Finally got my AR together

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Black Snowman

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Years in the making, I can finally post this thread. I have an AR finally. Being me it's a weird bastardized AR but at least the lower and upper will fit standard lowers and uppers.

A little background. It's a Cav Arms Mk II lower I got in a trade with an Armalite parts kit I installed myself. The upper is an Oly Arms K8Mag in .243 WSSM with a 24" Stainless Ultra Match barrel. The scope is a spare 3-12x40 BSA I had that it will wear until such time as I determine it needs better and have the spare cash.

Just got it about an hour ago, can't wait to try her out.

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K8MmodifiedMagazine.jpg
 
Nice rifle, looks like it'll be a tackdriver. I know how you feel, I just put my first one together two days ago, a 20" A2 Colt Match HBAR on a Stag/RRA lower. It's a great feeling of accomplishment. Looking forward to the range report.
 
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AR-15s are great because you can make a gun that probably nobody but you will have. I doubt that there is another AR-15 exactly like the one in your pic. With all the features and extra add ons, there are probably millions of variations on the AR-15 theme. Once you start getting into custom AR-15s, there is no end to how many different AR-15s you can build.

I remember when I "built" my first AR-15. I bought a compleat lower and a compleat upper half and put them together. :eek: After that, I started to do more and more myself until now I can build them myself from the parts bags so to speak. I can put bbls on and install all the parts for the lower and uppers. Nothing to brag about but until you do it for the first time, it is a little intimidating.
 
Well, I can now advise NOT to use A-Zoom snap caps in these uppers. It jammed the bolt up and I had to beat the carrier back with a hammer and a crow bar to get it back out.

It's weird, the snap caps and live rounds drop in the chamber fine. The bolt feeds, closes, and extracts on the live rounds fine, but the A-Zoom won't even let the bolt turn once it's engauged.

Anyway, when I get to the range I'll let you know how she shoots. Hopefully no worse for wear . . .
 
That looks pretty cool. Not that I'm an expert, but I wasn't even aware that you could buy an AR upper in anything but .223 or .308 (not including the .50 cal versions). How many rounds does one of those mags hold?
 
How many rounds does one of those mags hold?
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The factory mag holds 7 rounds. I can cram 18 into a 30 round 223 magazine but they have to be modified to fit and need to be steel so the lips don't deflect without the support at the rear. I'm getting some cheap ones from Midway to experiment with modifying. Some day I'd like to try it on a FA lower just for grins :D

Looks like the scope is mounted a bit low, standard rings aren't usually high enough for an AR, has this caused you any problems?
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Haven't gotten a chance to shoot it yet but I haven't run into any just handling it. I like to keep the cross hairs as close to the bore access as possible and I like the low sleek look as a bonus. It's going to be primarily a paper puncher and hopefully one day do some varmint shooting. Eventually I'll get another lower for it and get an Oly Arms K10 10mm pistol caliber upper for the Cav Arms lower with a Sten mag adapter.
 
Adventures in making my own mags.

Orlites plastic mags flex too much. After modfications it automaticly unloaded 10 rounds after I loaded the 12th. That was a bit of a suprise. A bit like a jack in the box but without any music.

So, modified a 20 round aluminum USA magazine to see if it would work. Thin thin metal. Cheap POS. I figure this will let me know if it's worth sacrificing a good aluminum mag for the experiments. Well. It did work. Fits, feeds, and holds the bolt open on all 8 rounds that fit when I manually cycled it. Didn't notice any deflection in the lips under tension.

Next experiment, converting a 30 round mag. I just need to get some.

Here's what has to be done:

Raise the mag catch cut about 1.5 mm.
Cut clearance on the rear of the mag for the bolt and carrier to pass through.

On some mags you may have to cut at the front to allow clearance. I didn't have to do this with the USA mag but did have to modify the Orlite some, but that's a moot point as it won't hold a full mag worth of ammo without self destructing.

Now if I can just make the time to go out and SHOOT it.

And a correction: I can cram 13-14 in a 30 rounder.
 
I was wondering about mags, are they all custom made by the end user or are they available commercially? This puppy should really be able to reach out compared to a .223 fed AR-15. The more I look at those CavArms lowers the more I like'em
 
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