Dusty44

While the rifle and thread of "Plunging In" was going on, the thought of a faster-twist barrel became an interest in a new project. The idea developed in May, finding parts began in June. Initially there was difficulty finding critical parts. Then all needed parts rapidly vanished from online catalogs and listings. In late June I found an upper receiver at TacticalInc.com, a vendor previously unknown to me. It is very nice with "T" markings on top of the rail. It was assembled, complete. Saved some finding of small parts and making things go together. A free-float tube from Brownells was easy (DPMS 12 inch slotted), along with a list of other small parts. Likewise, a laundry-list of bits & pieces from MidwayUSA. It was a matter of who had what. Nobody had everything in stock. Critical parts were even more difficult to locate or had completely vanished. In August the barrel I wanted appeared one day in the middle of the day. I had checked the Rainier site in the morning-- nothing. Again. In mid-afternoon I was just bored and poking around aimlessly when there the barrel was! Rainier - White Oak Armament 1 - 7; stainless; mid-length & medium profile; 18 inch. Filed the order, had the barrel in hand in a couple of days. Along the way I discovered that Washguy lives a dozen blocks away. He was a major help in keeping the project going. He has the specialty tools to assemble the parts and did that along with the technical familiarity that made it all easy. Thank you, Washguy. I had bought a M-16 BCG from Palmetto State Arsenal in June but then I came across all the hate & discontent about these BCG's and stripped it for the parts; put the carrier in deep lost storage. I did find, download, print -- advertising copy from several vendors who insist that there is no problem with the M-16 carrier. I have letters alleged to be from BATFE and Department of Justice saying there is not a problem with the M-16 BCG's. I read the quoted wording of the NFA and the comment from someone in Illinois about the actions of the regional BATFE Office there. I talked to a business owner at a gun show who said only Colt has a letter allowing them to put M-16 BCG's in their rifles. I will quietly not use an M-16 carrier. In the time frame around the Labor Day weekend, plus or minus a week, another time of aimless poking at web sites, Joe Bob Outfitters suddenly had my scope! Vortex Viper, 6.5-20x44 MM, 30 MM tube. My first 30 Mil tube. And there was a gun show at Allen, TX. On the second day of the show I found a bolt carrier with a good asking price. Add a quick trip to Cabela's to buy a set of Warne steel QD scope mounts, it was done. Color in the pics below is not good. The rifles are black. Click on the pics to enlarge them.

Cabela's in Allen, TX has a lot of those reactive targets on display. I can only wonder where the buyers shoot with them? When I had a farm where I was allowed to shoot, I had a big gulley that I fixed up into a 70 yard (maximum) range. The gully walls made a protected alley and backstop. The cows could be chased out and the little range was safe for people and animals. Otherwise, on the pasture, it was miles of flat with roads and houses and livestock out there scattered so safe shooting would be impossible. I recently made a trip to the East Coast and will forever be envious of all that natural oversized backstop berm (I do not remember the term or name the locals have for those natural bullet-stop formations). Anyway, the little orange targets in all the shapes are quite expensive. The soda-can goblins are intended in part to be a dirt-cheap alternative. I once observed a husband & wife playing pistol-team at my area public range. They each had a 9 MM semi-auto pistol with hi-cap mag; they were shooting a foam fast-food drinking cup that was on the ground. They dropped it on the ground at about the 3 yard line of the range where there is a blank space in the shooting lanes and alternated shots between them. It appeared they never missed, kept the rapid cadence steady, and chased the cup beyond the 25 yard line. They were both having great fun and doing excellent shooting. The rules on the new posted signs say that kind of shooting is now forbidden.

