Cliff R

Good info, but I've determined from this thread that I've been Elk hunting in the WRONG place!.......LOL....

We had the same issues with a PA AR-15 pistol build recently. Cases just "dribbled" out if they made it out at all. Before sending it back I tried a buffer/spring from one that ran well, didn't help at all. It would fire once or twice then jam, jam, fire once, jam, jam, jam, etc. Sent it back under warranty and got it back very quickly. The tech stated in a note with it that the gas block was NOT well lined up with the hole in the barrel. Now it throws the brass at least 4' and zero issues with it........

The 9mm was steel case Winchester. Not overly fond of steel case ammo but better than no ammo at all!......

I was rummaging around the other day and found 300 rounds of Russian made 7.62 X 39 I had forgotten about. I don't shoot that caliber very often since I sold my AK and both of my SKS's. I got rid of them shortly after building my first AR-47, it's just a better platform all the way around although I doubt if it would work as well as an AK after dragging them both behind my truck for 20 or 30 miles!....LOL....

Ammo is tricking in around here. Snagged some 9mm for $11.99 a box, 5.56 for $10, and 22LR for $2.99. Limited to 4 boxes per transaction.......

Good information above about the three different patterns. I built most of my 308-AR's before becoming a member here, and those experiences are well embedded in what's left of my memory banks (Bourbon drinker here) plus a decent size box with several bags of leftover parts in it. AR-15's are easy as mentioned, and for the most part everything fits across the board. I hesitate to use the words "Mil-Spec" because many parts follow the Mil-Specs for "size" or fit, but often do NOT meet the entire Mil-Spec requirements as far as material(s), hardness, coating(s), accuracy, etc. Barrels come to mind first when I say that. Even so most barrels are decent as far as fit/finish/function, M4 feed ramps seem to be the standard as well, most will not be chrome lined with full exterior coating per the Mil-Spec and many will have 1-8 or 1-9 twist instead of 1-7......Cliff

Thanks guys, good news yesterday, then bad. We got a text from his wife saying he was improving, then things went to chit again.... As far as shooting a mile I can see where the backstop and area around the target being easy to see hits on would be HUGE!

Damn nice work there for sure! I love reading about your range days and the details involved. Getting in a little late on this, have been BUSY here. My lead investigator came down with the COVID so I'm taking all the calls right now till they recover. That chit finally hit close to home and as I type this my brother-in-law is laying face down in ICU on a ventilator. When they flip him back over his vital signs go to chit....NOT good! Anyhow, those results are for sure IMPRESSIVE. Are you shooting from an elevated platform? If you back up much more the curve of the Earth is going to prevent you guys from seeing the target!....LOL......Cliff

Thanks guys! It got wiped out yesterday so will have to make another batch next week. It's a super easy recipe for sure and one can vary it a bit according to what you have available. I make a variant of it when I have fresh oysters. I leave out the potatoes and the carrots but pretty much the same otherwise. Can't emphasize enough to NOT boil the soup after you add the milk, it will curdle for sure and it changes the flavor as well.......

Whipped up some fish chowder this morning, makes a good hearty meal this time of year. It's a very simple recipe and you can vary it according to what you have available. I used a couple of Walleye fillets we had leftover from Tuesday nights dinner. One medium onion One carrot. One stalk of celery. A couple of medium sized potatoes. Fish, about 12-16 ounces of filets cut into small pieces. Sea Salt Freshly ground black pepper Parsley Lea and Perrins Worchestershire sauce Tobasco or your favorite hot sauce 1/2 stick of real butter 2 tablespoons of flour One stick of bacon 2 cups of milk (may need a bit more) Finely chop the, carrot, onion and celery, cut the potatoes into small squares, put into a small pan, barely cover with water and gently boil for about 20 minutes, turn off and set aside, do not drain. Cook your bacon in another pan, finely chop, save the grease. In a larger pan melt the butter, two splashes of Worchestershire sauce, teaspoon of salt, some fresh ground pepper, splash of hot sauce, add the bacon/bacon grease, gently melt the butter and add the fish. Gently cook on low heat for about 2-3 minutes and add in the flour, then quickly the cooked vegetables and stir till it makes a paste or "rue". Add the milk and heat gently till it's really hot but do NOT boil. Top with parsley, add salt/pepper to taste. Options are to add a can of tuna and/or baby clams with all the juice to your rue for some additional fish flavor and even some fish sauce if you have it. Sprinkle with finely chopped parsley, stir and enjoy with saltines or oyster crackers........

