No more Bushmaster .308s?

[Number 6]

Anyone seen this or know anything about this yet?

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=121&t=253695

 

[idakfan]

This may be the answer...

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=118&t=253862

Hesse, ASA, and Bushmaster all tried to do this, and all failed. FAL mags feed to the center, as the FAL design dictates. An AR twist-bolt design has a locking lug at 6 o'clock, and FAL mags are so narrow that they can't feed ammo around this lug with any kind of reliability. Hesse & ASA had massive feeding problems as a result. Bushmaster tried deleting the 6 o'clock lug, and exactly as I had predicted several years earlier (when people were trying to find a solution for the ASA & Hesse rifles), they had bolt breakage problems as a result. Bushmaster is withdrawing their .308 AR.

Given this, the choice is between the original waffle AR10 mag design (which KAC and DPMS use) and the modified M14 mag, which Armalite uses. Of course, the choice seems to have been made already. Note that Armalite sells new-production modern AR10 mags for pretty cheap these days.

-Troy

 

[TIMC]

Don't know anything about it but I sure am happy with mine. Too bad if it's true, one fine rifle IMHO. It's hard to find a consistant shooting 1 MOA .308 rifle in semi. I don't know about any of the problems they were talking about. I have one and a buddy has one as well. We have a couple thousand rounds through them with no problems. They did come with a warning on assymbly after cleaning maybe a few people were putting them back together wrong.

 

[Dionysusigma]

The design flaw, then, is that it's an AR?












Heck, I could've told you that.

 

[Coronach]

I'm aware that you're mostly-kidding, but, just to be humorless:

This would seem to be a by-product of co-opting the AR design to work with a round that is nowhere close to 5.56 NATO specs and to work with a pre-existing magazine that is designed to feed those rounds into a non AR receiver with a non AR bolt.

Frankly, I'd be startled if that could be made to work reliably, even with the re-engineering caused by the different dimensions and pressures of the cartridge.

But yeah, the short (and funny) version of that is that the design is an AR.

Mike

 

[TIMC]

Frankly, I'd be startled if that could be made to work reliably, even with the re-engineering caused by the different dimensions and pressures of the cartridge.
Mike

Mine is very reliable! Head shots at 100 plus yrds.
Picture is worth a thousand words.....

 

[Harry Tuttle]

with the end of the AWB they can now sell a rifle that uses a modded magazine that no longer works in the original parent rifle. The Fal mag was a kludge, maybe they are going to come out with a new lower.

 

[demusn1979]

I'm aware that you're mostly-kidding, but, just to be humorless:

This would seem to be a by-product of co-opting the AR design to work with a round that is nowhere close to 5.56 NATO specs and to work with a pre-existing magazine that is designed to feed those rounds into a non AR receiver with a non AR bolt.

Frankly, I'd be startled if that could be made to work reliably, even with the re-engineering caused by the different dimensions and pressures of the cartridge.

But yeah, the short (and funny) version of that is that the design is an AR.

Mike

the first ar design was a .308.

 

[possum]

darn it I was thinking about picking one up!:banghead:

 

[artherd]

Eugene Stoner designed the AR in .308.

Then upon request he SHRUNK it to .223 (and of course 30 years of refinement has since happened)

I'm aware that you're mostly-kidding, but, just to be humorless:

This would seem to be a by-product of co-opting the AR design to work with a round that is nowhere close to 5.56 NATO specs and to work with a pre-existing magazine that is designed to feed those rounds into a non AR receiver with a non AR bolt.

Frankly, I'd be startled if that could be made to work reliably, even with the re-engineering caused by the different dimensions and pressures of the cartridge.

But yeah, the short (and funny) version of that is that the design is an AR.

Mike

 

[callgood]

I drove down to a shop last Saturday which had a Bushmaster .308. It was gone and the guy said he had sent it back- the fit and finish were poor. He offered no other information.

 

[Coronach]

Well, he didn't design it to go with FAL mags, which was the point I was trying to make, albeit badly.

Query: are the .308 ARs closer to the original AR-10 design, or more like scaled up AR-15s? IOW, are they derivatives of the original, or are they two iterations off?

Mike

 

[greg531mi]

Maybe they are going to use AR-10 mags.....

 

[demusn1979]

this is where it started in the late 50s.

 

[willeo6709]

I have one that runs well. The statement made by Troy at ARFcom was made even before the rifle came out and anyone saw one. It is hardly an astute observation based on a test firing session. I would rather believe that with DPMS entering the market at about the same time at a much lower MSRP that is came down to sales volume and that the Bushy name did not carry enough people to spend the extra bucks.