re: Official AR-15 thread

#facts

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“A form 4”?

Singular?

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No kidding. I bought my first suppressor on June 4th. I picked up a can that would be my 9mm can that could also run .300BLK subsonic. The plan was to shoot the can at the range through my pistols while waiting on the stamp to arrive and have plenty of time to build a rifle over those months. Ultimately, there would be a second can that lived permanently on the rifle, but that would come at a later time.

The next week, I stumbled on an integrally suppressed barrel that I'd been wanting to buy for 6 months, but never could find one. I literally called gunshops all over the country and nobody had one. The manufacturer didn't know when they'd make more. This thing was a ghost and all of a sudden, there it was. In stock. IN METAIRIE! It just happened to be the back side of a BOGO deal and one of the cans on the front side of the BOGO was a can that I was considering as the long-term can to permanently live on the shorty setup. Of course, I was still just considering a shorty at that point and didn't actually HAVE a shorty.

And that's how I went from owning no NFA items on June 3rd to owning 4 by July 16th.

I'll probably pick up another here in the next month or so. The 5.56 looks like it's getting jealous of the .300BLK.

PSA got me again- 14.7 CHF Barreled upper pinned and welded. Like I needed another
But the bright side is I have everything to complete building a rifle Except a Vltor charging handle.

Asking for "the experts' opinions", so please help-
(and please let's not bash the brand!)

My second Radical Firearms AR has come in, outside of the furniture they are identical.
16" barrel, 1:7 twist, mid-length gas system.

The first rifle will shoot everything I've found, no problems. Ran some IMI through it the day it came in, ran some Tula through it.

The 2nd rifle-
I brought some Silver Bear in just to check, to see if it would be fine. This was straight from shipping, since the other gun ran a box (IMI) in similar shipped condition.

Single shot, no stripping and chambering of the next round.

I then took it home, cleaned it pretty thoroughly, lubed it up good with Ballistol.

100% with IMI. 100% with Tula. Still 0% full cycle with Silver Bear. Will hand-cycle, will fire and eject. Short-strokes, does not pick up the next rd from any of my magazines. No jam or stovepipe, just fires and leaves an empty chamber.

Checked vs my other rifle, that ammo from those mags, 100% function on the other.

Guy at the range, said he went to armorer's school, looked at it some, said he "thought" it looked okay. He was looking at the underside of the barrel, I guess the gas block.

Ammo:
IMI M193, .556, brass, 55gr fmj.
Tula 55gr fmj, steel polycoat.

Silver Bear, 62gr JHP, nickel-plated steel case.

Brief check online says to check gas block, check buffer.
I didn't do the 1-shot test to see if it would lock back the mag; but it DID with the other two brands.

Point me at some things, and is this just something that might be normal?

Local gun shop ran out of 556 had to settle for Russian steel 223...... I hope Adam Schiff doesn’t find out I bought commie bullets.

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I'm happy the IMI is 100%, seems like everything I've read the Silver Bear should be 'better' than the Tula. Ideally I'd get it running on everything, but if we have to stay with good stuff. oh well..

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IMI is typically a little hot compared to a lot of ammo so your problem makes sense, but if it doesn’t loosen up and shoot eastern bloc stuff after ~500 - 1000 rounds I’d look at pulling the gas block and checking the gas port size. There’s no reason a decent AR shouldn’t cycle Silver Bear. They’re not AKs but they shouldn’t be that finicky.

I grew up with guns but haven’t shopped or bought one since I got a cheap SKS almost 30 years ago. I’ve been looking at ARs and I’m considering a purchase. I noticed that half or more of the rifles I’m seeing do not have iron sights. I like the look of iron sights but the lack of them on many new model ARs makes me wonder if optics are the way to go? Is it unusual to have both?

Educate me, please.

Thanks for the response - very helpful.

It’s like when I got back into bass fishing a few years ago. The only line choice you used to have to make was Stren or Trilene? I figured that out and I’ll be up to speed on this soon, too.

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I like the look of iron sights but the lack of them on many new model ARs makes me wonder if optics are the way to go? Is it unusual to have both?

Educate me, please.

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I run both optics and sights. I use quick disconnect mounts on the optics and flip up backup iron sights. If the optics are rendered unusable, I can easily get them out of the way and flip up the irons.

I probably won't ever own an AR platform rifle with fixed sights instead of rails unless I get rich and can afford an older one with a giggle switch.