OK. The grandchildren are back in school. I am still regrouping from Summer. I have time on my hands, at least briefly. Here is one result of looking for something to do on a day when it is too hot & humid for comfortable shooting and there is too short a length of time to go to the range anyway. In a forum somewhere, maybe this one, maybe not, the question was asked about targets for a private shooting range or shooting area. Here is an answer for those who are sufficiently bored. Targets for a place where individualized targets are practical. What about - - - ?? In IE or Google Images. I called up "Gremlins." Squirrels and groundhogs might work if you prefer. Or whatever. Collect some images in a suitable folder. Print them to an appropriate size. Cut them out, tape them to a water bottle or soda can. Done. Ready. Take them to the shooting place and have fun!! Whether or not there is a notice, the artwork should be treated as copyrighted. Copyright does not affect personal, private use. Don't even think about selling any of this unless the artwork is your own or you paid for it and have a solid contract in writing. A simpler way might be the little bottle topped with a 'canned meat' can, shown in the pics at the bottom. Tape around the top can and a tape collar to keep the tape strips tight to the neck of the bottle. In more detail: My examples were printed on a 1/2 page; turned the paper over so the second image would print on the other half. I used 3-hole notebook paper because that is what is currently loaded in my printer. Printer paper might be better or it might be the same except for the binder holes? Heavier paper that works well is "Bristol Board." An office supply should have this stuff. Slightly stiffer and heavier paper; I load printer paper in the bottom of the printer and it makes a U-turn for printing. I load Bristol Board in the rear vertical paper holder because it feeds with only a 90 degree turn. Should work well in your printer regardless of the path the feeder uses. Cut out the images. I see no reason to get too involved; arms and legs might be cut free just enough to not wrap behind the support 'system.' This was done with the examples in the pics. Support devices can be very expensive and time consuming. To get my empty soda cans I had to raise several children who eventually married and provided me with some grandchildren who then pressed me to buy soda in cans. These grandchildren then managed to create empty soda cans so I could do this project. There may be other ways to acquire empty soda cans? Package sealing tape works very well in a lot of ways. Small strips attach the cut-out images to empty soda cans, empty water bottles, backing cardboard cut from the empty boxes your gun parts arrived in, cereal box cardboard. The targets are very light. Some dirt in the cans or bottles might be good. Kool-Ade is cheap; do not mix in the sugar; maybe thin the mix with more water than the basic directions to get colored (reds and blue, maybe more) water (?) to give bottles or soda cans weight? (Would love to see some pics of small containers hit by 22LR and 223 Rem; long-lens close-ups of the fluid spray. Stills or short videos?) Rules for shooting Gremlins/gnomes/other small mythical (magical) creatures: Shots only count if it is a solid hit in the head or main upper body. Reasonable distances: 15 - 75 yards for 22LR; 50 - 150 yds for 223 Rem or larger CF cartridges. Want some real challenge? Try maybe making some dragons. Package sealing or duct tape as needed. Soda can or foam drink (fast food) cup body; soda straw neck sticking out about 1/2 the length of the body; cereal box cardboard head- a tube of the cardboard or whatever just big enough to wrap around the last joint of your thumb; tail of soda straw long enough to balance the thing; wings of simple design to suit your taste supported by more soda straws (straw pushed through a hole in each side of the body, just barely on one side, extends on the other side to support the wing. One straw for each wing); hang it with a short length of string from front to back of the body (6 inch body, 12-18 inches of string?) and a second long string to a tree branch (?) or other strings high above (?). This system is similar to a kite, easier to get the balance point. Do this on a day with gusty light wind so the moving target is unpredictable but will hold together. You will need an uninhabited mountain as a backing berm, of course. Hits count if: you take off the head, in the main body, take off a wing. No shotguns. 20 - 75 yards. Annie Oakley Award if you shoot off the head 10 times on the same day without hitting the body. Unlimited (except by your pocketbook!) number of shots. Annie Oakley Gold if you are using a muzzle loader from at least 50 yards.

I would think the tool steel of the bolt and the carrier would be tougher than anything the BCG was likely to encounter. My concern would be for the gas key maybe getting bent? A section of plastic pipe and end caps sounds good. Maybe a plastic box from the supermarket where the food storage items are?? With a little foam of some kind or bubble wrap inside the box around the BCG- mostly to keep it from rattling?

The thread will be called: "Collecting Parts" Now I need an opportunity to visit the shooting range again. It may be a couple of weeks. Pics of the new upper are ready to post. I need results from live-fire at the range. Found the last part, an M-15 bolt carrier, at a local gun show just today (9-09-2012).

Been looking for a new scope all summer. Could not find one in the price range I wanted, or the reticle was not what I like. In this late part of the summer there did not seem to be anything on the market at all except very high-dollar offerings. A few days ago I was wandering through the same old internet fliers and catalogues -- again. Joe Bob had a Vortex scope with an acceptable reticle and an acceptable price. There has to be something wrong with this shipping thing. A space-time-continuum twisted malfunction? I put in the order late on Tuesday. Cheapest shipping-- mule-train & river raft (where there are no rivers big enough to find with an electron microscope). On Thursday before noon the package was on my porch: still had some hay dripping with mule drool on it. My first 30 MM tube; the thing is too long to be comfortable with my 5.56 AR but in mock-up to see what kind of scope mounts I need, it may be OK. Will find out when I can eventually take it to the range.

Read my "Cheap Mods and Improvements to the 10-22" under Ruger 10-22 General. There are some things there about what I think are worth doing and not worth doing. If I wanted to try to significantly reduce group size with the rifle in that thread or any 10-22 the first thing I would do is install a bull barrel or, much better, buy the 10-22 new with Ruger's bull barrel already in place. My wallet sees no point in paying for a barrel I never intend to use. My favorite small local gunshop has told me that every shooter in America wants an old used 10-22 just to get their hands on a receiver. Yes there are some old 10-22's on the market. Being the guy who actually managed to be the new owner is close to being a big lottery winner. In my area, some of the best prices on guns (the kinds and brands of guns they will sell) are at Wally World. That is in spite of CheaperThanDirt and Cabela's being a major presence here.

