98Z5V

This one is for my man Mike @blue109... For you, brother. I know he's a complete Dissipator Whore, and I love him for that. Truly do, as I'm in the same boat... 12.5" barrel, 5.56, midlength gas - this is what it looks like. Home-made locked down A2 front sight tower, of my flavor, and Brand new to market SBA5 brace, because it's a pistol, not a rifle or SBR. There's a reason that it's got a Surefire 60 in there - Blue knows what that reason is... Short Dissy Heaven On Earth...

Not very falimiar with the Mod 2 version, but I have a ton of time on the original XDs 9mm. Lemme look into this a little and get back to you. Definitely sounds like ammo, more than gun, though. I'll get back in here after I run this through my brain housing group...

DS Arms makes a BCG that is the best on the planet, IMHO, and I only had one, bought it years ago - then OOS everywhere - by the time I realized how badass it was. That was many years ago. The M16 BCG, NPE coated, Sand-Cut. It's the finest thing on the planet for a 5.56 gun or 300BLK guns. It's really all that, and the sandwich... Back in stock from DS Arms, and I have 3 more coming now. AND, they are on sale for $116 right now, in stock. Better get them, if you need them, or want to upgrade - these things have been OOS for years, right after I bought my first one... https://www.dsarms.com/p-17541-dsa-ar15-m16-cut-enhanced-sand-cut-complete-bolt-carrier-group-npe-nickel-phosphate-coating-556-223-300-blk.aspx

This will get spicy...

This is their new fixed wing landing strip. They run all Polaris rigs for support. I fix them all, maintain them all. Been working on their stuff for about 6 or 7 years now. Pretty cool operation.

I have a story about this, brother...

THAT... Is a worthy experiment. Run with scissors, my friend...

Nate, here's my Mantra - you don't Complicate Shiit with Complicated Shiit. Complicate your gun, and you'll end up with complicated problems. That silent captured shiit is for race guns. If you're building a race gun, for a dedicated load that you'll only shoot from it - then have at it. Stay away from it. Lube your receiver extension internally, lube your buffer at the contact point (outer edge of the buffer), and lube the spring. You'll notice a decrease in the "noise" that bothers most people - because they don't know any better than to run those parts dry... My $0.02 on it. It's a gimmick, but a race gun part, for a tailored load, from a certain gun, for a certain competition. For people that worry about the "SPROING" noise. Tell you my own opinion - I love that noise. I hear "sproing, sproing, sproing...." Then, when I DON'T hear it - as SOON AS I DON'T HEAR IT - I just locked back on an empty mag... Time to reload, right now... Just my opinion....

SMOKE 'EM!!!

How much ass was kicked?...

I wish I possessed the ability to NOT call bullshiit when I see bullshiit. It would make my life easier, certainly, but it wouldn't make me who I am. I'll never back down from that, ever. So, maybe, I'm an idiot...

Regretfully, I don't have that trait or capability...

This is exactly why range cards, training on them, and sticking to Fields Of Fire are the most important aspect... My $0.02... If you know where the children's bedrooms are, that's a restriction in the fields of fire, the range fan. Think about it...

This is a phased defense, just like a Patrol Base. Your own bedroom is the FPL - Final Protective Line. Solve that one first, then solve the rest of the phases, as they move outwards. FPL is the first thing done/solved in Priorities Of Work, once you establish a Patrol Base... My perspective might be different than yours, and you never start your protection plan at the furthest distance - you start it at your immediate location, and refine different distances, further out, over time. If some group followed you to your patrol base, and you didn't set your FPL first - it doesn't really matter what your initial 600-yard plan was...

Is that a GAS OVEN?!!? AOC and the rest of the Green Libs will be coming for you, for that...

.300 Win Mag is the cheapest way to get into this game - with the right gun. It's 2k Capable-All-Day with the heavies, 225 Hornady ELD-Ms, handloaded. 2K is no sweat for it. 2280 was nice, and I know it can go a little more - and it's gonna get pushed to whatever it can do, and we'll find out what that is, eventually. By far, though, if you dip your foot in this pond, the Win Mag is the stepping stone to learn all about it, and it's gonna be the cheapest option, by far, over all the new niche calibers. Factory Off-The-Shelf ammo is jut not gonna do the job, though - handloads are the answer. Big heavy projectiles, handloaded to whatever gun you decide on.

