Both!



(pic fixed)

 

Needs more public hosting That image is behind a login at THR

 

There I fixed it.

 

Sweet jesus!

 

Yikes!

 

History - My AR was shooting like **** so I bought different ammo. Still shot like **** so I decided to start reloading. Today was the first day at the range with hand loads. I shot 5 rounds of Tula, then my rounds @ 24 gr, then my rounds @ 25 gr, then finished with Wolf Gold. Results? The factory loads shot better than what my hand loads did. There were several people at the range and one of them said something like "That sucks, you should be doing much better than that.". I told him to go for it and gave him my rifle. He put it in a stand with sandbags and could hardly keep it on the paper with Tula. This guy has been shooting for decades and told me it was the worst AR he had ever shot. So, I'm agreeing with him and saying my rifle is indeed a piece of ****. He suggested cleaning the hell out of the barrel and swapping the scope out. I'll start cleaning on it tomorrow and see how it shoots a week from now. If that does not work I will either buy another barrel for it or buy another rifle.

 

Very glad you got somebody else to shoot it... almost relieved. My recommendation... strip it down to individual parts, including the lower and BCG, and rebuild it from the ground up. Do it right, torque everything to spec, and inspect every single part for defects. You never know what something stupid like putting a spring in backwards will do to accuracy. It can't hurt.

For those keeping track, I sold my 20" .308 barrel I bought from Numrich... traded a guy a set of Trijicon 3-dot night sights for my Glock (and $40 to my Paypal). Even money trade for sure. My new 16" barrel should be here tomorrow. In a few weeks, if Numrich is still selling the 20" TARGET barrels, I think I'll snag up one of those.

 

Same here. I've never seen an AR shoot as poorly as you have described and it not be due to the shooter or a serious mechanical defect.
Either something went very wrong during assembly or something is up with your scope, the mount, or both. Good luck figuring it out.
I wouldn't scrap the thing just yet though, especially if you like the setup.

 

Yup... great thought. What is described could easily be loose scope guts. I just bought a Bushnell 4.5-18x AR-Series from PSA during the mega-sale they were having over New Years... paid $90 shipped for it. These retailed for about a year in the $250 range but I think the AR community just hasn't warmed to the Bushnell brand name like they have Vortex... you can get them on Amazon for $199, might just be the best magnification for your buck even at that price. For what PSA was blowing them out for, I should have bought 3.

Rob, maybe you can call PSA and see if they had any of them returned for fitment or other minor issues and swing by in person. They were also blowing out the same Bushnell AR-series in a 3-9x and 1-4x scope for like $60. PSA might just have a few returns sitting on a shelf you could score.

I plan on using it for a rifle break-in scope and ammo testing. 18x has no problem seeing .22cal holes at 100yds. I digress...

 

I just called the Greenville store and talked to the Manager. He indicates they haven't had any of the Bushnell AR scopes returned in-store, and that open-box stuff isn't the norm for PSA, and that they send everything back to the main warehouse in Columbia for return to the vendor. I can't believe they would do that for a scope that a guy mounted once and didn't fit his particular build and went straight back into the plastic, but ynk.

I know there's always going to be wiggle room for an individual store manager to make a deal to a guy who just happens to walk in at the exact time a customer is returning something because it didn't fit on his gun and wasn't for a warranty claim.

You might give the Colombia store a call and see if they had any of those AR-series scopes returned that they could thrown on a truck down to the Greenville store. You never know. I'm kinda kicking myself for not buying at least one extra 4.5-18 and one of the 1-4's. I'd certainly throw down for an open-box in-store at the same price.

 

I took the upper off and started cleaning it today. The bore didn't look that bad but it probably needed a good cleaning anyway. For the hell of it, I pulled the flash hider off and found a ton of carbon buildup right on the muzzle. I'm guessing that this is either the cause of my problem or at the very least could not have been helping my accuracy. The stuff is REALLY on there and I am trying to figure out how to remove it. Fingernail doesn't do anything for it. I scraped a little off with the brass punch I used to pop the pins out but too scared to do much with that method. I might try to chemically remove it (carb cleaner?) but will probably wait for advice. Is this a common problem or was there a problem with the fitment of my flash hider not screwing all the way down.

 

Lack of safety glasses runed that image for me

 

I agree that the scope and or mounts sound suspect. I would try a cheap scope or even iron sights and see if it's more consistent.

As for cleaning the carbon, the brass punch should be fine, it's not as hard as the barrel, so unless you wail on it, you're unlikely to cause damage.

 

wait how old is the AR?

 

So good news. If you remember my big revolver up above, I finally found a place that will make ammo.


.500 Maximum with all new Win348 brass for $2.50, and .41GNR for $1.17 a round on my brass.

 

Sold the 20" barrel for my .308AR... new 16" arrived today. ****. It's even got double-dimples for the gas block from the factory.

 

No idea. I bought it out of the back of a pickup truck in an abandoned Sam's Club parking lot a couple of years ago. Might be a date on it somewhere. Honestly, I haven't used it much and didn't even know if it had a .223 or 5.56 barrel on it until yesterday (it is 5.56). I'll take a look at it today and see what it really is.

 

The lower will have somebody's roll mark on it, but the upper probably won't. Sometimes the stock will have a brand stamped in it, but if it's a Frankengun of mismatched parts, you never know. I'm feeling pretty confident that tearing it down and building it back up again is going to make a big difference in your accuracy. The barrel should have a caliber stamped on it... almost nobody makes a regular AR15 in .223, they're all 5.56. You can buy .223 barrels, but that's mostly for a varmint build or competition, pretty pointless in a 16" barrel.

Just bought my second ALG rail. I've got the 13" version on my 6.8 and it feels great. This 12" version is going on my HD build. I grabbed an unstamped PSA mid-length barrel for $80 and am gonna see how good it is. Lots of good reviews on the barrel, so if I can squeeze 1MOA from my 55gr handloads, it'll be a keeper.

Here's the rail I bought... $99 shipped with my military discount, and I've already got the rail sections from my 6.8 that won't get any accessories except a bipod.
12" Ergonomic Modular Rail M-LOK - Black

 

The barrel is marked DTI 1x7 CL 5.56 Nato. The receiver says PA-15 Multi LW 053490

I put the serial in there in case someone has their decoder ring and knows the date.

Delton Upper:
http://www.del-ton.com/AR_15_Barrel_...y_p/dt1028.htm

 

PA-15 is a Palmetto State Armory lower, and Del-Ton is mid-level player in the AR game. Looks like decent quality, so another plus for a tear-down. I bought a PA-15 lower about a year ago that is an 88xxx serial.