Gibbs

Thanks! I ordered the 7 round mag. Even with shipping is cheaper than the same one at midwayusa (31.99) Ever notice the odd groves on the slide? Was told by S&W that they are there to slow down the slide... then they said another time it's to help slow down feeding the bullet into battery. Not on any of my SIG Sauer pistols, that's for sure.

Nice looking rig MIneralman55 !! I tried a Kydex only holster for my Sig P320 in .45 but it was putting too much pressure on my hip (close to 64 ) and Vedder took it back and exchanged it for a Comfort Tuck for me and that bit of leather helps out a lot. I have carried this Shield .45 in a CrossBreed Holster that I have for my Taurus Millennium GII 9mm and fits pretty darn nice. Malig8r, I used an emery board and lightly sanded down some of the stippling on my Shield 45. It still have plenty of grip, but I like it a lot better that way. Really nice pistol and decent accuracy for such a light weight short barrel 45.

I've already got some 9mm SIGs, and one .45 P320, but that SIG is quite a bit to pack around a while... so... I bought a S&W Shield from Cabela's last Wed. Shoots pretty well, but had to tap the front sight left as the group kept hitting left. Trigger felt a bit "gritty" at first, but managed to work that out. That trigger transfer bar, the stamped one that pushes also the striker block out of the way... funny looking thing, and looks like simple stamped metal. Little bird special... cheap cheap cheap. but serves what it is supposed to do. I really like the weight of the pistol for carry though. Loaded up with SIG Sauer V-Crown 200 gr. I am wondering how well my Winchester Ranger T 230 gr will do in such a short barrel? I got in on the rebate MM and also had a $50 gift card from Christmas... 2015! and used that, along with a local price match that got the initial price down to $380.10. :)

I called 2 gunsmiths this afternoon and asked them about the barrel nut and the size of the barrel nut as it seemed smaller than I had figured. The guy at Holland (Graaschaff Hardware) told me it was ok, just put blue locktite on it. Called the gun guy at On Target, Don Seguine, right after that and asked him that as well, about the odd size nut and being loose. He told me put blue locktite on it. I've never put locktite on a barrel nut before since I thought it was not needed if you torque it down to specs. Kind of news to me as well. As I now understand from you all that the barrel nut should never have locktite on it. Duly noted, and thanks! The gas block had some locktite on the barrel that was put on by DPMS, so not sure that is a great idea. Doesn't look like it would do much good there as it is a flat surface against a flat surface.

Congratulations to you and your family! He is luck to live in a home well protected. <thumbsup>

Welcome from Michigan!

FWIW, I concur that is a good start. I bought a used DPMS LR308 and was getting good, bad and indifferent targets. I bought another barrel from Brownell's and when I took off the gas block and gas tube I thought I'd see how this new PRI barrel Nut Wrench (for DPMS/KAC) would work. Well, imagine my surprise when not only doesn't it work on this particular nut, but the barrel nut was not even remotely tight. I unscrewed it with my fingers. No locktite on it either. It would probalby explain why my groups seemed to tighten up when I had shot a few groups. The barrel was probably getting hot, and getting just a bit tighter on that barrel nut. Odd thing is that this new DPMS/KAC Barrel Nut Wrench I got from MidwayUSA would not work at all. I was at the winery using their vise to hold the upper to install a new barrel and had to drive home and get my old "multi-tool" that had a AR15 style wrench on the one end. As Matt had said, I've also heard about this happening on a DPMS, and it can change the groups considerably.

Welcome from Michigan!

In high school, and after I wrote some poetry, and my favorite poet was Robert Frost. I had the nickname on amazon.com as Frost quite some time before my wife got me interested in the NCIS TV program that had Leroy Jethro Gibbs as the main character. It was just a name to use and remember at the time. I have a few avatars I have used and the one I have now is called the "Deathly Hallows" emblem from the movie series (and book) of Harry Potter. The triangle represent the "cloak of invisibilithy" the round circle in the triangle represents the "resurrection stone", and the vertical line up the center represents the "elder wand". It was a symbol that came out in the last 2 movies and was one I found intriguing. Harry had, at one time, both the cloak of invisibility and the resurrection stone, but Voldemort, the leader of the Death Eaters had the Elder Wand. It was quite an intriquing series of movies, starting out pretty innocent with the first movie and each successive movie seemed to get a bit darker, until the last of the series which was very dark.

