JonF

Clays will load a lot of different pistol calibers but its not the cleanest of powders. Fast burning, soft shooting and Full burn. VV N320 is always a small caliber favorite. Very fast burning and VERY clean and VERY soft. Lots of people like tightgroup as well for those calibers, its also very versatile. Second selection powders would be W231, Unique and maybe Bullseye.

Rings alone on the AR platform are generally not enough and for 2 reasons. The first and foremost is offset; proper mounting of a traditional scope on an flat top AR upper receiver requires the scope to be mounted such that the rear ocular be about flush with teh charging handle. This means the scope body will hang over the front of the receiver beyond where the rail ends. There are one-piece, offset mounting from companies like American defence, Bobro, Larue, Burris, etc that combine a high mount, plus enough offset. The second issue is height. Ar's generally need to have the scope mounted high, not for clearance of the scope, but for the ergonomics of your own noggin (Call it nogginomics, lol). If the optic is mounted too low, you have to smash your face down really low and roll your head down to get your eye to line up--not very comfortable. As an alternative to a 1-piece mount, you can get a simple cantilever extended rail riser that mounts to your receiver, then use a traditional set of med-high rings depending on the riser height. here is the solution i use. Its a generic offset riser with a set of good Burris Signature Zee rings (i forget the height) with the self centering nylon insert. You can see how much the scope hangs over the front and why you need that extra rail length.

I have one and it runs great. Have you checked the basics like the ejector and extractor? The ejector is part of the left frame rail so if it were bent, the bolt might bind but if it were deformed or damaged in some other way, that could effect the ejection angle. How does the extractor look? Does it hold a shell tight to the bolt face if you slow motion pull the bolt back? if this thing is bent or deformed, it could be letting the shell drop off before it hits the ejector which will affect the ejection angle.

Like others have said, its the potential for bullet setback from repeated chamber *insertions* rather than *extractions* that you need to be concerned about. One way to effectively reduce this likelihood of this is when chambering a round, slowly ride the slide forward with your hand as it strips a new round from the magazine and feeds it into the chamber. Now, this goes against the normal prescribed practice of just slingshotting the slide to ensure positive feeding, but its fine if you just take care of making sure the slide goes fully forward into battery when guiding home it like this. Familiarity with your firearm will tell you if its fully forward and giving the rear of the slide a positive bump forward with the heel of your palm will help coax it that little bit if it hangs up any.

I've shot those ruger carbines before; Heavy and unbalanced would be the most polite way to describe them. A 9mm is so light in recoil, it certainly doesn't need that kind of weight to tame it. You can probably ditch the lame straight wrist stock for something different to improve the balance, but there's little you can do about that chunky receiver and 9mm blowback bolt. There's a myriad of options out there, mostly using glock mags, that are far superior.

So far i've broken stuff from the following companies: Hornady, Dillon, Lyman, RCBS, frankford arsenal and PACT and in every case a simple phone call resulted in a no-questions-asked, zero cost, immediate parts replacement being sent out. The reloading industry is generally good like that it seems.

When the time comes, you can always go to either the clinton or colliers mills state WMA range where its totally free and can practice to your hearts' content. Bring you shotgun and 22lr rifle and do some plinking there while you're at it.

What ^^he^^ said. I've never shot anything but 9mm and never had any problem sending them down. Not sure where you shoot, but if its OB, most of the steel is small plate racks which present no problem to 9mm. even the big poppers are uspsa style and calibrated to fall from 9mm minor loads (unless its broke).

I have them, but I've not tried the KCI loaded to capacity because i had other issues with them in general. I will say that any of my mags loaded to capacity are hard to seat in the gun since the AR platform needs to have the mag sitting higher to strip off and feed rounds than it would in the glock handgun itself. this higher seating plus a closed bolt just makes for difficult loading any way you slice it. However, in defence of the carbine, even seating 100% full mags in a glock pistol with the slide shut isn't a cakewalk--You have to slap them pretty hard in there too. I don't even bother with that on my G19.

