems. To AeroPrecision's credit, they sent me a mailing label and asked to inspect the complete upper I purchased from them. After inspection, they said the upper was "out of spec", and they sent me a new upper, completely assembled 16" barrel (I don't know if it's just a new upper with my original equipment, or if it is just a whole new complete upper.) I've had it to the range several times now, and the accuracy is much improved over what it originally shot, but it is still not up to where I want it to be. I will continue to experiment with different ammunition. If it doesn't improve further, I'll look into a high-end barrel replacement (Nathan, you reading )

Dunno about 6.5. I can tell you that two complete turns in from the 4.5 turns out stopped the cycling action.

You fit in here just fine.

I read the instruction card, but didn't see any mention of a "bypass" mode. I'll look again tonight, and if there is such a thing, I'll try it at the next range session and report.

Well, I added another AR15 to the stable. These things are like magazines, they just keep accumulating. AeroPrecision M4E1 upper, AeroPrecision phosphate BCG, Doublestar charging handle, Criterion 1:8 18" Wylde barrel with midlength gas system from MSR Arms, Superlative Arms 0.750" adjustable gas block, SLR mini compensator, Knight's Armament micro iron sights, AeroPrecision lower, ALG trigger. Magpul adjustable buttstock. Built it on Saturday morning, took it to the range Sunday, and it didn't disappoint. The anodizing on the Aero receivers was very heavy, and fitting the upper to the lower required I file off the upper's attachment lugs a touch. This resulted in an extremely tight upper to lower fit. After trying the Magpul MBUS on the 16", I decided to go back to the Knight's Armament micro sights. These are a much better all around sight. The front sight has a wheel for elevation adjustment, and I especially like the rear sight's positive windage and elevation adjustments. After assembly, it's looked just like it's smaller brother the Aero 16". Sunday at the range. After 10 shots to get it sighted in, first 5-shot group at 100 yds was 1.5 inches! I couldn't retrieve my target, otherwise I'd post it. Shoots like a dream, perfect function, no FTF or FTE. I never had an ALG trigger before but I like it! It is as crisp as can be, no creep at all, breaks clean. A little heavier than I'd like, but otherwise beautiful trigger. I also like that the ALG came with a slave pin. Made installation a snap. The SA gas block adjustment instructions say screw the adjustment screw all the way in, then 4 1/2 turns out. Start there. For adjustment, screw it in until the action won't cycle, then turn it out 1/4 turn. After some experimentation, I just left it at 4 turns out. It threw all the cases into a small 2ft diameter pile at 5 o'clock about 6 feet away. Perfect. I wasn't certain about the SA gas block at first, as the adjustment screw's detents felt wimpy, not at all like the Syrac gas blocks with their very positive click detent. But the SA is easy to adjust and it seems to hold its position just fine. Recoil was non-existent, and the SLR mini comp works great. It's quieter than a normal birdcage with almost no perceptible muzzle rise.I don't care for the DoubleStar charging handle. It is easy to grasp, but the action is a bit loose and tentative. I may swap this out. This little pile of parts looks to really be something special. Installing the barrel on my makeshift vise Superlative Arms adjustable gas block Close up of SA gas block after installation Comparison to AeroPrecisionUSA 16" AR Close up of SLR mini-compensator Knights Armament elevation-adjustable front sight

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

That's why you keep records. You do keep records, don't you?

Follow up on this. I emailed Xtreme, and they got back to me saying load their 45ACP 200 grain plated HP to 1.225-1.235" LOA. I loaded up some test rounds to 1.237" LOA with 7.1, 7.2 and 7.4 grains of Silhouette. Perfect function, primers perfect, good accuracy, all in my 45 Shield. I like these projectiles. They load easily, are clean, and look great to boot! Time to load up a bunch.

Welcome from the LA swamps. One of my first assignments was sitting a well we drilled in SD. We stayed in Lemmon, SD because it was the closest hotel (almost 100 miles away!) The truck stop was the best place to eat. Pancakes the size of manhole covers, sausage patties the size of plates, both very tasty. Fond memories of SD.

In the ground, or on the wife?

Welcome aboard!

or just plain fun. Don't forget that.

Welcome from the swamps of LA. Did you know it snowed in Cleveland on this very day in 1843? Weather hasn't gotten much better in 174 years has it?

Welcome aboard from the LA swamps. He's not kidding. Several on this board have already spent your money for you... all in your best interests!