98Z5V

@DayWalker, here's some really interesting shiit, brother... and why I geek out on this part of it... My 18" Grendel 123 ELD-M handload is rocking 2534fps, and it's 8.5 mils of drop at 850 yards... G7 BC is 0.255. Sectional Density of the projectile is 0.252. My 18.5" Mk11 178 ELD-X handload is rocking 2530fps, and it's 8.5 mils of drop at 850 yards... G7 BC is 0.268. Sectional Density of the projectile is 0.268. Hmmm... just made this more interesting, didn't I?... Those two are made to compete against each other, like peanut butter and jelly... I just leveled the playing field between the 6.5 Grendel and that magic 178 ELD-X .308 Win load that all this 6 ARC information keeps comparing to... Those are my handloads (velocities), though, and they're certainly not the numbers that he's getting for his Grendel velocity, and the numbers reported for his buddy's 168gr .308 Win load. So, this 6 ARC, once I get it all load-developed, should crush both of them. Factory ammo? We'll see. He reported 2605 for his 6 ARC velocity, but I ran it through another calculator (Shooter's Notes barrel velocity estimator), based on the numbers on the box - 24" barrel = 2750 fps. The number I came up with is 2617 fps for an 18" barrel. And that's before I start loading this one up... That's the Factory Ammo number - Hornady 108gr ELD-M Match loaded ammunition, from Hornady. Here's the charts I'm referencing for the numbers that I get - my handloads... Shiit is about to get real, men...

That was good - the 6 ARC was right there with the .308, for drop-over-distance, but that's information from his buddy, on his buddy's .308. Also, his Grendel velocity is WAY down, compared to what I get from my load, through my guns. Shiit,my 12.5" Grendel is getting the velocity that he's stating for his Grendel velocity. His buddy was getting 2550fps on a .308 Win 168gr load. I'm pulling 2530fps with my 178 ELD-X load, through an 18.5" barrel. We don't have enough data on his buddy's .308 gun to mash it all out. Also, he's fucking up his software - I froze the screen, and he's got his sight height set at the default bolt gun stuff... 1.5" sight height. AR sight height is 2.5"... So, his data needs work. Garbage in, garbage out. Every detail matters when you're making up a DOPE/Drop chart... His Grendel data is 2370fps through an 18" barrel... I caught that when I rewatched it, and he stated the barrel length... My Grendel numbers are: 12.5" = 2369fps (I'm right there in my 12.5" - where he is with his 18"...) // 16" = 2495fps // 18" = 2534fps... Hell, my Grendels beat my old .308 Win load, with the 178 HPBT Hornadys - at 850. I haven't had my new 178 ELD-X load together long enough to go run it against the Grendel load at 850. I'll suck up the heat here, and get out early on a Sunday morning and set up the 500 and 850, and get it on between those two. This is gonna get good, brother - VERY good. Sidenote: I much prefer JBM Ballistics for computing this stuff. It's far better than that program he's using - but it doesn't produce those graphic charts, showing drop over distance, with the arcs and all. Bryan Litz worked on the JBM software. Go to the "Ballistics" tab, and all the Calculators will come up. I used "Simplified Trajectory" most of the time, but if I need a specific hunting load chart made up, I'll use the "Trajectory" one - way more details to input, better results out. If I get REALLY freaky on a specific load, I'll use that new "Modified Point Mass Trajectory" table. It's pretty complicated, and I don't quite have that one down yet... https://www.jbmballistics.com/index.shtml

Anybody wants $10 off their Olight order, use this link to get there. https://www.olightstore.com/?awraf=498F8D355F040E9DDCD26

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!! That was excellent!!!

It can't be bad - it's hard to mess up rifle recoil systems. As long as that buffer is 5.900" long and weighs 5.4oz, and the extension is 9 11/16" deep - you're good. Worst case scenario - the spring might suck. New Armalite M15 rifle springs are about 5 bucks.

