Palmetto State Armory AR 10 platform

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Sorry to hear of your woes... I also tinkered with mine.

I choose the ... I am going to fix it route, rather then sending mine in... but I like to tinker.

The buffer tube sounds like an easy fix.

Mine bound up as well for a few rounds, when brand new... after the bolt lugs wore in.. 10ish rds .. it works perfect.
What did you do to fix the extractor ? I am curious if you had some of the double O rings

Grinding the bottom tab shorter on some of the PSA Bolt releases solves that problem.

And frankly... every .308 AR I have fired has been overgassed... I'm not sure what makes them all drill such large gas ports... I mean the .308 puts out "about" twice the volume of gas then a AR15... the garden hose v. fire hose thing... same pressure , just a lot more volume.
 
ih772 said:
.
  • When I chambered a round the first time it got stuck so bad I had to mortar the thing to get the round out. This turned out to be an issue with the extractor. Google extractor issues on the PA-10 and you'll find what I'm talking about. Design issue.
  • My bolt catch wouldn't pivot in either direction unless I applied quite a bit of finger pressure to it. It was very stiff and binding on the roll pin. Then it still wouldn't hold the bolt back 9 times out of 10. The problem was there was only about 1/64" of the bolt catch actually blocking the bolt. The slightest bump would allow the bolt to slam forward. I solved those two problems by grinding the back side of the bolt catch a little bit so it could pivot more before bottoming out on the receiver. And I slightly enlarged the roll pin hole so that it was no longer binding on the roll pin. QC issue.
  • Over gassed! Mine was so over gassed it was constantly jamming. There are you tube videos showing the same thing happening to other people as well. I put on an adjustable gas block and that took care of that particular issue. Design issue.
It cost me an additional $250 in parts and tools to get it to run.
Click to expand...

I don't doubt that you had these issues, but what in the world did you spend $250 on to fix them? If you bought an armorer's wrench to deal with the receiver extension, that's $20-$30, and you should have one anyway if you own a few ARs. A high end adjustable gas block is $80-$90, and is needed on most any .308 AR if you plan to run suppressed. Grinding & drilling the bolt catch should have been zero cost unless you didn't own a grinder and drill (I can't imagine any man not having those two basic household tools).

Problems are frustrating, but really, you didn't have to spend anything with PSA's warranty. I had an extractor issue with my first gen, and they replaced the whole BCG at no cost, even paid shipping to them. I'm sure they'd have also taken care of an over-gassed issue, but as I mentioned, mine were fine unsuppressed, and they really need an adjustable GB to go back and forth, because they generally won't run unsuppressed when turned down for the suppressed use (depends on the can). That said, I also understand preferring to spend a little money and/or time rather than deal with shipping and wait times. It's a choice we have to make.

As an aside, PSA isn't the only make to sometimes have tight or rough chambers causing difficult extraction. I have a BCM 12.5" that'll rip the rim off certain brands of brass (fired or unfired), and a buddy of mine had a Wilson barrel that would get stuck cases until he polished the chamber a little. My first PA-10 also was real tight when new, had to do your "mortaring" to extract unfired cases until I got a few boxes through it. It ran fine from the word go, though, and everything loosened up a little after that "break in" to where extraction of unfired rounds was normal.
 
I doubt I’d buy anything from PSA because every time I go to their website it looks like they’re out of stock on 75% of the items they carry under their own brand. Either stock it or take it off the website.
 
I went out to the range yesterday, and was able to observe 2 different guys with ar 10 .308 rifles.

The first one was a guy who had his ar 10 for some time, and it seemed to be doing just fine. His was a Sig Sauer 716 G2. His brass was landing at 3 o'clock position in the very next stall.

The second fellow was a younger guy, his rifle just came out of the box new, and it was from Aero Precision. This was his very first time to take it out shooting. It seemed to function fine right out of the box, however I did notice it appeared to be quiet severely over gassed.

He was shooting at position 2, and I was stationed down at 6, so that is 4 stalls down from him. The brass from him was landing all the way down at station 8, at the back edge of the concrete apron.

So there seems to be some truth to what I have been hearing.
 
