Posted on 09/23/2009 6:19:16 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!
I'm participating only from the comfort of my computer. And I get to decline participating in the state sales tax, again.
These M4 projects are a big temptation for me, because I usually have ~$200 worth of spare parts in the bin, ready to use on another one. This one also involves new technology, in addition to the gas piston system. PWS has a next-generation buffer tube out there, with several purported advantages. Either $150 for CNC-machined from aluminum stock, or $60 for extruded aluminum. $60 is a bit pricey, but a definite winner for a one-off build.
I wish I could get Discovery Channel to pay me just 10% of what those guys at Red Jacket get. But no-drama precision doesn't attract audiences. So far, I've spent two hours going through my stash of parts, selecting the ones I want, and making a list of small stuff still to be bought.
I can't build optics, so I'll just have to lie in wait for a good sale item to wander by before I pounce.
Haven’t heard of anybody getting pepper-sprayed at Cabella’s...yet.
Just got back from NC...kittehs are happy to see me.
I think they sell more bear spray at Cabella's. The 2% OC legal in Michigan (possession of anything stronger is a felony) is only enough to piss off your assailant. Or get you "cuts" in the checkout line. :)
No, I expect not. An armed society is a polite society.
Yep, I bet the kittehs are glad to see you. Their human returns. Let’s get some mices.
That sales tax on top of shipping is sometimes hard to take. It only takes one store in a state to trigger the sales tax. Glad that Brownells stays put and doesn’t open ‘branch’ stores. I’ve noticed some pretty good sales on scopes now although they seem to cost darn near what the rifle does these days.
Rains tapered off, time to walk the pups. BBL
I need to get one of those timed feeders for teh kittehs. They (by the looks of it, mostly Nikki) ate almost 7 pounds of dry kibble.
I need to get teh Kitteh family and the Hoomin family together.
I probably mentioned that we've had Annie on a diet for more than a year and we've endured her squalling "I'm hungry" the whole time. Well, we took her to the vet for her shots and she had only lost 4 pounds. The vet suggested we cut her food back to 4 oz./day from 6 oz./day. Needless to say, that's not happening.
What makes it worse is that he told us he had been to a seminar and researchers have proven that when cats cry that they are hungry, they are. Thanks for the info, doc. /s
LSA
She’s just big-boned! :)
Mr. Nikki is being the perfect lap cat every time I sit down...so I’m blaming him for not getting anything done today.
On the left are holes from Speer 125gr .357Sig ammo, and my birthday present, a set of Peltor Tactical XP electronic ear muffs. And what a welcome gift, since the .357Sig round has a ferocious muzzle blast to go with its mild-mannered shooting qualities.
The target on the right is made by Fiocchi 100gr super-hot frangible rounds. The lighter bullet recoils a bit less, and groups a lot better. I bought the last 350 rounds from Midway USA on a hugh closeout.
Thanks to some reading suggested by Squantos, I learned that .40S&W is best for "heavy and slow" bullets, while .357Sig works best as "light and fast". The .357 round operates at 40,000psi, which is about 5000psi over .40 working pressure. That means it can drive impossibly light bullets at speeds that still make them vey effective.
For most .357" diameter bullets, 125gr is a practical minimum weight in both revolvers and semi-autos for reliability. That same 125gr bullet is considered a "heavy" in .357Sig. Defensive ammo in the 90-100gr range is no big deal, except for the price. I keep my eyes open for sales, since this caliber is not found in most Wally Worlds.
As far as the grouping goes, that is still subject to change, because I now have a set of tritium sights on the Glock, but have not yet been back to the range. I also have a few replacement parts coming in to help with a better trigger pull, and recoil control. But at least most of my shots are not thrown down and to the left, a sign of flinching.
While making these photos, I discovered that there is a second, undocumented magazine follower for Glock .357 magazines. Glock has two or three different magazine followers in most calibers, the result of engineering changes or product improvements. But there is only one listed in all of the literature I've seen so far. Between the two mags that came with the weapon, and two more I bought later, I just noticed today that two each of followers marked "1" and "2".
It started today when I noticed there was something different in the way two magazines looked.
I had already used all four magazines without trouble, so I never compared one to another. Everything worked fine, despite the difference. In this picture, "1" is on the left, and "2" is on the right.
The "wall" on #2 extends all the way to the front of the follower, perhaps to continue guiding the round the last bit of the way. Also, the small flat that trips the slide latch, in the bottom right corner of both, sits higher in the empty #2 magazine, perhaps to provide more positive activation.
The markings are identical on the magazine bodies, just ".357". I just ordered some 15-round magazines, and filler sleeves, and will check their followers, too. Plus I bought the two types of .40 followers at $3 each to study them.
Sig saved their customers a lot of confusion by marking their double-stack magazines ".40/.357", because everything is identical on them. Of course, Sig sells conversion barrels, so customers are probably aware that both use the same magazine, which was the original intent for developing the .357Sig, anyway.
Glock never did that, so they apparently have identical magazines with different markings so not to confuse our poor little heads. And differences in magazine followers that aren't readily explained to the end user. But since I have an aftermarket .40S&W barrel already on order, I'm betting everything is identical, despite the markings. I'll be mixing and matching parts to test my theory.
Now if Glock would just provide full disclosure on the meaning of the different followers, I'd be happy to upgrade my older ones at $3 a pop. This should be low-hanging fruit for Glock, or a Glock guru, but I have yet to see documentation on the "2" follower for the .357.
And in the spirit of Christmas shopping, here's a handy stocking stuffer I came across. It's a Gerber Optiva LED with its own pocket-reel belt clip.
This is a handy little light, and works equally well on belts and MOLLE gear. While it has a list price of $13, you can find it on Amazon for $5. More of my stocking-stuffer shopping finished early.
Sweet !
Cuttin turkey is a good cause as well !!
Well done 300....that knife project is great !
Stay safe !
The piece of rail on the right is a new widget from GG&G. It lets you install the rail on a GI handguard without going through the agony of removing the handguard first. Three toggles lock the rail into place with a screwdriver.
The most significant item is the PWS one-piece extruded buffer tube. It does away with the castle nut and instead uses three hex setscrews to apply pressure to the endplate, and lock up the buffer tube tight against the lower receiver. As an added advantage, it has an extended "lip" to prevent the bolt carrier from tilting, something that is supposed to be a common occurrence with piston guns.
Now that I think about it, that may make some sense. Despite the scorn heaped on the M16 gas-impingement system, the hot gas is piped directly into the bolt carrier, with all mechanical forces acting on the centerline of the bore. A piston weapon has a piston, rod, rings, and springs above the bore centerline. If everything is built right, the mechanism is perfectly parallel with the bore, but there is still an unbalanced force pushing back from above, thus making the rear of the carrier tend to "dive". Maybe Gene Stoner had some good ideas, including cutting back on the mass of moving parts.
This is as far as I've gotten. I'm still waiting for the upper receiver, which is the whole reason for the project in the first place. With luck, it will be here some time this week.
Despite my searching, I couldn't find every last pin and spring, so I bought $21 worth of parts from Brownells. Meanwhile, I'll be tuning the trigger parts, and scoping out a new scope. I also ordered another PWS buffer tube. I'll put it on one of my current M4s, which have known accuracy, and see if this new type of tube can increase accuracy. I was impressed with the solid feel of everything as I put it together, so it's worth my while to test this tube on another rifle.
Overall, this buffer tube looks like one of those ideas that should have been adopted 40 years ago. It's easier to install, seems more solid, and has other neat features. It is, however, considerably more expensive than the dirt-cheap generic parts out there. I hope it's worth the extra cost. Only testing will tell.
THANKS for posting this info buddy. I ALWAYS learn something from you! :-)
Thanks. There are so many knowledgeable folks here, you make a tough audience. But I learn stuff here, too, for which I'm grateful.
The Adams Arms gas piston upper arrived a couple of days ago, so the first thing I did was to take it apart to see what made it tick.
Compared to the previous project, the M4E2(economy), it has a mid-length handguard which covers the operating rod, but otherwise the same 16.1 inch barrel. At first I thought it was a medium-heavy barrel, but when I took the handguards off, I found the only real (and minor) disappointment of the whole project.
The bolt head is identical to the original AR15 concept, except there are no gas vent holes, no piston rings used, and a slight spring on the tail of the bolt to keep everything in a forward position. The bolt carrier has several differences, including redesigned glide pads, and a noticeable rounding of the bottom rear, to assist in getting the upper receiver closed despite the spring pressure that tends to push the entire assembly to the rear. This may also be the source of the "bolt tilt" mentioned by some sources.
After spending most of today getting the trigger pull down from 20 pounds to 11, it finally dawned on me that one of the trigger components might be the culprit. I put in another hammer and spring, and the trigger pull immediately dropped to a bit over seven pounds, with plenty of potential for Nanolube to continue to work its magic. I looked at the old hammer, and it seemed a much cruder forging than the new one. I had just grabbed parts from my stash, but that old one went into the trash. Trigger work can now continue as normal.