Which mags are you using and are you loading them to capacity? I have a bunch of 10rd G17 mags that, if loaded to full capacity, are a total PITA to insert. Hell, even just loading the 10th round in the mag with a LULA is a ****, so slapping a full one in the gun is pretty much the same. Because of that, i tend to use 15-round G19 mags since i can load them to 10, or even 14, and they still go in the gun like butter compared to the G17 mags.

Steve, i too had a minor issue with premature lockback and found the issue to be not with the spring, rather, the little tab on the DDLES bolt catch sctuator sticking out too far and getting bumped but the mag body well before the follower would hit it. With the upper removed, check the clearance of your glock mags in the receiver to the bolt catch actuator tab. You'll notice that the actuator arm has some play in it and it can jiggle around slightly with the loose tolerances it has so if it can be jiggled by hand, it will definitely move around under recoil when shooting. With that said, to test this, you will need to artificially press the actuator towards the mag to its extreme end that the tolerance will allow and see if it can rub the mag body. If so, lightly file on the side of the tab where it rubs and take a few thousanths off until it clears ALL your mags. I went and did this and all my premature lockback issues totally went away. For the no lockback issue, provided its not your ammo or buffer system, it could be the actuator system again but this time it could be slipping off the little shelf on the mag follower thats supposed to activate it. In some cases, i found this happening to me and I found that by flipping the small spacer washer in the receiver that the actuator pivots on, i got the actuator inboard which puts the tab closer to the mag and then it would never slip off and my lockback activation became 100%. Its a great receiver and gun, but it does take a little bit of tweaking and then she'll run like a top.

Joe, i've got very nice P6 for sale here in the marketplace if you're interested. You're welcome to try it out if you like.

You're welcome, It was my pleasure to help out. I now have a full appreciation for the work that goes into doing the scoring and completely understand why it can get delayed on occasion.

Don, the only Greek HXP ammo currently available at the CMP is loose packed, de-linked, belt-fed machine gun ammo. As such, its pretty much guaranteed that a few rounds per 200rd can will be unusable due to physical damage (dented cases, bent cases, mangles bullets) from the delinking process. Additionally, the corrosion issue is quite real and varies from can to can. I've gotten cans where the ammo is all bright and shiny with no corrosion or tarnish to speak of. Other cans i've opened where every round is absolutely filthy and covered with oily, gritty grime and would need to wiped down before use and several rounds in the can are tarnished and unusable like that one you pictured above. Still, the price for HXP is the best bargain out there and all in all, its good ammo, but its not perfect and you'll have to accept an attrition rate of a few rounds per can. Thats the straight truth. I'm actually curious to try some of that prvi M1 ammo, but don't want to commit to an entire can if its not that much better than HXP. The brass will be a lot nicer i'm sure and just as reloadable as HXP without the crimped primer pockets. I'd be willing to go in halfsies with you on a case if you also want to try it out. Let me know.

Wojo, that lee measure has some really cool features, namely the micrometer adjust with the vmd chart system. That chart would definitely make for quick setup of the charge throw. Do you find it accurate? Its certainly cheap enough on midway so it's hard to go wrong there.

experimenting with the Hornady Lock N Load press is easy due to the quick change nature of the die system. although I did use the progressive press for priming, powder was dispensed using a trickler for precise metering and a single stage was used to seat the bullets.

Alec, i wish! I had to buy some fresh, expensive starline brass to experiment with this. All that surplus ammo brass is berdan primed and useless.

Just a little pistol caliber carbine AR15 upper.