Hard to see the bastards around here with all the trees and brush and such. Miss the openess of Nebr. What got the chickens mostly was either raccoons or possums and probably both. Last chicken killed was when we got home from town and noticed feathers inside the fenced chicken coop and found a small gap under the fence by the pine tree. Then, the trail led to a little hole that was under the quonset. Not much but a possum could have gotten under there, but the chicken's head was chewed mostly off.. and that ended the keeping of chickens. We didn't have a lot anyway as we gave away about 12 or so to a friend of mine at work, and kept 2 for ourselves. You can get overloaded with eggs pretty quick. Been around a lot in the sandhills of Nebraska. Thedford, Mullen, Hyannis. You can drive for miles on some of those rural roads and never see a house 1 near the road, just a mail box and a dirt trail that leads a few miles back to the homstead there. Killing the coyote was a lkucky shot as he was stopped to take a poop and I shot and he started spinning around. Must have hit him in the ass and he was trying to figure out what was burnin his ass. Second shot I just shot "at" him and he disappeared from the view of the scope. Second shot connected in the ribs and that was the end. We hear a lot of coyotes around here in the evening, and we have a neighbor that likes to hunt them with calls and uses a shotgun. I've never been able to call a coyote even once.

Yep, fuk 'em an the mule he rode in on.... Where's the key to that D9 cat??

At lunch I took a search on Google of Ken Rockwell Scam? My goodness!! Last time I was at his web site I was seeking information ont he Nikon D5200 camera, which I was interested in buying. It all seemed good and "genuine", so I kept his info "links" page in my favorites, thinking the least I could do is to link to amzon through him so he could get credit. What I read really surprised me. With something like that you don't know if it's real of just spoofing you and a joke. Problem is any misinformation is never corrected and that is worse than no information. Here, though, is a good link to Amazon's Assocate website program. https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/ At least that one part of his website is truthful.

The reason I posted the link to his site was to show that he is getting money from those that find his information useful and if they buy from "those" links, Amazon.com one of them, then he gets paid. Point of what I was making is that if he can make money from just having a link on his web site to Amazon.com, they the owner, here at the 308AR Forum site should be able to do the same thing. Since imshure had started a thread about things shooting related you can get on amazon.com I thought he might benefit from members using a direct link from here to Amazon.com and get some benefit. How Ken Rockewell makes money is not the important part of the post, what is important, is that if he can make money with those links, then why could not this site do the same concept?

We've emailed back and forth a couple of times, but I always considered him a friend since he seemed sincere in his information. I have looked at his ideas and photography tips and they made sense to me, especially that about correcting perspective with Adobe Photoshop. His info appeared, at least to me, to be correct and accurate.

Building them is not hard at all, even the piston thing is a relative piece of cake. I think anyone that is not been shooting several years as a steady diet with an AR and tinkering with them, would be considered new. It was new to me about the crud under the flash hider. Since I put the flash hider on the 6.8 SPC I built I've never taken it off. Shot it, cleaned it, but never messed with the muzzle. I don't even have one of those little star things that one uses to clean the area where the lugs lock up. Yes, I've built it, shot it and reload for it, but obviously don't quite understand the rifle to it's fullest, or else why would I ask about carbon crud, or barrel harmonics? I've shot a lot of rifles and reloaded off and on for many years. All my rifles had blued barrels, no muzzle device and just followed friend suggestions and what was written in the book in the reloading manual for reloading. Shooting is not that hard, I try not to flinch and concentrate only on the target I see in the scope. Eyes are not as good as they used to be for iron sights. .308LIteHunter, if I were to send you the ingredient list for making a 5 gallon batch of wine and complete instructions you should be able to make a decent wine following those directions and ingredient list, right? I'm sure it would turn out a pretty decent wine, but when you got done that would not mean you were a wine expert or enologist, even though you made a very good wine. Knowing how to handle the wine in the process and why it does what it does, and how to understand a problem if one arose would be in the longer term experience and knowledge. I would think the same thing applies to the AR-15 and variants as well as the .308 AR rifles and all their variances and individuality. I read quite a bit in magazines, read online, looks at forums and that does not make me an expert, just interested. It shouldn't be a sin to be interested in this. Killing a coyote from a rifle I built is no great feat, as I'm sure there are thousands out there that have killed coyotes, hogs, deer and other critters with rifles they have built, customized and so on. I'm still learning. I find it fascinating that you can shoot a rifle with a hole in the barrel that lets gas out of the barrel and either work a piston as in some rifles like AK style, or AR styles with certain set ups, or direct that high pressure gas to a different area of the rifle and make it work to not only turn the bolt, but to send the bolt and carrier quickly to the rear and eject the spent cartridge. What I also find interesting is that even though you use (divert) some of the gas that the accuracy still holds as well as it does. A single shot rifle, or bolt action has the advantage of holding and using all the available gas pressure to shoot the bullet, so there is less chance for variances in the set of shots that make up the group on a target.

Robocop, it was not meant as a joke. I took off the flash hider on the LR308 last night for the first time and have never seen something like that on the end. I know now that this is a coating of carbon but I thought maybe at the time that the barrel was made for DPMS that the end sort of got buggerd up and as such, any treatment, into the metal, would have also followed the shape and controur of a barrel end that somehow made it to that point. If it was smooth to begin with, then any treatment or coating would have been equally as smooth, but if the bare metal was somehow deforemed, even electroplating would have left it in the same shape, just chromed. In recap, I have never dissasembled the end of an AR as I, like I said before, am fairly newbie to ARs and never thought that the flash hider was something to come off after it was put on with the crush washer. It did have a crush washer.

Thanks for the info. Until a few years ago I never owned or shot any AR style rifle, so something with a flash hider on it is new to me. Never thought much about removing a flash hider. Since I bought it used I am not sure how many or of what ammo was shot through it. Never thought about what otherwise might be next to the crown after taking off the flash hider and I'm not up on those other 2 coatings, how they are applied, etc.

I am pretty new to AR style rifles and as such have never taken off the flash hider of one, until now. VERY newbie in this area. I took the flash hider off my DPMS LR308 tonight to put on a small 5/8 -24 locking nut. I noticed a bit of strange coating/surface at the end of the barrel. I have always been very careful of muzzles and have been careful from following others to protect the crown. I'll post pictures I took this evening, with flash and without. The one with flash you can actually see down in and see the rifling. The one without flash shows more or less what the end of the barrel looks like when you view it. Feels rough on the end, and I don't use any corrosives on it, just Hoppe's solvent and then Kroil at times. It was used when I got it from Cabela's, just didn't look used when I got it.. very pristine. Is it some kind of Nitride process such as MELONITE® or a Cerakote coating? I am really not that familiar with either. The end using the camera flash.

imshur (and other Administrators) have you looked into Amazon.com? I have a friend and photography associate, Ken Rockwell, and one of the ways he gets help is a direct link from his website to Amazon. It appears that they (Amazon.com) will pay him when someone buys something from their web site, no matter if it's photography gear, luggage, soap, razor blades of anything. As long as you go to Amazon.com from "his" link and buy, he gets some credit for it. If you can provide a link on this site, and set up the same thing as he did, perhaps you can also get some kickback from people buying things there. Beauty of it is that it does not have to be firearms related, just anything. You want a new part for your lawn mower, new LED light bulb, or a new set of .308 reloading dies. Should not matter, and you get something just for them going there... from here. His link that has that info I was mentioning. http://www.kenrockwell.com/links.htm#stores BTW, he has some really cool and useful info on his web site as well for those interested in anything photgraphic, such as techniquest and the like. Vern

Well, some of the items came today from Amazon.com. I got in 2 ea 5/8 -24 thread jam nuts from Amazon. Waiting for a good brake now to continue on with some ideas and trials. Took the DPMS flash hider off inside the house and noticed something really odd on the end. Will probably just ask about it in another thread.

And with that this is my last post.

