Putzing Around With ARs

That pretty much sums up yesterday. I have to get some guns ready for filming next week for AMERICA'S RIFLE. I picked up the lower I wanted to use on Wednesday, along with a "partial" parts kit. Emphasis on "partial." No big, as I had another lower parts kit just in case of stuff like this. No, let me rephrase that….another "partial" parts kit. I have a "beater" AR polymer lower from a project that never worked out the way I wanted, so I cribbed the rest of the parts I needed from that guy.

It's a Wilson lower with a Timney trigger, Hogue grip and A1 rifle buffer tube set-up. Right now I've got a Magpul PRS stock on it, but I plan to replace it with an ACE ARFX. Once I get past this filming, I plan to use this lower for a dedicated .458 SOCOM hunting gun.

That is, I hope so. I'm still having feed problems with the Wilson SOCOM upper, and, yes, that's with a couple of different brands of factory ammo.  The round starts to nose up into the chamber, then jams. I got the same response from Lancer mags, which Bill Wilson recommended to me, and several metal AR mags. First thing this morning I'm going to break to bolt down and give it a good cleaning (which seemed to show some promise yesterday afternoon). Of that doesn't work, I've seem some minor magazine mods aimed at the same problem on the Internet…hi yo Dremel!

The .458 has a Burris AR-1x optic with it's "dot in a donut" reticle that I like so much. I've always liked the idea of 45-70 performance in a lightweight AR platform. I've read how brutal the recoil is off the .458, but that has not been my experience. Yes, it recoils more than a .223, but no more than you might expect from, say, a 45-70 Ruger #1 with midrange factory ammo.

The other upper I'll be using with that lower is a JP Rifles .204 Ruger. I mounted a Burris 3-9x 50mm scope on my favorite P.E.P.R. mount, then stuck it on the Wilson lower. Can you spell "laser beam?" I'm shooting Hornady Superformance Varmint 32-grainers at a smoking 4225 fps. Shot great; no magazine/buffer-spring issues; shots like a .22 LR.

I've still got to re-sight-in my long range AR, a DoubleStar "Midnight Dragon", since I changed out to the Lucid 6-24x. Going to try to hammer it out with  box of Black Hills 69-gr Match this afternoon, where the temperature is expected to reach the boiling point of water...