willbird

yea the PM was appreciated, and we covered a lot of stuff. The end result was to order the orange spring, http://www.sprinco.com/tactical.html and work on a heavier buffer. I have the three tungsten buffer weights for $22 inbound from Ebay. Probably will lathe turn some bodies from plain old carbon steel to start.

Well they sort of DO have one. It is called the 07 FFL and the 02 SOT. You get the 07, then pay the annual SOT tax, and you can make and retain all the Title II you want except DD (Destructive and Dangerous Devices). You do have to pay ITAR registration annually. There were a few changes made in a good way about ITAR recently. You can also BUY Title II MG if you have a demo request letter from somebody who could buy them from you. Folks WERE getting letters for stuff like 1919 but I hear BATFE reined that in a little. You can also buy Title II MG from dealers giving up license without needed the demo letter. Bill

Born William Earl D**** III, go by Bill usually....but have been called some other stuff, willbird kind of stuck on the net back about 1992. Grew up deep in the gun culture...dad was a gun nut, my Grandpa was not, he was a 1 shotgun 1 rifle kinda guy. Shot Jr rifle 22 as a kid and graduated to highpower as a Jr shooter. Had a DCM welded selector M14 NM that was loaned out to dad on paper but I treated it as mine and took it everywhere I went once I got my drivers license. Graduated to bolt action 308 match rifle eventually, then set that aside once I hit 21 or so. I have played with guns all my life really, handguns and rifles, if they are not accurate and do not shoot to point of aim I'm not much interested. First rifle I ever fit and chambered a barrel too is a 6-284 with 1/8 twist, built on a 40X C action, in a McMillon stock, used a Hart barrel. Honest 1/4 MOA rifle with dead solid POI...I bought a gloss Leopold 6.5x20x40 scope on the net, one of the ugly ones with the finish worn off and some ring marks for like $200, set it up zeroed at 100 with 3/4 of the elevation adj avail, painted it camo Krylon and used it for 23 years...in that time "zeroing" it has meant moving that scope literally one click...it holds zero like it should :-). Using a fast 6mm will spoil you....the .224 stuff seems wimpy afterwards :-). This rifle is a tight neck chamber too, requires neck turning brass. I have a 22-250AI I built with 1/14 twist shilen barrel.. I have shot it into the high .1's with 55 grain nosler ballistic tips..it is a tight neck chamber as well, WW brass you can get it into there for the first firing then turn it to .248 neck loaded round...some other brass is too thick. The action is a rem 700 but the prior owner put a custom bolt in it that has a model 70 post 64 style sliding extractor...Burns bolt maybe, and it has a 2oz trigger, sets in a McMillon Hunter BR stock. I had an AR way back in 92....Olympic arms lower maybe, HBAR upper with 1/7 govt barrel, chrome lined. Sold it off a few years later to free some funds up, but some recent introspection reveals that I rarely get attached to a rifle I bought as a rifle :-)...I typically built them up from parts. That gun the lower come from one guy, the upper from another, and the BCG came from a friend in Alaska. So fast forward however many years from 1994 to 2018...No AR in the family, and really not a single rifle around that fired SAAMI ammo..except a few M44 carbines..I did/do have API and APIT ammo for those so they have some good qualities but. The situation where the guy was shooting up the church, and the other guy grabbed an AR, a handful of ammo, and ran out in his bare feet to stop it kind of galvanized me. I grabbed a few 80% lowers intending to make an AR. Ordered a PSA faux dissy 16" MOE kit.....work went nuts for some 7 day a week stuff, still is really...so I bought an Anderson lower and completed that rifle. And if 1 is good, well more are better :-). I built a 357 AR upper for Ohio Deer. Then a pencil 16" semi lightweight setup...used a faxon 16" pencil on that, I like it more every time I shoot it :-). finished up the 80% recce and added a 10.5" pistol brace kit to one of them. Still defining myself because even though they all fire SAAMI ammo, not a single one left a store as a "rifle" :-). Grabbed a 20" 224 Valkyrie free float upper too, have dies, brass, bullets....have not shot it yet. PSA ran a daily deal on a complete PA10 lower, Magpul, EPT 159 shipped....so I grabbed one, now it is time for a 308. Kind have a hankering to build a 7.5" pistol brace **10 too, will probably have to make the barrel for that one :-). Departed friend had a HK51 machine gun that was fun to shoot...so the 7.5" can create the same effect in semi auto :-).

The bigger bore stuff expansion ratio comes into play. Pressure drops off much more quickly with larger bore. The 16" Iowa battleship "rifles" are actually a 50 caliber long barrel ? Which if they were 45 acp would be a 22" barrel roughly, Bill

For me it was a PSA Daily deal for a complete lower, MagPul and EPT for $159....I just could not pass that up :-). Bill