"NO. He's not being a dick. He was just trying to steer you in the right direction." +2 He just talks to you like an adult but doesn't sugar coat anything. Of course some folks get their panties all wadded up when someone is direct and to the point, I see this a lot on the Forums. Believe me he is here to help you and you woln't find better help. Before I became a member here I built a couple of 308-AR's and still have a bag full of leftover parts that didn't fit or work well. What I found was that for the most part you can buy a plain old AR-15 lower build kit and get most of it to work in the lower, but for sure there are several different assembly pin varieties out there so that is one of the first stumbling blocks I ran into. WAY more important that that the upper may NOT fit your lower as mentioned. Ya, I ran into that once, suck ass when you go to push the rear pin thru after all the work and things don't line up for chit back there and even if you can work the pin thru the bolt is jammed up! Unlike the AR-15 platform no one really followed any rules for the 308-AR's and companies selling parts for them may or may not know if what they are selling you will fit the PSA. PSA has also made changes to their 308-AR's at least 3 times so I'm not even sure they can tell you what interchanges between the different "generations" they are producing? Even more important than a few lower parts not working is the buffer/spring and gas system. My 3rd 308-AR was an early PSA but it came without a BCG and tossed out there 6 position stock and buffer system they supplied with the lower "kit". I ordered a 308 BCG, A2 stock, and buffer/recoil spring for a DPMS (nearly as I can remember) platform and tossed all that chit together and it works flawlessly. I may have gotten lucky but for sure IF I had specific guidance there wouldn't have been any guesswork involved. Since then I've built a few more 308-AR's and added a DPMS Oracle to the stable. I pay close attention to what the folks on here have to say. They know their chit, and are ALWAYS there to help you....and yes, early on I called one of these weapons an "AR-10" and almost before I could take another breath go my dick stepped on some.....bothers me not in the least I'm a big boy and can take a little criticism.......FWIW.......Cliff

+2 Can't even find an AR-15 lower in our area these days, and when you do they are marked up over 100 percent....LOL....

Been a messed up year for sure, we have COVID, social distancing (no big deal here Deb and I have been practicing that chit for years...LOL), now an Obama disciple at the helm...."Obiden"....and he will NOT be good for this Country, rest assured on that. I'm sure he's going to go after some gun legislation, taxing ammunition you can't find right now anyhow, and at the top of his list is going to be or will include "assault" style weapons/black rifles, so prepare yourselves. These days I have bad cases of CRS and even worse cases of DGS. Since I'm past the point where I can remember all that much and for sure don't much give a chit I'm not going to worry about such things and will tell anyone who wants to or thinks they can come after my guns in any fashion that the ONLY way they are getting them is to pry them from my cold dead fingertips.....LOL....

It's always a good idea to do some testing at several distances between 100 yards and about 200-250 yards. You'd be surprised as to how far above the line of sight the point of impact can be when you mount the scope a good bit above the barrel. I've shot a few rifles on our range that folks had set-up to hit 3" high at 100 yards and the hit really high out around 150-175 yards, so much so you would have put pretty high hits on a deer with a good hold in the kill zone..........FWIW......

Albroswift, did you happen to check the point of impact above the line of sight a couple of places between 100 and about 250 yards?......Just curious.....

+2 There are just WAY too many things to do each day and not nearly enough hours to get to all of them......

There are too many "gaps" in fractional drill bit sizes. I recommend getting a #1-60 drill bit set for this sort of work. Also a good idea to get USA made bits vs the Chinese variety. They tend to break if you stare at them too long! Huot or Norseman would be my first choice and good idea to pick up a few pin vises to hold the smaller ones.......FWIW......Cliff

Wouldn't be worth a chit for night ops. After one round you are blind, deaf, and EVERYONE throwing rounds in your directly knows EXACTLY where you are at!.....LOL.....