This isn't anything that you do, brother, that you use across spectrums. It's dedicated. IMHO, the exception to that would be .300 Win Mag. Everything else is stupid expensive. As far as @Magwa's .338 Lapua - everyone jumped into that thread, and said it was so expensive... It's NOT that expensive. @Magwa dropped $400 on 100 brand new pieces of Lapua brass for that build, and everyone MISSED that - completely. If those that chimed in were reloading, they'da picked up on it real quick. Not the case... He anneals after every firing. That brass will last forever. Even if each piece of brass only lasts 10 firings, that brings the brass price to 40 cents each. It'll last a hell of alot longer than that, too... Food for thought... Don't factor in the scare-tactic of what people misunderstood in the costs of getting into it, for him - figure in the long-term. I can load 225gr Hornady SSTs in .338 Lapua for under $2 each. That's cheaper than some high dollar .308 Win ammo from some places. Skip 6.5 PRC. It might make the initial distance, but it's not going much further than that - 2k. 7 PRC will smoke a .300 Win Mag at some of the extended ranges that we're getting into now - and the .300 Win Mag is holding it's own, now out to 2280 yards, with 225gr Hornady ELD-M handloads. A 190gr Hornady A-Tip for the 7mm guns would embarass that load, at longer distances. How much longer? Don't know yet - still figuring the limits of the .300 Win Mag right now... 2280 ain't it - yet. Once I burn the barrel out of my .300 Win Mag, I'm turning it into a 7 PRC.

That sucks, but understandable, and thanks for finding that out, and crushing it. The link had been down for awhile, but I'd saved the data 6 years ago. Here's the data from it, and it's still in this thread, above...

I missed this whole topic due to not being here recently, but I'll give my initial $0.02 on home defense. You need to be proficient enough to shoot the center of a doorway, in a real home defense situation. Nobody but HULK himself comes through walls, anymore - all assailants have to come through a doorway, to get to you. No matter what you shoot - doesn't matter - if you can proficiently shoot into the space that encompasses the center of a doorway, proficiently, then you can defend yourself in your home. Last defense, you will defeat those that have to come through that doorway to get to you... You're asleep when this happens - the most important room in your house to practice this on - is your own bedroom... It'll be gross motor skills, at the point this happens - you won't accomplish any sophisticated weapons-manipulation dream, when you get up in the middle of the night, from something like this - you will resort to your lowest level of training, lizard-brain, just what you know and practiced. If you have no training, or haven't trained, you will fail. Caliber, gauge, distance... doesn't matter. I bet your bedroom door isn't more than 14 feet from your bed, and that would be in a GIANT house with a giant main bedroom...

This starts the clock...

Pretty freaky, isn't it Todd? I didn't know about this until this summer, when I had to do a deep dive into myself, to figure ME out. It hit me right away, and explains alot about my actions and reaction, my entire life, from teen to now... Wasn't easy to figure out, and wasn't fun to figure out, either. Painful process... It explains alot, though, and makes the future easier for me...

Good luck to you. Your M14s and M1As are not the same as AR gas guns with direct impingement operating systems. You might state "Neck tension" and things like that, but that's bolt gun theory, not gas gun theory. You've been lucky thus far - I hope you're still lucky in your future, with all your AR gas guns, and not crimping. Despite your 60 years of reloading. You haven't been reloading AR gas-gun-only for 60 years, I'm certain. That's just not your thing. To everyone else reading this - if you're handloading for AR gas guns, CRIMP your loads to avoid bullet setback, and pressure spikes when they DO setback because they didn't have a crimp on them. "Neck tension" isn't enough - that's bolt gun shiit.

I stick with 0.750" journals anytime I can, unless I MUST go up in journal size, just for a gas port that's needed. Increase journal diameter, decrease gas port diameter. I'll get more into it later...