Cliff R

Walmart drove em all out here, Sears was the last to go just a few months ago. For the most part Walmart is now "last man standing". Couple of days ago I met my brother for lunch and he said he stopped by Walmart to pick up a few last minute Christmas gifts and there weren't any parking spots left unless you wanted to wait for someone to leave! The new game in town are Dollar General, those stores are cropping up all over the place in these parts, one just opened less than 2 miles to the West of my place and I already have one two miles to the East. Another newcomer is Rural King, they are doing it right, biggest gun store in the area now with the cheapest prices, and the wife can shop for clothes and dog food while she's waiting. I'm NOT a fan of Walmart in any sense of the word and if they needed any of my money to stay in business they'd be in big trouble. I go there more for entertainment than anything else, but they ruined spandex for me after to many seeing shoppers that had backsides wider than the shopping cart they were pushing wearing it!....LOL....

I just used a standard rail section (pretty sure it was a Magpul) and attached it to the bottom of the hand guard. It's been quite a while ago and I can't remember if I had to use different fasteners or modify the holes in any way, but I would have if/as needed to get it bolted in place......

I added a Magpul short rail section and put one of these on it: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Picatinny-Sling-Mount-Adapter-Mount-Weaver/321119039854?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649 I have them on several of my AR's where I'm using M-14 slings on them......

A lower rail can be added to most any hand guard w/o much effort, even the round tube type. Below are two pics where I added a lower rail section to mount accessories, one is my DPMS 308 and the other my PSA 308. Third pic is my morning cup of coffee while I'm checking out the Forum......LOL.....

I have not yet seen this rifle but pics seem to show the hand guard to be a standard tubular type. My 450 Bushmaster upper came with a tube-type free floating hand guard. I ended up drilling and tapping it for a short rail section and mounted sling swivel on it as well. I was never overly fond of that free floated tube so opted to replace it with a USA made hand guard. I was amazed at the number of choices out there and they are pretty easy to install. KEYMOD and M-LOK are popular.......before and after pics below...

Picture of my souvenir from Panama before about a year before they turned it back over to them......

I loaded up some older Sierra 150 grain flat base soft point bullets back when we were working up some hunting loads for our Colorado trips. They functioned flawlessly and deadly accurate in every rifle we have here. Settled on the Barnes 175 grain bullets instead but wouldn't worry about soft points thru these rifles for hunting.......

Cool, brings back some old memories. I was in Panama 3 times in the mid to late 1980's with one trip thru the canal in 1988 on a ship we were riding from Norfolk to San Diego. I still have the Kabar USMC fighting knife I purchased at the Naval Exchange in Rodman as part of my collection.......I think it was around $12 back then.......

Here is a copy of an email I sent to my State Senator the last time Ohio was talking about initiating some sort of gun legislation: To all my elected Officials. I oppose any sort of gun legislation, and so does everyone that I know here in Ohio. We are all law abiding citizens, hard workers, property owners and are not on any sort of Government assistance. All of us own guns, hunt, fish and take off our hats when the flag is raised. We will NEVER shoot anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances who does NOT need to be shot. You can also rest assured that if our Country is ever invaded, that we will fight to the death to defend it. If you take away our guns, we'll have to throw rocks and spears instead, so it will be much harder for us, but we will still fight to defend our Country our last breath. Taking guns away from hard working property owning American citizen’s just leaves us open to attack from all the "bottom feeders" in our society. On a personal note. When the day comes where the Government sends folks to take away my guns, you can have them, BUT, they will have to pry them from my cold-dead fingertips! Thanks for listening......Cliff

Thanks. I can't imagine spending the time and attention to detail that I do on these engines, then after it's fully assembled tape off the intake and exhaust and walk up to it with a rattle can and spray then entire engine down with the same color engine paint.......but I see that done ALL the time in this hobby........ Doing one of these rifles is no different. When I get around to doing mine it will get stripped down and the parts separated that I want painted and not, plus very carefully taping off certain parts if/as needed so it looks like someone cared about the end result as we've seen here........Cliff

Correct and good info. I installed the brake for my nephew on his 308 AR and no problem at all rotating it to the correct orientation and still plenty tight so it doesn't budge. My ears are still ringing from the first round he fired from it as I was standing about 3' to the right and just a tad back of the bench when he touched the round off. I literally thought someone walked up behind me and slapped both my ears as hard as they could with cupped hands and I was wearing my good muffs! He commented on how it tamed the recoil considerably. I told him that it's now a two-fer. You can kill the Elk and kill your hearing with the same round!....LOL....

" Each little piece is "racked" on a string of wire (several strings), and painted individually. I think with Larry's gun, with the scope mount parts and everything, I had about 7 or 8 racks of wire, for all the parts. I had to mask the hell out of certain parts of that scope, to get that thing right." That's the difference between the professional approach and the quick/easy just spray it all down and let things sort themselves out deal. Very nicely done and the attention to detail and time spent truly shows up in the end product....nice work! When you strip it down and pain the parts individually and pick/choose which ones to color and the desired colors, you get a much better look all the way around...IMHO I paint the engines we do here in similar fashion leaving the freeze plugs, bolt heads, etc in their natural finish. Plus you see the edges of the gaskets. Looks a LOT better than just finishing the assembly and attacking the entire thing with a rattle can. One of those restoration TV shows does that paint the entire thing after fully assembled deal and they look like chit, and I don't care if that's the way the factory did them and we're trying to be politically correct, etc. They would look 1000 percent better painting the parts individually then doing the assembly vs the going down the assembly line/mass production look. I've also found that taking a small 1500 watt heater and warming up the parts removes moisture, and keeps the paint from wanting to run, plus much faster dry time and it seems to set up harder. I've done a few rifles over the years with cammo paint in similar fashion, but mostly just cheap muzzle loaders and shotguns I didn't care a lot about. You've got me thinking now about doing my 308-AR that I take out West Elk hunting.....but I might be afraid to put it down on top of a mountain to take a leak and not be able to find it!....LOL....

Not directly related to what you are doing but my nephew added some sort of "high end" muzzle brake to his 308-AR. It does a nice job of taming things down and easier on the shooter but that thing is freaking LOUD! It's so obnoxious I walk away when he's firing it at our range because even with good hearing protection in place it's like someone walked up behind you and slapped you in both ears at the same time! I can't imagine being on top of a mountain in Colorado and dropping the hammer on a big Elk and getting my ear drums caved in at the same time!........Cliff

I would invest in the tools to effectively remove the barrel. They are not all that expensive and good to have around especially if you get into building these weapons or want to make changes to the upper receivers. You don't have to be a gunsmith or have extensive machinist skills for basic operations like removing a barrel. You may have to invest in some good punches as some of the roll pins can be somewhat of a PITA to effectively remove without beating the chit out of things. The offshore/Chinese chit will fold, bend, mushroom out or break off in your work so spend a little more to get a good hardened set that aren't made out of whatever old car bumpers they melted down for raw materials last week! Once the barrel is out of the receiver you'll have much better access to the area(s) that need attention. I'd invest in a Dremel tool with a nice selection of accessories to get into the places that need a little attention. Let the marks on the cases guide your improvements, and do them sparingly, a little often goes a long ways when you are messing around with feed ramps and chambers. Worst case scenario if the problems persist a new barrel may be in order, but my bet is on you being able to correct the issues with the one you have now.......Cliff

Nice work and great attention to detail. I like the fact that some parts were left in black or green instead of just painting the entire rifle, makes it look much more professional....IMHO......

It's somewhat rare to recover high powered rifle bullets from game. Most I've shot pass completely thru no matter what the distance, angle or how big the animal was. Here are a few I've recovered over the years. From left to right Hornady 250 grain 450 Bushmaster bullet at 210 steps on a HUGE whitetail buck shot thru the front shoulders. The second is a factory 338 Win Mag load thru a Bull Elk at apprx 400-450 yards. I'm not completely sure about the 3rd bullet but I believe it is a 300 grain 45 caliber hollow point from my 45/70 and it came from a Bull Elk around 50 yards shot thru both shoulders. If I am ever able to recover one of the 175 grain Barnes bullets from my 308 (unlikely one would stay in the animal) I'll make sure to post some pics of it........Cliff

Speer makes some excellent bullets. Decades ago I was playing around with my 22/250. Made the mistake of buying a chronograph and man did I get an education on what things actually do in the real World based on what you read in the reloading manuals. I had a "go-to" load already developed using Sierra 52 grain bench rest bullets and IMR power (can't even remember which one a the moment, 4064 maybe?). Shot them over the chrony and they were WAY down on velocity, like over 300 fps under what the manual stated....WTF? Started over from scratch and purchased come Speer 52 grain BR flat base bullets and H414 powder. They went over the chrony over 300fps faster and every single one virtually in the same hole at 100 yards. Despite loosing a bit with ballistic coefficient going to flat base the improved accuracy and added velocity made a World of difference in actual use. I was able to extend my range some and shot Varmints out past 400 yards with very few misses and can't remember any misses sub-300 yards unless the jerk behind the trigger wasn't doing their part for some reason. Couple of things we don't have the luxury of doing here (unless single loading) is overall length and bullet "jump" into the rifling unless you are single loading and neck sizing only. They can make a difference with certain loads and I typically try to minimize the bullet jump deal when loading for the 308-AR's that we have here but I still run all the cases thru a full length die and put a decent crimp on them for reliability and safety reasons........Cliff