Nah, not headspace, man - I was referencing the barrel extension torque spec.

Hey, we'll try to keep it spicy, men, one way or another! Good news - @Slash already shipped my buffer today. THAT is SERVICE!!!

All you guys that read my Valk Shiit-Talking... don't be discouraged. It's a great cartridge, and I'm glad I built one. Very glad that I built it. It really is good, but it's no Grendel-Killer, like all the hype made it up to be. It's FAR superior out of a small-frame AR than 5.56 is. I feel like I'm qualified to state what you can achieve from a 5.56 gun, at distance, too. You CAN stretch those fuckers out there, for real, and I've done it to 850 yards in a 13.9mph full-value wind, with the 75gr Hornady HPBT handloads that I have... - and it SUCKED. BAD. Never give up, though... If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough... But anyway, on the Valk stuff. You can run up to a 90gr projectile with the common Valk 1:7" twist barrels that are out there. DO NOT get sucked in, on those "magic" Sierra 95gr Match King projectiles, and think you'll be The King Of The World with those... You NEED a 1:6.5" twist barrel to run those bitches, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. There are very FEW 1:6.5" twist barrels out there... That's the whole reason I'm loading the 88gr Hornady ELD-Ms for my1:7" twist BA SPR Valk barrel. I'm not gonna get any better than that, and the barrel is completely kickass. *** Oh, and because I'm a complete Hornady Whore, for projectiles... That's the other reason... No Sierras in THIS house... well, except those .25 cal 90gr GameKings in the 25/45. Those fuckers ROCK in that load/gun...

So, again... Why am I doing this? Dumbass-Attack?... Nope. I KNOW the Grendel. Very well, and very well tested out to distance, out here in my world. This is a 6mm Grendel - this 6 ARC is - and I know what my Grendels can do. When I can center-punch the 850-yard steel with a 12.5" barreled Grendel pistol, with 10 mils of drop dialed on a 4x scope... - I know what the Grendel is really capable of. And this thing looks VERY promising, as a "6mm Grendel." I think it's all that they say it is. And I already bet a complete LaRue gun on it, just to see. Hey, if it sucks, and isn't all that - then I have a complete LaRue 18" Grendel gun out of the deal... And I KNOW that fucker will perform!...