Here's the rifle so far. I'm still waiting on a titanium firing pin, rear iron sight, scope, and other minor items like sling and swivels. But at least I have enough to begin testing.
The handguards are not identical between top and bottom, and seem a bit flimsy. I can probably adapt a Midwest Industries cantilever-type quad rail handguard, but I'm not ready to make that investment, yet. The other piece of New Technology is the GG&G "install from the outside" rail on the bottom half.
I wasn't ready to take them at their word, so I removed the handguards just to see how the mechanism works. It's vey ingenious, but due to the variations in quality and design of handguards, you might achieve better results by removing it. Here's what things look like from the inside.
No heat shield in the top half, but there's no hot gas tube up there, either. The heat shield in the bottom is a bit flimsy, and the rail's toggle clamps scrunched things up a bit and pulled the heat shield out of its slots when everything was tightened enough. Your mileage may vary due to the type of handguard you have.
Overall, I'm impressed with the concept, and have a second piece of rail I'll try on the "glacier guard" handguards on the M4E2.
That's the project status as of now. If I don't find the time to fire it this week, next week for sure. I want to compare it to the accuracy of the M4E2, and then I'll put a PWS buffer tube on it, and test it again. That way I'll be able to tell if the increased rigidity adds anything to accuracy. In one sense, I hope it doesn't make much difference, one way or another. Otherwise, if it provides a significant improvement, I'll have to replace the buffer tube on all my AR15s.
Good Morning Win-Mag - as always an exemplary ‘gun-pron TM’ session. Trigger pull of 20 lbs - yikes. Glad you were able to reduce it into the acceptable range. Looking forward to the upcoming range session report. We bet your parts bin is exceeded only by Brownells.
My range time now is mostly indoors. Shooting the Ruger .22 at 20 yards is good practice for the upcoming spring shooting session at the old outside range. Keeping them in the black on the shoot-n-see targets, simply cannot see the hits at 25 yards but I can at 20 so that’s where the target hangs. Not there yet but as the old quip goes, practice and then practice some more. Goal is to get acceptable scores on the 50 yard targets in the spring. Hope springs eternal.
Good Morning Win-Mag - as always an exemplary ‘gun-pron TM’ session. Trigger pull of 20 lbs - yikes. Glad you were able to reduce it into the acceptable range. Looking forward to the upcoming range session report. We bet your parts bin is exceeded only by Brownells.
My range time now is mostly indoors. Shooting the Ruger .22 at 20 yards is good practice for the upcoming spring shooting session at the old outside range. Keeping them in the black on the shoot-n-see targets, simply cannot see the hits at 25 yards but I can at 20 so that’s where the target hangs. Not there yet but as the old quip goes, practice and then practice some more. Goal is to get acceptable scores on the 50 yard targets in the spring. Hope springs eternal.
Good Morning Win-Mag - as always an exemplary ‘gun-pron TM’ session. Trigger pull of 20 lbs - yikes. Glad you were able to reduce it into the acceptable range. Looking forward to the upcoming range session report. We bet your parts bin is exceeded only by Brownells.
My range time now is mostly indoors. Shooting the Ruger .22 at 20 yards is good practice for the upcoming spring shooting session at the old outside range. Keeping them in the black on the shoot-n-see targets, simply cannot see the hits at 25 yards but I can at 20 so that’s where the target hangs. Not there yet but as the old quip goes, practice and then practice some more. Goal is to get acceptable scores on the 50 yard targets in the spring. Hope springs eternal.
Good Morning Win-Mag - as always an exemplary ‘gun-pron TM’ session. Trigger pull of 20 lbs - yikes. Glad you were able to reduce it into the acceptable range. Looking forward to the upcoming range session report. We bet your parts bin is exceeded only by Brownells.
My range time now is mostly indoors. Shooting the Ruger .22 at 20 yards is good practice for the upcoming spring shooting session at the old outside range. Keeping them in the black on the shoot-n-see targets, simply cannot see the hits at 25 yards but I can at 20 so that’s where the target hangs. Not there yet but as the old quip goes, practice and then practice some more. Goal is to get acceptable scores on the 50 yard targets in the spring. Hope springs eternal.
I think I spent more time going through my parts than actually assembling the rifle. One bonus was I found about a dozen of those tiny horseshoe clips that are used to keep the ejection port cover hinge on the upper. I lost five or six before I got the last engraved cover back on. Now I can try to think of something cute to put on the inside of this cover.
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