I managed to catch some of the brass coming from the new AR 10 the younger guy was testing, there is a dimple on the case neck of one of them (center bottom in photo attached) 2018-03-04 18.08.30.jpg
 
So today is the day :)

All parts are present and accounted for, build is going on today....
I ended up with a PSA complete 20" upper, stainless barrel, 1:10 twist with lightweight midwest industries rail
classic lower parts kit
PA10 upgrade kit
Magpul MOE SL carbine stock
PA10 buffer tube
PA10 buffer
PA10 buffer spring
POF 3.5 lb straight shoe drop in single stage trigger

Will see how the build goes and report back later
 
I bought a new Gen 2 upper and lower separately from PSA over a month ago and have been extremely happy with the rifle. Mine is the 20" stainless upper with rifle length gas and a rifle length buffer tube. I added a Magpul PRS Gen 3 stock and Precision Armament M41 brake so far with a Timney 308 AR 4# trigger on the way.

The rifle shoots under an inch at 100 yards with Federal Premium Sierra Matchking ammo, and under 1.25" at 100 with mil-surp XM80 after break-in. 460 rounds so far without a single problem, until I shot a box of Hornady Black ammo. Hornady brass must be softer than Federal because the rim of the case was nearly getting ripped off during extraction while the Federal ammo doesn't have a mark on the spent brass.

My particular gun is a little overgassed. I have an Armalite AR10 recoil spring on the way. Hopefully that'll slow the action just enough to let the case shrink back down before extraction. I may need a heavier buffer too (mine came with a carbine length buffer). After that, I plan on installing a SLR Sentry adjustable gas block which I think will really fine tune the action. Between the gas block and brake the recoil should be very minimal.

Here's a picture of mine. Right now it has a borrowed Nikon 3-9x40 until my new Bushnell SMRS 1-6.5x24 arrives. The Timney should be here soon as well. All In all, I recommend the gen 2 PA10 if you'e looking to do a fairly cheap build. It doesn't take much time or money to get one running perfectly, if you get one that has gas/action problems. Screenshot_20180325-160808001.jpg Screenshot_20180331-170646.jpg
 
It is fully built now, learned a lot along the way....

1. the current PA10 upgrade kits seem to be exactly correct and work fine. Safety works great, takedown pins work well and fit well, bolt latch works properly with no adjustments needed.
2. shell extractor on bolt carrier group was locked up tight as a drum out of the box. I had to take it all apart and get cosmoline out, and free up the O rings, as they were jammed so tight they were stuck in the upright position and would not move at all. After freeing them up and putting silicone grease on them and the spring, it now works very well.
3. the dust cover spring had an extremely long end which was sticking up 1/2 inch from the edge of the ejection port of the reciever, which was causing deflection of the spent casings when ejected. I had to grind the spring end down flush to stop that.
4. The receiver extension had a lot of burrs and stuff sticking up on the back side of the lugs which the bolt locks into, causing it to have difficulty achieving full lock up. This caused me a lot of frustration, and I had to get in there with a tiny file to get rid of the burs so it would lock up properly every time. This took a lot of time, as I didn't want to mess anything up while doing it. with some perseverance I was able to get them out without causing any damage to the extension and locking lugs.
5. There was cosmoline everywhere, I had to use kerosene to soften it up and get all of it out.

After all that, it now passes all function checks perfectly short of live fire, which will happen in the next few weeks hopefully. I have some supplies to make up ammo for it, but there are some issues with my brass supply I need to sort out. I will most likely pick up a box or 2 of factory ammunition for the initial break in, and move on to reloads after that. Pics to come.
 
I haven't test fired it yet, so not sure about the gas level just yet. But I can see from the poor finishing work they did building the upper, how people could mistake several fit issues for gas issues, the workmanship of the upper was not up to snuff in my book. When you buy a built upper, you aren't expecting to have to do everything over again. Their QC standards leave a lot to be desired on this particular product, or the guy building them was having a really terrible day.

That being said, I sort of knew what I was getting into with an ar-10 build at this price point.
 
ar-newbie said:
finished rifle.View attachment 783823
Click to expand...

You have pretty much the exact same setup I do. Keep an eye on the receiver extension threads, my BCG has been slamming into the back of the receiver, not super hard but enough to cause damage after 460 rounds. The buffer is also pretty beat up for it's round count.

It was suggested to me to buy the Armalite EA1095 spring to match the tube and buffer better than what PSA sent with my lower. I also ordered a JP Enterprises clamp on adj gas block this morning and won't fire it until I get the block on. It seems PSA still hasn't gotten the gas and/or timing down yet.