As mentioned in the other thread the distance your scope is above the barrel will effect bullet height above the line of sight in the mid-range. A 56mm objective means it's going to be up off the barrel some in most cases. That can work for or against you depending on the efforts taken to zero the weapon and get it ready for hunting. Here is what I do here for all rifles when sighting them in. The upper is removed, remove the BCG and put up a target about 15 yards away with a small round black spot on it about 1/2" diameter. Lay the upper down in a relatively stable rest and look thru the barrel and line up the black spot in the center. Just like using a peep sight your eye will naturally center things up so it's not really fussy. So line the spot up best you can then raise up and look a the scope and see where the cross hairs are at. Spend some time here and move the crosshairs until they line up while the barrel is lined up with the black spot. What you are doing here is bore sighting and saving time and ammunition when you get to the range. I already know that on a typical AR platform establishing a "zero" at 15 yards will but the rounds pretty high at 100 yards so I typically set the point of impact an 1" or so low during this procedure. When we get to the range and start sighting in we use the 25 yard target first. For most set-ups I still set the point of impact a little low at 25 yards knowing that it will be pretty high at 100 yards. Usually there is very little fiddling around with the initial sighters since we have already bore sighted the rifle. I typically shoot 2 or 3 rounds, and if they are pretty much in the same hole move the scope if/as needed to get it where it needs to be. I then move out to the 100 yard target. I'll fire 3 rounds and glance over at the spotting scope and see where they are at. With our 308-AR's and 175 grain Barnes hunting bullets around 2500fps I put them about 1" high. Next we move out to the 150 yard target. Since my bullets have crossed the line of sight before 100 yards, 1" high at 100 yards and still climbing this target is important. I know that I want to keep the bullets close to the line of sight from zero to about 200 yards because this is were 99 percent of the game we will take will be in. I don't typically like or take longer shots at game, like Elk and Deer as in a real hunting situation there isn't any time to set up on them and they are almost always moving. If the rounds at 150 yards are not more than about 3" above the line of sight we leave things alone and move out to 200 yards. If less than about 3" from the line of sight no changes are made. I'll finish up the sighting in at 300 yards. By that distance most of these calibers/bullet combo's have started to drop off enough that they are now moving back down toward the line of sight and some will have crossed and went below it. The goal and key to success here is to find the most ideal scenario for your weapon and ammunition where you can use a zero hold for all shots to at least 200 yards, then use holdover if/as needed for longer shots. One could also employ BDC features if your scope has them. I just know the trajectory of the rounds I'm using and IF a really long shot presents itself and I know the distance using the correct holdover is equally as effective. This procedure works pretty much for all rifles used for hunting. For Varmint rifles you need to be a little more concerned with being high in the mid-range because the targets are often considerably smaller. With my 22/250, for example I not worrying about any hold-over out to 300 yards or so. It simply shoots flat enough doing that it's pretty easy since I'm using a Speer 52 grain bench rest bullet backed by a full charge of H-414. At 3800 fps it will not turn into a mortar in that range and there is never a need to set it to shoot much above the line of sight out to that distance. So bottom line and a shorter answer to your original post is to zero the weapon about 1" high at 100 yards no matter what it takes to get there, and check it clear out to 200 yards and make adjustments if/as needed so you haven't done like most knuckleheads do............shoot over a nice buck when he comes out at 150 yards because you read someplace on line that a 1/2" high 25 yard zero was good to go for one of these weapons.....hope this helps some.......Cliff

Thanks. I hope the information helps some.......