Wanting to learn and wanting to contribute, not just always be the taker, but also give something as well. When I joined this forum, it had been a while since I was at the 68forums and when I was there it was pretty much given to me in their threads that barrel twist had a huge bearing on reloading pressures. I have since learned in here and from trying to "teach" all of you about barrel twist giving higher pressure the tighter the twist eg 1:10 vs 1:12. Which I concede now is all bunk. Until you get into something like a 1:4 twist does the twist have hardly any bearing on pressures developed in the case during firing. Freebore of the Spec II chamber has a LOT more bearing on lower chamber pressure than twist ever had. They had even convinced on barrel maker of how bad his barrels were at a 1:10 twist barrel and that the 6.8 SPCII would ALWAYS do much better at 1:11 or 1:12 twist for pressure, which as I say now.. BS. Kind of like the 5.56 NATO chamber has more freebore than a .223 and why you can get by with higher pressure military ammo in a 5.56 than you can in a chamber of only for .223, which is a lot on the freebore (distance before the bullet actually engages the rifling). I keep thinking there might be some magic pill some magic ingredient that someone has come across that makes dime or one hole groups on rifles. But, if that were the case then logically, all that money spent for really nice custom high grade barrels that you pay a good price for would be for naught, huh? Most production barrels are designed to give good chamber pressures, put out the bullet in a fairly good manner, but only through tinkering around with the load enough can you achieve something the barrel "likes" that gives you the right pressure and bullet combination for that barrel. I guess there are no shortcuts, but there are always techniques that do help. I've shot and/or owned rifles from the lowly 22K Hornet, that my gun smith friend north of Crawford, NE chamber reamed for me from a 22 Hornet rifle into the 22 K Hornet, all the way up to a rifle I shot a few time a friend owned, a .460 Weatherby Magnum. Brute for kicking and made my eyes water every shot. When I lived in Washington State and in Nebraska I hunted with a .338 Winchester Magnum, (Ruger M77 model). WAY over gunned for deer in Nebraska (it was more for the Elk in WA) but with heavy thick copper jackets it did not open up too much on deer and surprisingly did not damage the meat as much as say a .243 Winchester might. Even wrote an article for Craig Boddington on time in 1987 for Petersen's Hunting magazine about Nebraska's first Elk Season hunt and a 15 year old that shot a magnificent Elk in NW Nebraska. In pistols I've shot just about everything. I started out with my "Mom's" (bless her heart) Ruger Super Black Hawk .44 Mag that I and an older and good friend handloaded for it. I kept it pretty mild as far as Magnums go but Bob seemed like he pushed it to the upper most level and then some. His .44 mag when I shot it I swear the screws were thinking of backing out and running off. When I was a Deputy in Nebraska we were issued Glock .40 S&W and really kind of would have preferred a .45 ACP instead, but we learned and trained quite often with those Glocks, but it was the last time I was to shoot one. Also I really preferred not to get back into .40 caliber, but that's just me. It is kind of like a short version of a 10mm, which I had for a short while in Wash State and really never cared for that either. I've been lucky at getting some nice shots in and some good advice on reloading. I think reloading makes a lot of difference on good groups, and I post my best targets, but don't throw up the ones that are scattered all over the target. I know you all have them around too,... targets that make you think.. What was I doing to get this group??!! I had a lot of left over reloading components for the LR308 from my time with the Saiga .308. It was a great shooter, and very reliable and sometimes I wonder if I as stupid to sell it off, but I needed the money at the time and seemed like the thing to do. Many times I give up a gun to get another, in sort of a trade off. So, the Saiga went and provided a little money for me to work toward building a 6.8 SPCII rifle. I've posted a few pictures at my one web site, www.taurus45acp.com and kind of a brief biography, along with my links page that has info on concealed carry, different laws, etc etc. It was a REALLY large Elk. Too bad it had an extra brow tine this year (previous year I was told it did not) as that length and girth subtracted quite a lot from the Boone & Crocket scoring.

It stemmed from a private message about being new and not posting too many links as the long term guys in here have been smitten with trolls that are new, post links, argue just for the sake of it. So I took what he had to say at heart and thought about all the many links I have posted in here in such a short time. It might make one wonder if I was instigating something, but really not. I'm just a curious sort and like to learn from those that have read, heard or done things that I haven't. We can all learn, all the time. I may ask an odd question every now and then, but it's those odd questions or remarks that help to create dialog and new ideas.

Send you to Iraq and you can take the heads off 20 of them sonsabitches ISIS bastards. Just adjust your scope 2 inch left and 1 inch up and you can pop them out at 200 to 300 yards easy.

Pretty nice, Wash! I agree about the 3 shot groups. They are just indicators, the real test is several bullets and then you get a pattern on what the group is really going to be. Since I hand load, I tend to make up small batches and try them out and see. If it shoots a 3 shot group and it's 2" across, there is no sense in trying to continue on that line, as it will probably always be at least 2" across. 3 shots near each other mean I'm getting close. 3 shots touching means load a bunch up and try them. A couple of years back I had a Saiga AK in .308. One day I shot some factory 150 gr out of it to see what it would do. 5 rounds (so more a story) on it's capability. The barrel had a 1:12.? something twist. It was made in Russia, so they did not use standard inches, but something more in mm. It was slightly more than 1 turn in 12 inches, but not by much. Posted on Saiga forums about that one time. Anyway, I was surprised at what it did with the 5 rounds. I didn't have any more made up targets, but I had a Pizza Hut box destined for the trash. Put a magic marker dot on it and set it out at 100 yards. Getting low light near dusk, and when I shot I could not see that I even hit the box, but thought, oh well, keep shooting these 5 rounds and see if any hit the box. Only when I walked up there did I see that it had grouped pretty well for a Kalashnikov action rifle with the 16" barrel. Yesterday for the fun of it I had some rounds of the same batch of reloads. Same bullet, powder, crimp, lenght, etc. Shot 3 rounds slowly into the bank just to warm up the barrel and then shot 3 shots with no flash hider on the end. left the bolt hold open while I changed targets, put the flash hider back on and shot 3 more. Posting just what I observed from that trial. I'll work on that idea with a muzzle brake like 98 had suggested, but I'm doing it so it's repeatable for anyone that might wish to try it themselves. No sense in dancing around possible patent infringements. 2 more targets....