Let's do a little experimenting. Take some 7.62x25mm tokarev cases, stuff them full of Alliant Blue Dot and cap them off with some Hornady .308 dia, 110 gr V-Max bullets and shoot them out of an AR15 chambered in 7.62 Tokarev. Piece of cake. I call it, 300 MUMBLE! Why Mumble you ask? Well, its pretty quiet and while its still supersonic, it doesn't make quite the racket that 223 does. Also, like a mumble, there is nothing really meaningful going on here (haters, this one is for you). LOL To start on this, we first need to study teh interior ballistics of this combination. The first step is to determine the max OAL the rifles' chamber could take with this bullet and then from there, run various numbers through QuickLOAD software to come up with a list of powders, pressures and capacities that we can work with. Pouring through the results, it looks like Blue Dot (traditionally a Magnum handgun powder) would give a good case fill for this bullets' seating depth, clean and efficient full burn in the 16" barrel and generate good velocities while keeping chamber pressure well under SAAMI max; plus its one i have on the shelf so Blue Dot it is! Let's load some up in some various powder charges from a good LOW starting point, all the way up to some near max loads. Now since this rifle is a direct impingement AR15, it has a fully supported chamber and is engineered to handle chamber pressures well in excess of the puny 35,000 PSI MAX SAAMI value for 7.62 Tok so loading them hot (but not exceeding) certainly won't stress the gun. It will possibly stress the brass through overpressure and overgassing/early unlocking if loaded too hot so its important to always keep this in mind when experimenting. Here's the finished product. Its a little longer than a normal 7.62 tokarev pistol round so it wont fit in a magazine designed for that. It does fit in a traditional AR15 mag, so stack a few in a PMag and lock and load! Ok, so how does it shoot? Not bad, Obama! I'm clocking velocities in the 1500-1600 FPS range from a 16" barrel and found some loads that group pretty good at 50 and 100 yards (all i had to work with at this local range). Here's a nice group at 50. And another one at 100 (ignore that flyer). All in all, a fun experiment. My best groups were actually with lighter charges which is good because the heavier ones were showing some signs of early unlocking while the case was still obturated. I'll be curious to try some out at longer ranges and also some heavier 150 or 168 grain loads.

Matt, what bullets are you using TAC with? Previously i thought it was only suitable for 55 grainers, but looking at ramshot's site, they have load data for heavies too. I like to load 69 gr SMK's for more precision shooting and from what you describe, a powder like tac would work great for my LnL.

Whose squad were you guys on? Since i don't know your names, we may have been squadded together since i wasn't with my normal group.

I tried running Varget through my LnL progressive powder measure in an effort to try to quickly whip up some semi match grade 223 ammo and all i got was a bunch of crushed case mouths and spilled powder. I love the accuracy i've been getting with Varget, but the stories are true, its a PITA to dispense. I even had to make a special reduced diameter nozzle for my auto charge since it would drop too many heavy ass kernels even when "trickling" and always overcharge. IMR 4064 was even worse; its like trying to meter vermicelli! LOL

The CMMG EVO BHO device is a separate part and actually attaches to your lower so the CMMG mag follower can activate it. There's no room in the upper for any extra dongles, only the bolt itself. When the mag is empty, the follower pushes up on the CMMG BHO "block", which then gets in the way of the bolt and holds it back. Then, when you remove your mag, the BHO block stays in place and your bolt is still kept locked back. It only works with the CMMG brand mags though, however, there's probably no difference in the bolt itself since the CMMG bolt is just another Ciener copy. The BHO could work with other similar Ciener copy bolts, but dont quote me on that. http://cmmginc.secure-mall.com/item/BHOA-Adapter-Assembly-1525

Many folks tend to compare thier reloads to bottom of the barrel sale price ammo for a price basis check, but the reality is that the ammo we tend to make ourselves is a higher quality than the dirt cheap WWB, UMC and the like. Consistency is better, reliability is better, accuracy is better, and if you choose the right components and powder, recoil is better. Realistically you'd have to compare the ammo we make to a much more expensive retail product, but if you simply want to get an absolute cost savings comparison to anything that will go boom, its a fair analysis i suppose. Quality, accuracy and consistency tends to be a forgotten factor when it comes to common pistol caliber ammo since we rarely put it to that kind of test.

BHO in an AR-22 isn't easy, but there are options. One option, like others mentioned, is the CMMG EVO system, but the activator can be "finicky" to tune. Another option is the bolt catch from AR Catch22.com and then use M&P 15-22 mags (plus his mag spacer) or the new black dog mags designed for the ARCatch22 catch. Unfortunately the new black dog mags are only available in 30 round variants right now so thats out in NJ. M&P mags are available in 10 round, 10/25 and 15/25 (from RRAges.com) and much more abundant and with his simple spacer pad, M&P mags fit an AR mag well snugly (M&P mags are undersize and need this spacer). Although i have an EVO bolt in my dedicated AR-22, i use the ARCatch22 and M&P mags and the system works. http://www.arcatch22.com/