Not familiar with the Diamondback but I'll put a vote in for the DPMS. I ended up with one NIB in a trade. I outfitted it with a Burris scope and A2 stock. Trigger is excellent and far better than one would expect for this type of rifle. It runs everything I've tried to date without a single malfunction of any kind. Accuracy has been good with all loads we put thru it. The worst groups were PMC (about 1.5" or so with a few fliers now and then), the best from two handloads I worked up for it going well under 1" at 100 yards for 5 rounds. Can't fault it anyplace and certainly a good starting point if building a custom 308-AR is not on your list......Cliff

I haven't tried any Match ammo in mine because I use them for hunting and looking for bullets that expand a little better. Early on I grabbed up some PMC 308 ammo really cheap just to see how the weapons functioned and get them on paper. It didn't group for chit in any of our rifles but gave us some decent brass for reloading........

I miss those days and to this day I still think back about how accurate those M-14's were. They were built by precision craftsmen and if you weren't lobbing most of the rounds in the black at 1000 yards with a good many hits in the 10 ring and a few X's....you just weren't doing your part that day.........

Cool, I shot in service matches for a few years when I was on staff at the small arms instructor school. Had to give it up when I transferred out as it took too much time away from the new job and family. Some shooters used Match grade M1 Garand's in 308 built by Navy armorers, others like myself used and preferred the M-14 built to Match specs. I have a Match grade AR-15 that I've never fired. Bought it turn key ready to go about 15 years ago but never moved forward with that deal. All of the 308-AR's I've built shoot pretty well and my go-to load is the Barnes 175 grain bullet backed by 42 grains of Varget. We went thru about half a dozen different over the counter loads with those rifles early on and believe it or not several are really fond of Fusion 150 grain loads but I'm not sure why? I also loaded up some old Sierra 150 grain soft points (flat base) with some old IMR 4320 power I had left over from yesteryear and those shoot really well in my DPMS and PSA 308 with a few groups out of the DPMS going nearly into a dime size group at 100 yards. I really can't say enough good stuff about the DPMS, pretty darned good shooting rifle and EXCELLENT trigger right out of the box, things you wouldn't really expect at that price point.......Cliff

I do, or did, M-14 Match rifle in competition back in the mid to late 1980's. Back then at a match we all pulled our ammo (usually Lake City Match 308) from the same lot prior to heading to the range. I also shot Bullseye (45ACP) to keep from having so much down time. Of course you got to work in the pits as much as you wanted to!....LOL. I'm sure quite a few things have changed since back then but I may have some "old school" information that might help others who are interested in that type of shooting. Kind of interesting but back in the 1970's Federal ammo was on the lower end of the scale as far as quality, accuracy, etc. I still remember when I first started long range shooting on varmints with my Remington 22/250 that Federal brass was crap. Couldn't get but a couple of reloads out of it before it split or the primers just fell right out. Not from overloading/pressure either, as other brands did fine. I'd also mention here that the stock system had some Federal 12 gauge OO buck back then as well, and it was absolutely pure JUNK! Not sure why but you could fire 5 rounds from an 870 at a target 25 yards away and be lucky to have a dozen pellets on the entire target. Load up with WW and about 90 percent would be on target and well centered! Good to see them stepping up their game these days......Cliff

Flammable and explosive stuff is ORM-D and has to be labeled as such and shipped thru a carrier that will handle such items. UPS is one, I don't think USPS will take anything like that.......Cliff

Good to know. I use the Barnes 175 grain bullets backed by 42 grains of Varget in my 308-AR for hunting in Colorado, and I think you mentioned someplace a while back no lead to scatter thru the meat, tks for that too. I used to use my Marlin 1895 in 45/70 using a 300 grain bullet pushed by a nearly full case of RL-7. That's good for 2400fps and flat gets it done for Elk or anything else I've dropped the hammer on. Never had a whitetail deer take another step shot with one. Moved on to the 450 Bushmaster for hunting here in Ohio and the 308-AR for out West. I just LOVE the weatherproof design and "rugged" construction of those platforms, especially out West where going is pretty rugged and the rifle can really take a beating and a lot of exposure to snow, water, etc.........Cliff

Thanks and you are correct. For the record my 450 Bushmaster is just siting on a PSA box, the only parts on that weapon from PSA are the A2 stock kit. It's also not a clone, genuine Bushmaster compete upper I purchased shortly after they were introduced......