Couple of minor things to add here. For a hunting rifle in 308 I'm wanting to shorten the barrel up to save weight. Especially for rifles carried out West at high altitude. Every ounce is like a pound at 9000-1200' and if you are on public land or where you have to hike in quite a ways you'll be damned glad you picked a 16" barrel over 20 or 24" barrel with your new 308-AR rifle. My 308-AR hunting rifle is 10 pounds and that is with a 14.7" lighter profile barrel with a welded flash hider in place (pic below). I'd also point out here that shots taken on game, even out West are seldom much over 200 yards and the vast majority of the Elk I've shot at and killed have been well inside 75 yards and I've taken several under 20 yards. They are NEVER standing still just waiting around for me to put a bullet thru the good stuff. They are almost always moving, and typically in pretty heavy cover. I've hunted 3 different areas in Colorado now and it's always the same thing. Just like whitetail hunting back here in Ohio, when the hunting pressure is turned up the Elk go up high and/or timber so thick you have to crawl thru it to get near them, or a little of both. These TV shows that show hunters spotting them then having nearly endless time to "set-up" on them just NEVER happens where I've hunted, and I'm not much into all that anyhow. I think that more times than not all that TV show stuff are for "pet" bulls they have been spoon feeding on a ranch someplace since birth and born and bred so some guy with too much money who works at his cushy desk job all day can pay $10,000 $20,000 to fly in, be driven right up to them, then pull out his expensive 7mm magnum rifle he's only shot a couple of times and finish him off. Anyhow, I prefer to work hard at it and hike far enough from the main roads that I start to see a lot of activity then ambushing one when he comes sneaking thru thick cover to get to a watering hole or food source. Watching open areas and setting up for long distance shots has been like hunting on the moon, and I've been going out there now coming up on 30 years. With ALL platforms, AR's in particular you really need to consider how high you mount your scope away from the barrel. Keep in mind here that the "line of sight" is always a straight line, and the path of the bullet is a curve and it turns into a "mortar" the further it gets from the barrel. Since the bullet has to rise sharply to get up to your line of sight it will need to cross the line of sight somewhere relative close, like 25 yards for example, but you may have to "stretch" that out some if the scope is up off the barrel quite a bit . At that point the bullet continues to rise until gravity starts in back down toward the line of sight again. What throws a monkey wrench into that deal is that the higher your scope is the higher the bullet will be above the line of sight and you can actually shoot over big game in the "mid-range" before the bullet starts back down and crosses the line of sight again. I recommend nailing down the most ideal distance where your combination crosses the line of sight the first time, then checking it at several distances in between there and when it drops back across the line of sight again. Since most of the game you will shoot will be in that distance try to "stretch" out those distances so that you can pretty much use a zero hold for all close shots. I'd add here that the flatter the gun shoots the easier this is to accomplish. At this point, lets say the bullet ends up crossing the line of sight the first time at 25 yards, then shows 3" high at 100 yards, then goes a little higher to 5" at 150 yards, then back down to the line of sight again at 225 yards, you are pretty much good to go and no need for fancy range trajectory devices built into your scope where you may not have time to implement them anyhow. Just be aware that between about 100 and 175 yards your bullets will hit high so a slightly lower hold may be better within those ranges. I just pulled the numbers out of thin air above but knowing your weapon, ammunition and sight dope is THE key to accurate shot placement and successful hunting. Basically you want to take as many variables out of the equation as you can, like "hold over" in the normal ranges that you are most likely to be shooting in. You would not believe how many see-thru cheap POS scope mount set-ups or really high AR scope mounts I've seen over the years where the owner/shooter was WAY too high in the mid-range where they might miss a decent size animal all together or at least put really high hits on them if they did use a zero hold in the middle of the kill zone.

NICE! I debated whether to sponge or "fruit bag" and use foliage but forgot to buy a sponge when I was at the store getting supplies so grabbed up an orange sack and a fern from behind the shop and went at it. There is a learning curve with that deal, but very quickly I figured out that if you want more pronounced detail keep the material very close to the work and the paint can as perpendicular to the work as you can and at least 10" away. If you get close or don't keep the netting close to the work it doesn't work nearly as well. I also gave mine at least 30 minutes dry time between coats and helped it out some by warming things up with a hair dryer. The next day I baked the paint in the sun for a couple of hours and it's on there pretty good. I actually not a big fan of Rustoleum paint as it actually takes quite a while for it to "cure" compared to other brands. When I paint Marine carburetors in the shop they get put in front of a 1500 watt heater for about 20 minutes then a minimum of 24 hours dry time after that to "set" the paint. If you don't do those things that stuff can stay "soft" for days or even a week or so.......Cliff

Nice work and I like the attention to detail, removing or taping off some of the parts so the entire rifle doesn't get painted. I personally think a little transition is good leaving some of the component in black and why I did mine that way. The sponge painting method yields good results as well and probably easier than using stencils or local foliage. The white and black is cool, at least if you drop it in a snow drift you'll be able to see some of the parts!......

I found it to be pretty easy, but there is some prep time involved. If you need more details PM me, I put the "short" version above but left out some specifics to keep the response shorter......

Thanks! I wanted to get some practice before painting my 308-AR. I'll be starting on it shortly and will put up some pics when it's finished.....