First Firing of 1st LR-308 Build

[Cliff R]

"As for the range screw up, most of my range time has been with handguns and iron sights. Never realized a new red dot sight could be that far off. A learning experience, indeed."

Getting in a little late to help as you've already adjusted your optic, but this may help others.

Once you have your weapon finished and optic or sights in place remove the upper from the lower.

Remove the bolt, carrier and charging handle.  Go outside and find something you can focus on apprx 25 yards away.  If you have to take a piece of cardboard and put a small circle the size of a fifty cent piece on it with a magic marker.  

Find a suitable rest for the upper.  Here I use the gas grill on my back porch and put a towel on it to support the upper.  I put my piece of cardboard with a black spot on it against the burn barrel which is apprx 21 steps away.  Hold the upper steady as you can and look thru the barrel and center the spot you've picked out on the cardboard exactly in the center of the barrel.  Like a peep sight your eye will naturally center things up.  Holding the upper as still as you can raise your head up and check your optic to see where it's at compared to where the barrel is aiming.  

Adjust if/was needed until your point of impact is about 3-4 inches below the line of sight/point of aim.  You want the point of impact to be lower than the line of sight because of the high distance optics are above the barrel on AR platforms.

It's a crude way to bore sight but can save you from missing a backstop, shooting up target backers at someone else's range, and many rounds wasted being clear off the paper and not knowing which way to move the optic.

I build all the AR's that our group takes out West Elk hunting and bore sight them in this manner before we head to the range.  Saves quite a bit of ammo as we only need one or two good hits a little below center at 25 yards before we move out to 100 yards to zero them and check accuracy.  We use a spotting scope at 100 yards to save trips down range and very quickly with a minimum number of rounds fired get our weapons zeroed and ready for hunting.........

[Harveyshot]

Sounds like a great way to check the sights.

I’ve taken a 3-8x scope from another rifle and put it on the 308. I’ll try that method before going to the range. From my minimal experience, a non-magnified red dot is pretty much useless at 100 yards unless your target is big.

[Cliff R]

Companies selling Red Dot sights advertise the minute of angle they cover and some are considerably larger than others from what I've seen, so not the best choice if you are trying to shoot a really tight group at 100 yards, for example.  They are more designed for quick acquisition (and typically closer range) than target shooting and some shooters like them better than holographic sights for that sort of work. 

Even with all that said don't underestimate how well some folks can shoot with a Red Dot type sight at long distances.  My brother has one on the AR-15 "pistol" in the pic below. and seldom misses a ground hog under 150 yards with it.  I can't remember which one he has at the moment or what MOA it covers at 100 yards.  I'm thinking its a Sig Sauer Romeo 2 MOA unit but not sure as I have BAD cases of CRS these days and even worse cases of DGS.......LOL

 

 

[Harveyshot]

Update on the bolt catch problem.

Finally got the Armalite AR-10A bolt catch from DSG Arms. First of all, the pin hole in the Armalite bc is slightly smaller than the holes in the other two bcs I have. Therefore the bottom edge of the Armalite hole is slightly higher than the lower’s pin hole bottom edge. I could not get the screw/pin to go through the bcs hole. So, out of non-destructive ideas, I got the Dremel out and ever so slightly lowered the groove in the lower just below where the plunger sits. It worked!

The Armalite bc moves and sits better than the previous bcs. It also catches a tad more of the mag’s follower. Range time will be the test but that will have to wait for now.

And kudos to Sadlak Industries. I lost the adjustment screw to their gas block and emailed them about a replacement. They immediately replied telling me not to fire the rifle with that screw missing and that they would send me one. According to them, it’s a hard to come by stainless steel set screw. I told them I would pay them if they would send me two. I probably should get a spare gas block for instances like waiting on the mail.

[Harveyshot]

Received the two adjustment screws from Sadlak with no bill. I'll be sending them $25 and hope that covers it.

[Harveyshot]

Final Update

Installed the Armalite AR-10A bolt catch, lubed everything excessively and went to the range. The first 20 or so rounds loaded and ejected without fail but the bolt wouldn't hold open after the last round. It was a choice of bc (3rd one) still not catching or not enough pressure to push the bcg back far enough to be caught. I opened the gas block a little more and lo and behold, it locked open! After that the rifle performed flawlessly (me, not so much). Happy camper.

A big thanks to all that helped.

[unforgiven]

Another satisfied customer 🍻🍻

[Armed Eye Doc]

2 hours ago, Harveyshot said:

Final Update

Installed the Armalite AR-10A bolt catch, lubed everything excessively and went to the range. The first 20 or so rounds loaded and ejected without fail but the bolt wouldn't hold open after the last round. It was a choice of bc (3rd one) still not catching or not enough pressure to push the bcg back far enough to be caught. I opened the gas block a little more and lo and behold, it locked open! After that the rifle performed flawlessly (me, not so much). Happy camper.

A big thanks to all that helped.

It's great to hear of the success!  Don't be a stranger just because you have a functioning rifle.  This is a great hangout to shoot the sh!t and have some relaxing fun.