Here are a few pics of the damage Resized_20180330_104357_4697.jpeg Resized_20180330_111620_8742.jpeg Screenshot_20180330-111803.jpg
 
thanks for the update on your build and issues with buffer, spring , etc...

This is exactly what I need to watch for, and if needed will change in the regular ar15 carbine buffer to see if it makes a difference.
 
dubya450 said:
You have pretty much the exact same setup I do. Keep an eye on the receiver extension threads, my BCG has been slamming into the back of the receiver, not super hard but enough to cause damage after 460 rounds. The buffer is also pretty beat up for it's round count.

It was suggested to me to buy the Armalite EA1095 spring to match the tube and buffer better than what PSA sent with my lower. I also ordered a JP Enterprises clamp on adj gas block this morning and won't fire it until I get the block on. It seems PSA still hasn't gotten the gas and/or timing down yet.

Here are a few pics of the damageView attachment 784003 View attachment 784004 View attachment 784005
Click to expand...

This will be interesting for sure, over on another forum where PSA has direct support participation, I have a PM exchange with a PSA representative, who confirmed my parts list. which was

PA10 buffer tube
PA10 buffer
PA10 buffer spring

so that's exactly what I ordered, and he stated he had a personal PA10 with these parts and it ran fine.

So, should be interesting to see the outcome.

I was questioning what buffer to use, considering the description on the PA10 short buffer is so confusing, and under PA10 parts, they don't have a standard PA10 buffer listed at all.
 
ar-newbie said:
This will be interesting for sure, over on another forum where PSA has direct support participation, I have a PM exchange with a PSA representative, who confirmed my parts list. which was

PA10 buffer tube
PA10 buffer
PA10 buffer spring

so that's exactly what I ordered, and he stated he had a personal PA10 with these parts and it ran fine.

So, should be interesting to see the outcome.

I was questioning what buffer to use, considering the description on the PA10 short buffer is so confusing, and under PA10 parts, they don't have a standard PA10 buffer listed at all.
Click to expand...

Have you been on 308AR.com? Lots of good info there under the PSA section. My buffer that came with the complete lower is a standard length carbine buffer but it's heavier than my spare 3oz (not sure how heavy since I dont have a scale).

I have the adjustable gas block on the way for mine but I can't get the dang Precision Armament M41 muzzle brake off, even with a propane torch . Manufacturer recommended using Loctite 272, which I did, but the thing is welded on. My PA10 is out of service until I can get the brake off and gas block on...
 
Are the parts available to build an 18 or 18.5" 6.5 Cm, weighing in at 7.75 complete, unloaded??
If so I may like it as much as my M&P10.
 
I'd opt for an increase in buffer mass over a stiffer spring for an overgassed gun. The BCG only moves a very small distance before unlocking and the change in spring force over such a small distance really isn't that much. The spring will slow the bolt faster later in the travel, but a heavier buffer works to reduce the initial bolt velocity and delay unlocking by just having more mass to accelerate.
 
Caliper_Mi said:
I'd opt for an increase in buffer mass over a stiffer spring for an overgassed gun. The BCG only moves a very small distance before unlocking and the change in spring force over such a small distance really isn't that much. The spring will slow the bolt faster later in the travel, but a heavier buffer works to reduce the initial bolt velocity and delay unlocking by just having more mass to accelerate.
Click to expand...

I actually went the whole "9yds" on mine... Adj. GB, 9.3oz .308 rifle length buffer, and a Tubbs .308 Flatwire.
It works great... completely calmed down the overgassed cyclic speed.

https://www.ar15.com/forums/industr...terion-barrel-results-10-Sept-17-/301-284190/
 
It's been about a month since I was able to get it out and test fire it for the first time. Since then, I was waiting on my new scope, which I will be installing this weekend, and Sunday plan to run quite a bit of ammo through it , getting it sighted in, and shooting groups at 100 and 200 yards.

I have about 300 rounds of hand loaded 7.62x51 nato I am itching to try out :) Time to find out if it is sub MOA or not..........

I used 168 grain Hornady boat tail hollow points, lake city brass, 44.5 grains of CFE 223 powder and CCI large rifle primers. All 300 rounds pass the Hornady precision rifle case gauge and headspace correctly.

Should be a fun day
 
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