coosbaycreep
Member
I bought a Colt AR a few hours ago, and had some questions about it.
The dude I got it from advertised it as being "new", but told me he has had it since the Clinton AWB, and that he's only put 5 rounds through it. It also has an aftermarket trigger (J&L?), and some hokey looking aftermarket muzzle brake thingie on it, so I don't believe that the guy only shot it 5 times in over a decade, but regardless, it does appear to be used very little.
I paid $895 for it, and it came with 5 mags, a cheap soft case, and has some cheap norinco scope on it. I know colts are usually fairly expensive, but was that a decent price?
My AR is a heavy barrel model. On the receiver it says MATCH TARGET, MATCH HBAR, .223. On the barrel it says 5.56 nato/HBAR though, so what ammo is best to use in it? I shot up two boxes of 55grain UMC fmj, and it didn't have no problems. Does it matter if I shoot 5.56 or .223?
I can't say much about the accuracy, since I was close enough to throw the gun and hit what I was aiming at, but this thing has a sweeter trigger than every other gun I own, with the exception of maybe my S&W 29.
I'm an incredibly lousy shot, and am generally happy to get within a foot of whatever I'm shooting at. I've always been more of an AK kinda dude anyway, but have kinda been wanting an AR for awhile anyway, if for no reason other than to bring back all those awful memories of basic training. When I originally started looking for an AR, I was mainly interested in a base model with a normal barrel, since even a crappy AR is going to be more accurate than I am. I rarely ever shoot anything other than water jugs, pop cans, and other garbage that people leave at the places I shoot, and I pretty much don't shoot over 50 yards. So having said all that, would I be better off getting rid of the HBAR and looking for a normal AR? Is there any difference in reliability between match models and normal ones? How much more accurate is an HBAR over a regular one? What kind of accuracy could I expect with my gun with the aftermarket trigger in it, assuming someone other than me was shooting it? Other than the better accuracy (if it is more accurate), is there any other reasons to have an HBAR over a standard AR, because the excessive weight of my AR seems to completely defeat the purpose of having a gun that shoots such little bullets.
The serial number is PMH00175*. Can anyone tell me when my gun was made?
If the dude I got the gun from gave me an accurate date on when he bought it, is there any difference in quality from the colts being made in the early to mid-90s compared to the ones being made now?
I had an M16A2 in the army, and even though I was stateside shooting at mosquitoes in Louisiana the whole time, and not in actual combat where reliability was much more important, I was pretty impressed with how reliable my gun was with all the sand and crap that I managed to get into it. How much of a difference in reliability is there between a civilian colt AR and a military M16?
Does the aftermarket trigger affect reliability at all?
From the numerous AR threads on THR, I know a lot of people with colts claim them to be the best AR made, but for every colt fan, there seems to be at least two colt haters who say that bushmaster/dpms/etc is just as good, if not better. So who's right? Is colt as good as everyone says?
What's up with my magazines (see pic)? It came with one 30 rounder, and the rest are 20 or less. A few say colt on the bottom, and he told me the little funky looking one is for hunting or something. I don't care about hunting anything that requires low capacity, and would just assume have as many rounds on tap as possible to improve my odds of hitting whatever it is that I'm shooting at. I would assume the mags with colt stamped on them are the ones that came with the gun? Are these mags fairly reliable/desirable? If not, is there enough interest in these lower capacity mags that I could trade them off for 30 round mags?
I think dpms makes the best looking ARs by a long shot, mainly because they have the gnarly looking handguards. If I keep this gun, I probably won't alter it because it looks just like the one I had in the army (other than the fat barrel), and because it would be a stupid thing to do financially, but would it be possible to put dpms handguards on my gun?
Most of my other guns are low-end gutter trash. I realize that even a colt still isn't as coveted as an HK, but can I still get away with looking down my nose on non-colt owners now? Because I've always wanted to be a gun snob.
thanks
P.S. I'm sure most of my questions have probably already been answered a thousand times in the last few days alone, but there's so many AR threads that searching for them is basically a lost cause.