So, here's the real deal with all this shiit. I won't mince words. The 6.5 Grendel was designed as the perfect 200~800 yard AR15-platform cartridge, and it was released at SHOT Show 2004, but it was finalized before that. I ignored the Grendel until 3 years ago, then made the plunge. Love at first shot. It truly is the perfect cartridge for the AR15 platform, and I don't know how I blew it off for over a decade. That first shot literally morphed into FIVE guns... I shiit you not. Grendel RULES the AR15 world. There is no doubt about that. So, this is what's up - I've talked Grendel up all over this place, and corrupted a few... @Matt.Cross and @Armed Eye Doc come to mind immediately... It's reallyTHE badass cartridge for the AR15 platform, hands down. It really is. Then, the .224 Valkyrie comes out a couple years ago. It's just a necked-down 6.8SPC cartridge, to .224, to shoot the REALLY heavy .224 projectiles - I'm loading 88gr Hornady ELD-M projectiles for it. Yeah, I jumped in it. I wanted to compare it to the Grendel - because everyone else said it was a Grendel-Killer. Not even... Here's the original SPR Grendel, and the Valk I built to "take down the Grendel..." - that never happened, by the way, ballistically... That original 18" SPR Grendel is on the top, and that Valk is below it. I built those two bitches SO SIMILAR, just to make sure nothing was left on the table. Even down to the VG6 2-port muzzle brake and VG6 CAGE device. The Grendel won. Now, somewhere along the line of all this 6 ARC development, someone compared the 6 ARC to the .308 WIN load of the Hornady 178gr ELD-X... hehehehe... Imagine that. When I built the Mk11 1/2 a year ago, that 178 ELD-X launched - and it was WAY BETTER than the 178gr HPBTs that I was using before. So... I built the gun, bought the projectiles, and came up with a WHOLE NEW LOAD for ALL my .308 Win guns, based off that Mk11. And it is BADASS. So, some nutbag online compared 6 ARC to the .308 Win 178 ELD-X... Hmmm... That's ANOTHER thing that made me want this 6 ARC - because I'm gonna find out, for real. So here's the other "contender" in this 6 ARC gunfight: Oh, same brake and CAGE device... 18.5" .308 Win Match barrel, Fulton Armory, Kreiger-Criterion (old days), compared to Ballistic Advantage Mk12 18" SPR barrels... this is gonna be good, men... So, WTF... Let's toss all this shiit at the walls, and throw in some 5.56 Match loads. And a Mk12 Mod 1, in the mix. My Mk12 5.56 handloads are 2789.75fps, averaged. You need to get the 75 or 77gr 5.56 projectiles to 2750fps to really "see the magic" that is all Mk12, and I Exceeded Course Standards on my handloads for my Mk12. That's the chrono number of them, through the 18" barrel. Not a guess-timate. I've got that load down to a science, and this thing is supersonic to 850 yards on the G7 drag models - and proven out to 850, too. By a BUNCH of other people here that have shot it. It's pretty stupid, for a 5.56 gun. Last but not least - it doesn't matter what happens on paper, or on steel at distance - everything I own has to measure up to the 16" Grendel Mod H. That little bitch is my kryptonite. That thing smokes everything else, as an overall gun, hands down. No matter how this cartridge shakedown works out, how perfect I can make the 18" 6 ARC LaRue SPR to the 18" Grendel SPR and the 18" .224 Valk SPR - it needs to out-maneuver and out-shoot the 16" Grendel Mod H, in an all-around desert battle... The Mod H Grendel currently rules the all-around world, in my dry-ass world... That's my bitch, on the bottom in this pic.

Anything you need? Maybe I can send it to you, after I get it from Dion... I'm a long-time customer, here - in fact, I think I pimped him early on. Told you bastards to pay attention to what he's posting...

TRUTH! I remember asking Dion about a certain caliber that he listed, and he told me, "Sorry. Some guy in Montana has dibs on ALL those!..." I says, "Hey Pete, how do I get dibs on any of your brass, brother?!!?" Answer - "Just tell me what you're looking for..." So, half that shiit in his listing, that says "Spoken for" is all mine... I don't mean to be a brasswhore about it all - but the Montana Guy did it to me... I'd see something new pop up in his ads, and I'd send him a PM - "Yeah, brother - mark those as MINE, too..." It's not funny anymore, when he tells me it's time to pay up... I cringe, and just tell him to send me the total... That last one hurt, real bad - but that's when I whored up all that LC NATO primed brass... 1100 rounds of it, too... That was a painful payment to send...

Good update, JV - and keep them coming, as they progress. Feedback and follow-ups are the only way to keep track of this shiit, from fake-sellers. Good luck, man - hang in there. They're all foreigners, mostly Chinese - so there's not shiit that we can do to them in the long run - besides warn other smart purchasers, that look the stuff up beforehand. What you post, matters - in the future.

Here's the latest from ARF on these lowers, and all other Store items: https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/ARFCOM-Lower/12-743580/

Here's the old stories about when ARF resurrected the lower - after years of trying, with no manufacturer stepping up... They had it "licensed" from MagPul in 2008, but no manufacturer would make it for them. Most of that was from the 2008 election, BarackMania and talk of gun bans. Manufacturers were making their own shiit to sell, planning to bank on a Gun Ban... https://www.ammoland.com/2011/04/ar15-com-billet-lower-receiver/#axzz6RIUPdYNF This article is cool ^^^ They picture lower #42 in that article. The next one was MINE... I was almost famous?... https://www.guns.com/news/2011/04/22/ar15com-resurrects-magpuls-billet-ar-lower-receiver

