[El Rojo]

Great news boys and girls. My RRA lower parts kit and other misc parts arrived last night. My Natchez order with a bunch of bullets, punches, and other fun stuff arrives this afternoon sometime, and I go sign for the FAB-10 tonight at 1800 hours. So this evening, using the instructions I found on the Internet, I will be building my first AR-15 (FAB-10) lower and putting it all together. :D

I will post pictures later tonight. I am so excited I even got an upset stomach and had to call in sick. Actually I did go to the dentist today and didn't think I was going to make it back to work in time, so I just took 8 sick hours instead. Plus someone has to be here when the UPS guy arrives!

You will hear more from me tonight.

[Dave P]

This is a 308? Sounds cool!

[El Rojo]

No. It is .223. Here is their website.

http://www.gogogadgets.net/

[Redlg155]

Congrats!

Just make sure that you assemble her away from carpet. Those little takedown detent pins are a booger to find if you ever lose one. If you lose one it will be during the assembly of the front takedown pin.

Also make sure you use some electrical tape to mask the are when you put in your bolt release pin.

Good Shooting
Red

[azthistletoe]

That's F'ed up that you have to do that. Congrats, though! Get what you can!

[MLC]

Too bad redleg155 wasn't around when I built my first AR.
Excellent advice.

[El Rojo]

I am still waiting to go pick it up! I was already forwarned about the pins flying everywhere. I have everything on my reloading desk in the garage ready to go. I printed out a picture of the lower parts and have that on the desk and seem to have all of the parts properly identified. My punches are ready, just have to wait for my FFL to call and say, "Come on up!"

I will probably take pictures of the moment with the new digital camera and post them for everyone to see.

Here is the link to the AR Lower instructions (http://www.brianlane.com/ar15.php) I found. They seem to be really good. Just scroll down a bit and he has a link to the old AR-15 website where I guess they used to be.

Time is going so slow!

[El Rojo]

Well it arrived and it probably didn't take me more than an hour to put it all together. The nice (or not nice) thing about the FAB-10 is I didn't have to mess with the bolt catch or the mag release. So it went really quickly. I had it all together in no time. I have a cheap Simmons .22 mag scope that I put on just to check my cheek weld. I though I could get away with using Millet High rings, but I found out I should have ordered the Millet AR-15 Extra high rings. I have plenty of scope clearence, but my cheekweld is not right. I have to scrunch my head down too much.

Other than that, it went well. I will probably see if I can get the gunsmith to work on the trigger this week and have it back by the next Sunday so I can take it out to the range for my test loads. I did that last night too. I loaded up 50 test loads of Hornady 50 and 55 gr. V-Max using various amounts of Win 748. Now I gotta call my local gun shop and see if they might be willing to do a trade for those higher rings.

Here are your pictures.

http://home.bak.rr.com/elrojo14/pictures/fab10a.JPG
http://home.bak.rr.com/elrojo14/pictures/fab10b.JPG
http://home.bak.rr.com/elrojo14/pictures/bench2.JPG
http://home.bak.rr.com/elrojo14/pictures/lowerparts.jpg
http://home.bak.rr.com/elrojo14/pictures/fab10c.JPG
http://home.bak.rr.com/elrojo14/pictures/fab10d.JPG
http://home.bak.rr.com/elrojo14/pictures/fab10e.JPG
http://home.bak.rr.com/elrojo14/pictures/fab10f.JPG

[Redlg155]

Looks good. Too bad you can't change mags.

Still, it would have been nice to have a bolt hold open just to let you know you are dry instead of dropping the hammer on an empty chamber. I kinda like the large "S" and "F". It's got that HK look to it.

Did they sleeve the rear takedown pin hole with steel or titanium? You would think it would get some wear after repeated openings after some time.

Good Shooting
Red

[VictorLouis]

Does it lock open on the last round?

Do they use any sort of oversized rear push-pin to make it easier to break-open for reloading?

Can you 'dump' the mag from below as with many bolt-guns?

Inquiring minds want to know!:D

[BrokenPaw]

Do they use any sort of oversized rear push-pin to make it easier to break-open for reloading? VictorLouis: Note in El Rojo's bottom-most pic, there is a ring in the takedown pin, presumably so you can pull it out without having to have weensy little fingers.

-BP

[El Rojo]

I don't think there is anything special in the rear take down area. I did get the optional quick pin for an extra 15 bucks. They sell it on their website for like $25, but my dealer got it at his cost. They machined it like a regular pin so it has the detent slot and they just put a bigger head on it and ran a ring through it. I also rounded off the rear pin a little bit because it was a pain to get the rear pin to go back in. Now it does it rather smoothly.

The mag is permantly attached to the gun. If he had any sort of "detachable" magazine, then it would be an assault weapon.

There really is no point in having a bolt catch because you cannot open the gun with the bolt back (as you already know). Yeah it would be nice to know that you are out, but then you would just end up closing the bolt anyway and then taking it down to reload. I will just count rounds while shooting squirrels or the "click" should suffice.

Oh yeah, the price ended up being a little more for me when it was all said and done. The lower was only $219, but when you add shipping, my dealers 10%, tax, and fees it ended up being like $300! Yeah, that was sort of a bummer, but oh well. I can't wait to shoot it.

Yeah the HK "S" and "F" are sort of cool. The serial number is sort of cool too. 000449. Not a whole lot of them out there. I think they are even thinking about giving out custom serial numbers too.

[roscoe]

How long does it take to reload, would you say?

[El Rojo]

I haven't tried it at length yet. With the stripper clips, not too long. I also was noticing when you get ten rounds into that thing, I couldn't get the bolt to open. There might be so much force going up from the mag that the bolt won't push that round down on its way back. So I might have to just put 9 rounds in the stripper. This is most certainly not a tactical gun. I will be using it mainly for squirrels. If I want tactical I will use the M1A or M1 Garand or M1 Carbine or Remington 870P or maybe even the SKS.

[Black Snowman]

It's so wrong you have to go through that crap just for an AR-15 I can't even begin to express it. :banghead:

It does look cool though. I love building stuff so I envy your little project. Carry on.

[El Rojo]

My gun dealer brought up a good point. I bet the entire FAB-10 concept pisses them off. They try and try to ban things and we always find a way around it. Now yeah, this way around it is not as good as simply renaming the gun or changing a "cosmetic" feature. Still, try as they may, I still have the parts to an AR-15. Even better, I also have an evil flash suppressor on it and if I wanted I could put the deadly collapsable stock on as well.

Got off the phone with the gunsmith. It goes in for its trigger job Saturday and I should have it back by the end of the week so I can take it to the range the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I also called the local gun shop and they ordered me some extra high Millet rings. They will trade them in for my high rings I got from Natchez plus whatever the difference is. Very nice.

We should have a range report in about a week and a half.

[uglygun]

This weekend is supposed to be fairly nice weather, bit like today I bet.

Whatcha doin Friday? Workin?

I gotta get some range time, got like 100 rounds of 300WinMag. Got a bunch of not even once fired brass I want to get one firing through so that I can neck size them as once fired brass. Have 3 different loads I'm gonna toy with and try out on the range while looking for a decent bullet/powder.


Got the AR pig all excited to go bust some squirrels too.

[Skunkabilly]

Pics! Pics! Pics!!!

[Black Snowman]

Thank you for joining in the wonderful world of civil disobediance, a fine tradition in California and you're actually doing it for a good cause ;)

Pop off a few in honor of fighting the good fight :cool: