Mega Rad Gun Thread

Gonna try remanufactured .223 next time I go to the range. They better not be Bubba's pissin hot handloads made on an industrial scale.
Get ready for an under gassed gun, maybe some jams/crushed cases.
I got some Lax reman last winter and had issues until I put in a Brownells(now discontinued) lightweight BCG, now it cycles good until I'm out of that ammo. I'm running a PSA 10.5 upper with a Rise 140 trigger and standard spring/buffer btw.
Standard PMC 5.56 feels pretty bad in that gun unless I put the old BCG back in, so it's definitely the ammo.
The reman companies are cheap faggots and can't be bothered to give you a healthy serving of whatever cheap powder they already use.
Unless you're saving more than 2cpr buying reman, I'd just get the real deal if it means avoiding squibs or having to change your gun. I bought my Lax 9mm and .223 for 19 and 37cpr early last winter, but now all reman is about the same or more than decent stuff like PPU or Igman.

Match dudes tend to be running the weakest fucking ammo imaginable, like shooting a .22 magnum almost. That definitely contributes to really fast looking videos, whereas they would do worse with some Winchester, or even some M855A1. Pistols will vary, some have less "recoil" with "pissin hawt" 9mm due to porting or brakes or whatever, while cowboy fellas can probably knock their 45lc out of the air with a rock.
 
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So I was at wally world today and swung by the ammo counter got 40 rounds of 7mm rem mag fair price, I saw a round I didn't know, 360 buck hammer. Well... I'm a fucking child so I asked the employee about it who knew nothing and I kept saying "the 360 buckbreaker". Apparently, it's a 30-30 with a 9mm round but hot so it holds a flat shot.
They really don't pay those people enough to deal with people like me buying niche ammo and spouting memes.
 
I have discovered a company, Black Steel USA, that makes a series of relatively easy to install folding gas pedal style grip aid devices for a variety of popular handguns, there has been a continuing and in some regards accelerating trend of incorporating technology and features from the Competitive shooting world into the defensive handgun world the most prominent being the MRDS and to a lesser extent compensators and most recently thumb ledge or gas pedal style devices (Tactical Development, Icarus Precision, QVO Tactical all have either some form of offering)
I've had an idea for a design like this in my head for a bit now, its cool to see someone actually making it
the one thing I've always wondered is how durable the hinge would be in a folding design like this, I worry it would snap off over extended use
 
What exactly is the timeline for when public opinion on 5.56 began to change? I’ve been reading through that Soldier of Forture archive and they seem to take every opportunity to shit on it, and the same goes for 9mm (some retard unironically said he’d rather use .22). I’m around the part where the U.S. started replacing the 1911 and publishing ballistic studies on 9mm vs .45 and the coping and seething from the SoF boomers is off the charts.

As an aside, I found this interaction in the February 1980 issue:
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Some G*rman faggot (whose descendants are undoubtedly being raped by Arabs by now) whining about the magazine’s support of Rhodesia.
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SoF publishes it because the libtard doxed himself :story:
 
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Speaking of ammo, for some reason my dad thinks the AR I gave him needs more "break in" so for fathers day aside that huge cut of lamb, he got 500 of dr. basso's spicy hot loads..... no homo... He thinks he's ready for da boog.. or what ever boomers call it I assume it is like Red Dawn but more grey hair and they are commies no matter who.
Boomers still say TEOTWAWKI.

While we're on ammo, pass on DRT. Their rounds fly all over the place worse than winchester.
 
A while ago I asked if any of you knew how exactly it was that the anlgo was able to make a black powder muzzle loaded sniper rifle accurate to upwards of a kilometer in the 1860s and while people had a few ideas no one knew for sure.
I'm familiar with the time period and the sort of area that this all occurred in - it was probably "wrought" in the way that most metal in England was, at the time.

So - it was allegedly built by cutting six pieces of metal, then scraping them to shape, to make a smooth extruded trapezium. These were assembled into shape around a pair of hexagonal mounts and bound together with a cable or wire. The wire would be tied to the "rotating" mount, and then tightened.

Then, he would twist it so that the wire would tighten around the barrel, possibly while heating it. The twist would "weld" the six flat surfaces together, and provide the "rifling" - the wire would become more taut, as it would also wrap around the end, helping to spread the force. It's a type of weld, but it's not what you'd picture as precise welding - this was closer to roll bonding. So it wouldn't be as fragile as the usual welded pipe, since it was "pressed into shape" around itself. I don't think it would need a central piece, either - it might, but it wouldn't be entirely necessary.

I'm not sure when it was lathed to a smooth exterior, though. There isn't any "treads" on the outside, so it was definitely smoothed down afterwards.

Sorry about the lack of source - saw it written a bit on a forum, and checked the rest with what I know about historical ironmongery. For that time, and that place, "whacking something on a lathe with a big lever and bending it" was the predominant method for fitting pieces of metal together. It's like "roll bonding" mixed with "strangling" - shaped ingots, twisted together like a cable.
 
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public opinion on 5.56 began to change?
no clue about the general public, but after experiences with teams in vietnam and grenada and the improved M855 round for the gulf war, 5.56 started really getting some love from infantry in the 80's and early 90's. a lot (and i mean a lot) of analysis was given to conflicts in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Iran-Iraq, et c on infantry weapon performance with .30 caliber weapons of varying types. the US wasn't going to get rid of 5.56, but figuring out lessons learned and how infantry warfighting has changed was super huge.

even before then, it was valued for it's lightweight weapons that fired it, accuracy, and lethality rather than raw penetrating ability. doctrine was more flexible as well so you would have a couple of guys with in-country weapons to ensure there isn't as bad of a supply issue. long range precision fire was still a game for the adapted Model 70's with a 3/8 dovetail and adapted snooper scope, or dudes that decided that the M24 was the new hotness. the M21 was too finicky and lost accuracy too quickly in rough conditions, and the M14 itself was variously modified but was too heavy for light infantry work and fighting grew much closer together where the 5.56 had a lot of advantages in maneuvers. better and more reliable 30 round magazines really helped too.

about the remaining annoyances was how the M16A2's target sights were a little complex for a standard infantry rifle, and that the M4 kept a burst trigger which was annoying when you previous had an M2 with full-auto or an M16 with full-auto. your burst limiter was trying to not be a dumbass. when i was in Somalia pretty much the only bitching about the 5.56 left were complaints about ice-picking on skinny squirters hopped up on khat or whatever - it had very little "knock-down" power whereas the 9mm NATO (M882) was much better at it due to the increased mass. this was where you had a lot of ammunition experimentation happening and all kinds of weird stuff in the arms locker. i had a guy that was trying out a UMP for the 1st time and we had real good feelings about the .45, but it was far too difficult and punishing to use outside of a burst. running bespoke and heavy .45 SMGs like MAC-10's, UZI's, Swedish-K's and heavy 9mm ammo (iirc 147gr or something) was preferable, not to mention put people down in a hurry.

so i would say early 90's is when 5.56 lost a lot of its stigma, especially when the M4A1, CAR-15, and some others became the cool-guy gun of choice if you weren't using an MP5 with heavy ammo and the alternate locking piece.
 
@Club Sandwich very informative. I’d add that it is my understanding that around the time of the MidEast conflicts there were a lot less complaints about lethality (which some Vietnam boomers appear to be stuck up on) and most criticism levied towards 5.56 had to do with it’s performance at long range, which iirc is the reason why Turkey still uses a 7.62 G3 as they feel that cartridge is better for the type of terrain they have to deal with. What merit does that complaint have in your experience?
 
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What merit does that complaint have in your experience?
pretty reasonable imho. one of the major advantages of M855 over M193 was it's light barrier performance. it's why it was standardized for all 5.56 weapons and not just the SAW (as it was originally). in desert environments, at engagements out between mountains, wide plains or rocky deserts, distance is usually out to 600+ meters unless it's really really close like some road checkpoints and crossings, towns/villages, or if there's a defilade or something high up like a rocky ledge or across rolling scrub land. the .50 on your vic (or 240 or 60 et c) is your reach out and touch weapon, and for precision fire you used the lightweight and very accurate M16. if you weren't tagging helmets or foreheads then the actual benefit was minimal unfortunately, and even mud brick huts they had in villages would nerf the 5.56 heavily, requiring either much closer engagements or something heavier. the 7.62 had the punch to defeat that sort of cover, making it just concealment at that point.

in that environment or any environment where distance and concealment is working against you, if all you have is 5.56, you are better off closing that distance, relying on in-direct fire like 40mm or using something heavier. there was a joke that taking content meant calling air support even if it was something small. generally you would have loiter and guard duties for Kiowas or something on CAS or playing scout, and for convoys you had front and rear armed vehicles, often with an outrider, or a Kiowa to provide escort.

when properly supported, the 5.56 is pretty good, and it is also excellent for urbanized warfare, especially if you had something heavier and in-direct for assistance on corner cases, or could rely on maneuvers to provide base of fire and flanking. accuracy was never a question but lethality at long range was troublesome even without barriers, so spooky ammo like mk262 and your DM closed that gap. when optics became more readily available like an ACOG vs just red dots, then you had a really effective weapon system for all ranges and the gap for barrier penetration was the last thing left - worse if some guy was wearing fancy armor which we encountered sometimes. doubled up soviet vests and steel plates, et c. finding steel-core 7.62x39 was always a boon so in my experience doing door kicking if we found that we'd also tote an AKM to spray down any doors that we knew had people there, busting open locks and tossing a stun or mini grenade, et c.
 
Small thing for anyone like me buying up the BUL Cherokee Gen 1s and Gen2s (Mine is some weird proto model between the two, serials all match but its got some changes that don't show on either base floor model, shared between the two) that recently hit the market. Not sure about the newest ones, haven't handled it. But there are basically no kydex holsters for em. If you find one, it's a billion dollars and ships from turkey or Israel. But as luck would have me being sent the wrong kydex for my OG Jericho, any of the holsters that fit the new Jericho with the rail fit the BUL perfectly. The BUL is a bit fatter than the Jericho. All you gotta do is take the little rubber spacer inserts and screws completely out, heat the kydex a bit with a hair dryer to make it more pliable, then put the BUL in and reinsert the spacers and screws and let it cool around the BUL. Thanks to them being essentially the same gun, all the spaces for the controls and retaining pins/trigger guard fit exactly. Like it was made for it. I did have to cut about an inch off the front, but it's like a glove.
Go out there and buy those old reliables showing up on the market, I've come to really love and trust mine.
 
Gonna try remanufactured .223 next time I go to the range. They better not be Bubba's pissin hot handloads made on an industrial scale.
I've had good luck with Defender Ammo and Lakeshore reman stuff for 5.56. Those were decently consistent (checked with the Garmin Xero C1 Pro). I tried the LAX .223 reman round. They're okay. Much larger variances in basically everything, but nothing wildly out of spec or over pressure. Whatever you end up buying, make sure you're selecting the appropriate round for the chamber you have.
Is M855 as overhyped as everyone really says it is? I always found it interesting because the mild steel core means less lead per bullet.
Is it overhyped? Maybe 855A1, which operates as advertised. Green tip stuff, as Clubby covered above, can defeat some light barriers reliably. Some automotive body panels, drywall, some types of glass. That kind of thing. It's definitely not armor-piercing at standard pressure loads. I personally prefer M193. I get mixed reactions to that. Some guys swear by it, others think it's always been shit. I've never used it to kill anyone but I know lots of guys who did. It'll get the job done but one must remember appropriate context for its application(s).
 
I've had good luck with Defender Ammo and Lakeshore reman stuff for 5.56. Those were decently consistent (checked with the Garmin Xero C1 Pro). I tried the LAX .223 reman round. They're okay. Much larger variances in basically everything, but nothing wildly out of spec or over pressure. Whatever you end up buying, make sure you're selecting the appropriate round for the chamber you have.

Is it overhyped? Maybe 855A1, which operates as advertised. Green tip stuff, as Clubby covered above, can defeat some light barriers reliably. Some automotive body panels, drywall, some types of glass. That kind of thing. It's definitely not armor-piercing at standard pressure loads. I personally prefer M193. I get mixed reactions to that. Some guys swear by it, others think it's always been shit. I've never used it to kill anyone but I know lots of guys who did. It'll get the job done but one must remember appropriate context for its application(s).
Don't worry. I'm not retarded enough to try and run 5.56 ammo through a gun chambered in .223.

I guess M193 is proof that sometimes simplicity is better. Never seen M855a1 for sale as a lowly civilian so I would assume it's prohibitively expensive for the average AR owner.
 
Don't worry. I'm not retarded enough to try and run 5.56 ammo through a gun chambered in .223.

I guess M193 is proof that sometimes simplicity is better. Never seen M855a1 for sale as a lowly civilian so I would assume it's prohibitively expensive for the average AR owner.
It's prohibitively expensive for the Army. They play budget shell games to procure it. I think it might actually be worth it long term for them, reducing the costs of range cleanup with a leadless bullet, but still it's spendy.

I suspect cost as well as not wanting to put a decent performing vs. armor 5.56 round out there are the reasons people don't sell it. With a side of you'd probably see more kabooms with how it's loaded. And civvie ranges are generally concerned about spark fire risk and target/trap damage rather than future hazmat concerns so you can't use it there either. (If they should be concerned about the latter is a matter of debate...)

Paul had some close range tests of 193 vs 855 against several popular fuddlore improvised armors which I mostly only bring up for an uncharacteristically unequivocal reaction to 855's performance ("All I can say is... Damn!"), and to suggest that if your intended target is troon home invaders packing ceramic tile in a backpack, it's your round. But that's not a realistic target for.... almost anyone. Almost.

193 is nice. Good performance in general, Plays nice with most rifling you'll run into, which isn't always the case with other weights. Can use it at most any range, And does nicely against most wildlife you'll find in your house at 3AM.
 
It's prohibitively expensive for the Army. They play budget shell games to procure it. I think it might actually be worth it long term for them, reducing the costs of range cleanup with a leadless bullet, but still it's spendy.

I suspect cost as well as not wanting to put a decent performing vs. armor 5.56 round out there are the reasons people don't sell it. With a side of you'd probably see more kabooms with how it's loaded. And civvie ranges are generally concerned about spark fire risk and target/trap damage rather than future hazmat concerns so you can't use it there either. (If they should be concerned about the latter is a matter of debate...)

Paul had some close range tests of 193 vs 855 against several popular fuddlore improvised armors which I mostly only bring up for an uncharacteristically unequivocal reaction to 855's performance ("All I can say is... Damn!"), and to suggest that if your intended target is troon home invaders packing ceramic tile in a backpack, it's your round. But that's not a realistic target for.... almost anyone. Almost.

193 is nice. Good performance in general, Plays nice with most rifling you'll run into, which isn't always the case with other weights. Can use it at most any range, And does nicely against most wildlife you'll find in your house at 3AM.
You mean I don't need a tungsten penetrator to deal with the average simian home invaders? What a novel concept.
 
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