Aroung the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011, ARFCOM was getting closer to getting a company to make these "AR-15.com" branded MagPul lowers, and after 3 or 4 companies that said they could and didn't - they found one. They were initially only offered to "Lifetime Members" of ARFCOM, but eventually opened up to the public. These were only offered by ARF as a complete lower receiver assembly, initially, and has a production rollmark of "AR15.COM ARMAMENT RIFLE, HONEOYE FALLS NY USA"... It was Mid $800s to get one, but it had top-of-the-line parts in it - no half-assing by those boys, in the least. MagPul CTR stock (or UBR stock), Geissele Super 3 Gun trigger, already had the Norgon Ambi mag release, Battle Arms BADASS 45* safety, MagPul MIAD grip - everything was top of the line. I paid $861 for mine, with options, and that was the standard then. Sometime between that first run and followup runs, the manufacturing location changed. Again, sometime a few years ago, it changed again, to a TX company,and the design was changed slightly then... I'm lucky enough to have #43 from the very first production run, from the first manufacturer, and this is by far my favorite all around AR, bar none. I didn't mess around, and built the upper with the Rainier Arms Billet UltraMatch upper receiver, Danial Defense Mk18 RIS II rail, YHM pinned 14.5" diamond fluted barrel, and put the PA mini red dot in an ADM mount, Burris 3x magnifier in the ADM flip-to-side mount. BDS sling rounded it all out. I recently brought this back up because I got the new Olight Odin lights, and this was the first gun I thought about for mounting that badass light to - and it's fully deserving of this gun. Once I mounted the light up - I started thinking about how badass this whole gun really is... At any rate, that's what led to this long post. The ARFCOM lowers are just about no more - and the original MagPul lowers are LONG gone. There's talk on ARF of bringing this back, but Brownell's got involved and sold a bunch for awhile, then discontinued them. I don't know if these will ever be back, but if they DO come back.... Think REAL HARD about jumping on that bandwagon. From the talk on ARF, once they find a way to sell them, they will - and all stock will be sold off, and the AR-15.com Store will be gone forever. These lowers really are all that, and that good. AR-15.com - good luck, and I hope you keep them up. If not, and they disappear - then I know I still have #43.

Things are lookin' GOOD for me, brother!!!

In the world of Sheep, Wolves, and Sheep Dogs - the analogy that most gun-guys think about - everybody thinks that they want to be a Sheep Dog. Do be any of the above. Be a PATRIOT. Don't run around trying to protect Sheep from Wolves. That's like trying to herd cats. Protect your COUNTRY.

Throughout this weekend that we have presented at out feet, think about something, brothers... This was not the day that we fought for everything - that started long, long before July 4th, 1776. It started coming to a head in 1770, in Boston, long before that. This weekend - this day - was the day that we came together, representatives from every COLONY... Yes, the 13 colonies - and we decided to put pen-to-paper, and sign a Declaration Of Independence, to send that to England, and tell them that we were FREE, and not a part of "them" anymore. The Revolutionary War was a different matter, and it started way before July 4th, and it lasted way longer, after July 4th. The start of it is what LED to the Declaration Of independence, but that wasn't the end of the war. That was just our expression that we were going to fight this one through to the end - and in the end, we are Free. It was on this weekend, this day of July 4th, that we decided as a group of colonies, that we would no longer live under the oppression of the Rule of England any longer. No more. We were a Free People, and their laws, rules, governance, and taxes - without representation - were NOT going to be how we lived our lives in this country. The people you really need to thank are Samuel Adams, very first and foremost, for he was the Bostonian that was an informal leader, but led that city to fight the British Oppression. His very good friends, Dr. Joseph Warren, and Paul Revere, are next to be recognized. His cousin, John Adams is next. After that - it comes to those that they influenced, provided that fire to, and lit that flame of - the very thought - that we could become our OWN country. Ben Franklin was very, very instrumental in this, and John Hancock... he bank-rolled the whole thing from the very start. He was the initial money-man. There's alot about the history of this country that so many need to learn about. It's not all about July 4th (yes, I know I'm posting this on July 5th, too). July 4th was when we declared out independence from England. April 19th, 1775, was when the first shots were fired, in both Lexington and Concord, that started the gunfight (beginning of the Revolutionary War), which led to July 4th, 1776. The REAL fight started long before, back as far as 1770 in Boston, Massachussetts. The fight ALWAYS started in Boston. That's where they stood up, and were tired of British "Rule." If you ever want to thank someone for "America" - then thank someone from Boston. They were the first ones to state that they we not gonna put up with it any longer, and they did something about it. They, quite literally, started it. I could rage on this for hours. You guys need to watch "Sons Of Liberty" if you really want to see how this country started. I kid you not. This is the perfect weekend for it, so go find it.