headspace is an interesting topic. During the firing process the pressure in the primer pocket created by the primer firing makes the primer act like a DI gas pistol, the primer backs out of the pocket, taking up any headspace present. Then if pressure in the case rises (it does not if you are say just popping primers in an empty case, or firing wax bullets or the Speer plastic bullets) the case gets forced back over the primer. if you measure most new 45 acp brass you well see that it is WAY shorter than the saami chamber. This process I laid out with the primer is exactly why some fired 45 acp primers look like the gun had 65,000 PSI going on, in a ctg where the maximum pressure is a sedate 21,000 PSi. The primer cup IMHO sort of "rivets" or bulges before the case gets shoved back onto it, creating that flattened primer look you would get with a REALLY hot rifle round and maybe even 0.000 headspace. As far as the primers backing out, you can see that with almost any revolver by just firing primed cases only, sometimes they will even tie the gun up, folks who shoot wax bullets drill out the flash holes to prevent this from happening. So now back to high pressure rifles. The danger there is that the round will be driven forward by the firing pin, the primer will back out, the pressure will rise, the case will GRIP the chamber up where it is thinner on the front end, then the back end of the case will get stretched back to the breechface, and forced back over the primer. The reason the field gauge is .008 is because in the real world that will still work fine, it is not where things SHOULD be...and perhaps if it STARTED out right how the heck did it GET to .008..what moved ?? The excessive headspace deal really crops up if you take the same case and fire it, then resize it back to a saami headspace length of the shoulder datum, then stretch it again, then resize it, and stretch it again...to that a few times and you will see an incipient head separation, a shiny spot where the case head will break right off if you keep going. When chambering a barrel on a bolt action I typically aim for a "feel" on a go gauge..this means we are at zero. Then ideally I bump the shoulder for .002 headspace when sizing brass. .001 or zero might be fine too, -.001 or more means the rifle has to cam the bolt shut with some force, which creates unnecessary wear over time. Folks that just neck size brass can see that over time, I did it to one 22-250 rifle myself thinking neck sizing was the way into some secret accuracy society :-). Now say you have some oddball rifle that has excessive headspace...not a common caliber or one you shoot a LOT, so what do you do ?? I have a Savage model 24V 222/20 gauge that is exactly that way. Not practical to re barrel, it is a cool gun for what my dad bought it for. So what he did, and I do, is just make brass to fit that chamber length. If you want to do it "perfect" you neck the 222 brass up to say 25 caliber, or 6mm, then back out the 222 full length sizer die, and gently bump the false shoulder back a little at a time until the gun just closes on the brass, then fire form them, and just bump the shoulder enough to allow the gun to close on the rounds. So you have created a special case just to fit that gun. The same can be done with belted magnums, technically they headspace on the belt, but you CAN adjust your dies to get that .002 shoulder bump, then you are not blowing the shoulder out each time, then shoving it back again when you resize. Obviously one might make different decisions if the rifle is a 375 H&H used for dangerous game, or a 7mm or 300 win mag used for beasts that eat grass :-). Just some stuff to think about on the subject and maybe flesh out the "why" of this stuff...I would not lose a wink of sleep about a rifle that was .001 past no go, unless it started out "snug on a go" and somehow ended up .001 over no go, I would not let that rest until I knew exactly why things moved. Also back to the 45 acp thing from above, the headspace gauge only considers the chamber, the brass or the ammo is the other half. Guy I know was a Thompson Center sponsored shooter, mostly black powder stuff. But TC took a group of them up to Canada on a hunting trip, TC supplied guns and ammo....I seem to recall it being 6.5x55. Well they stalked game, Deer I think, took aim, and when they fired "click"...cock the gun again..."click", cock it again...."BOOM". Root cause ?? Saami chambers...right on the money, and ammo that was way short on the datum dimension to the shoulder. So if you totally wig out about the headspace of your chamber.......and lose sleep over that extra .001" ?? have you ever checked your ammunition ?? :-). Bill Bill

Just for future reference I pulled the buffer and spring out of the PA10 and did some measuring/weighing. Buffer tube is 7" deep from receiver must be 6-15/16 tube maybe ? Buffer is 2.5" long and weighs 3.7oz Spring is 11-1/2 free length, .072" wire, and 28 coils.

If you are going all out on the rest of the parts it might take away from the whole package, but part of my intent was a cheap upper to blast the steel case steel jacket Tula ammo. Bill

I have tried to take pictures :-)....found better pictures on the web actually. https://www.ar15.com/forums/industry/PA10_Gen1_and_Gen2_cosmetic_differences/301-280299/ To some it might be "ermergerd that sucks" :-)....I like to have parts around to try new stuff....so my thoughts were that the upper would be used for something. I have not seen any Gen II uppers avail for cheap yet :-). Bill

It all started with a PSA daily deal for the PA10 complete lower EPT and Magpul NMIAD ACS-L for 149.99 and free shipping, too cheap to pass up ? Then there was a daily deal on Gen I stripped uppers for $59. Next came a Bear Creek barrel for $60...I am kind of interested in chopping an 18" to 16" and doing a 16" faux dissy so not much lost if a mistake was made on a $60 barrel :-). Then an AIM sports 15" rail on sale for 49.99 kinda black Friday. Added a Toolcraft BCG and charging handle from WC Armory. Final parts were a OdinWorks adj gas block and a gas tube from Brownells....10% off and free shipping :-). Still need PSA GEN2 PA10 Complete MOE MIAD ACS-L EPT Lower Receiver - Black - 149.99 PSA Gen 1 PA10 Stripped Upper Receiver 59.99 BCA AR-10 Barrel, 18" 4150 Black Nitride SOCOM Barrel, .308, Mid Length Gas System w/ 1:10 Twist 59.84 AimSports DPMS Low AR-308 15" M-LOK Freefloat Handguard 49.99 Toolcraft BCG 115 Charging Handle 15 OdinWorks adj gas block 78.99 Brownells gas tube 8.99 still need PSA PA10 EJECTION PORT COVER ASSEMBLY 13.98 PSA PA10 FORWARD ASSIST ASSEMBLY 12.95 Total 564.69 Could have done it with non adj gas block for $495.69 I did not include shipping in all cases...tried to get free shipping where I could. Muzzle brake of some kind will add a few more $$. Parts on various truck as I type :-)...should have everything last week. Not my first AR build, second I suppose, but first large frame build. Bill