Hey, if the A5H2 shows up in stock somewhere, while I'm waiting my 1~3 months for the LaRue upper setup - then I'll certainly buy it. Or 5 of them. In the meantime, if they never, ever show up - I have a plan. I know it sounds quite odd, but I'm trying to be the voice of reason and rationale here... For what that's worth...

Such a work of art. Such an exercise in utility. The MagPul Lower Receiver was a unicorn, and very short-lived. And it was EXPENSIVE. As fuk. There was the MagPul MPL-A version (graphic right there above ^^^, just plain), the MPL-B version, and the MPL-C version - I'll find the pics over time, as I can, but they were distinct, in markings. Some more rare than others. Even though ALL we rare as hens teeth. Here's the markings on the MPL-C version... The rarest of the rare... I'll track down MPL-A and MPL-B lowers, and get pics up. However, it doesn't matter which version is was - there's were not to be found, unless you knew someone. In 2008, ARFCOM somehow got the rights to design a lower based off the MagPul MPL prints. Politics, gun-grab scares with O'ButtFuck, and everything else, conspired against ARFCOM, and it was another 3 years before that deal would ever see the light of day. Eventually, ARFCOM pulled it off, and they reproduced the MagPul MPL lower receiver. Perfect, too, minus the markings - of course it was marked with ARFCOM logos - they're the ones that brought it to the market, for the "average people." Some of those original MagPul lowers were going for $3k, in the day. I shiit you not. It was simply made out of "unobtanium" for us normal people... You just couldn't get one. No way, no how. Unless - connections. Part 2 coming up.

@MisterKirk, what's the point here? Why the reason for your post? Just curious.

Just bumping this one up a little - this is a great weekend for you brothers to try this one out.

Got any older ones, where you can measure the side-to-side dimension of the receiver magwell? I can provide measurements on 3 different receivers, if you want to check that out. I've never had issues with the BX-25s or the 10-rd rotaries in mine. Come to think of it, no issues with the Butler Creek Steel Lips 25s, either, in any gun. I've got an old 1973 all-metal gun, and I must say, it likes it's original rotary mag way better than any of the newer rotaries, though. Newer ones are tough to get out, but go in easy. Other than that, zero other mag issues with any of them, when using the larger-capacity mags.

^^^ Yep, I hit them up a couple days ago, added it to cart, and it let me. They're gonna get a call tomorrow morning, just to check. So, in addition to search for ANY VLTOR A5 buffer I could try to find, I was also searching for that specific VLTOR SP-A5 kit right there, because it comes with the H2 already. Struck out on all that, too. The stuff is GONE, brothers... Bonus, though - while I was on that page, I found this badass Morgan Reese poster: I'm not worried about finding one now, anymore. I've got it solved. Armalite AR-10 Carbine Receiver Extension, Armalite M15 rifle recoil spring, and the Slash buffer will get this job done. Transplant that Slash buffer into the M4, rebuild THAT buffer, done deal. Here's where this poor lonely little lower sits right now, just to dress it up a little.