Unburned powder? I have a 10-22 and an almost antique Hi-Standard auto pistol and have never been aware of unburned powder granules. I can only ask: is the bolt staying adequately closed long enough during the firing cycle? I am not at all familiar with the 416, but maybe a spring that needs be stiffer? Perhaps try posting the question in IE on the home page box and see what might turn up?

Hoppe's #9 powder solvent or Outers powder solvent or- - - Put the powder solvent on a paper towel, patches cut/torn to the size of the palm of your hand, begin cleaning. Use an old tooth brush with powder solvent, too. Field strip the gun. Small parts can be soaked in powder solvent and then scrubbed with a tooth brush. Q-Tips can help. Get a bronze brush for the bore in .17 or .18 caliber (for a 22LR or 223 Rem; a 22 cal brush for 30 cal); wrap it in strips of paper towel so it is a comfortable tight fit in the bore and swab the bore. Preferably push the swab down the bore from chamber to muzzle, remove the swab before withdrawing the cleaning rod, wrap the brush with new paper towel, wet with solvent, repeat until it all seems clean. Be aware that if it is necessary to push the swab from the muzzle, a bore guide is highly desirable to help protect both the muzzle crown and the lands near the muzzle. Never use a steel/stainless steel brush. It can/will damage the bore and everything else. Use a lot of gun oil. I make my own gun oil from Mobil One 10W-30 Full Synthetic and add 20%-30% Kroil (some gun shops, MidwayUSA, some hardware stores or hardware sections of big-box chain stores sell Kroil). This oil will leave molecules of the synthetic oil in the surface pores of the metal and help cleaning in the future. Kroil is a super-penetrant that will help clean everything, maybe a bit slowly. Kroil needs minutes, hours, in extreme cases, days to work. Think: 5 minutes to overnight. (I once cleaned old gunked-up gun parts with years of black powder residue just by letting them sit in a puddle of the motor oil/Kroil inside a small Zip-Lock for 15 minutes.) A pint can of Kroil should last a very long time when mixed with the Full Synthetic motor oil. Full Synthetic motor oil is a small amount of actual synthetic oil and a lot of solvent oils (and a lot of other things needed for it all to work properly in the heat and corrosive atmosphere inside a car engine). 'Dino' motor oil will not do the job. A small oil can is available at Harbor Freight or wherever else. (Standard warning: do not put synthetic oils in high-mileage car engines.) When I go shooting, I push a dry swab through the bore as close to shooting time as practical. Then there will be 5 throw-away rounds of any 22 caliber or 2-3 rounds of a 30 cal cartridge to 'clear' synthetic oils from the bore. After that everything is fine. I use Hoppe's during shooting/hunting for interim cleaning of the bore and back to the home-made oil when the gun goes back into the gun safe. The full synthetic oil is too slick for the bullets to have proper resistance while sliding down the bore.

After a few days, there are some general things that might be mentioned: Scopes do get fried sometimes. I read a sad story yesterday in a magazine about a hunter on African Safari. All that money, all that time and effort, in Africa time was pressed by late-arriving luggage. Basically, he grabbed the scoped rifle out of the shipping container and jumped on a jeep to go out to the hunting area. Prime Trophy game animal, pulled the trigger and the bullet hit the rocks a hundred feet off target. Fried scope from shipping & handling. No back-up scope on that trip. Lessons about being prepared. Lessons about the delicacy of even the best and most expensive scopes. In this thread it is easy to relate!! Targets #2 and #3, above, Post of August 11, show the effects of not having a fast enough twist to properly stabilize long bullets. Target #2, heavy BT bullets with a long ogive and long poly tips, jammed into the powder in the case and still sticking out to the absolute limit (and beyond by a few thousandths) of the design of the magazine and action to handle them, I could see the puff of dirt/dust when they hit the berm behind the target, but as is apparent some were not stabilized well enough to even hit the paper. The spread between POA and POI for the ones that did leave holes in the target is pathetic. The same is true of Target #3 with the Barnes bullets except the Barnes bullets are not so seriously extended in length and they did work in the 1 - 9 twist, sort of. There are two cures. One is to stay with shorter bullets. The Sierra's did well and I will load more of them for this rifle. Barnes bullets that are lighter & shorter should do well, also. The second cure is to acquire a barrel with a faster twist, necessarily a 1 - 7 twist. Loading lighter and shorter bullets is easy. Also the cheapest way. But when we have the affliction . . . . I have begun researching a 1 - 7 twist barrel. Decisions, choices, decisions . . . this itch goes on forever! Replace the barrel? Buy?--- or build?--- a new upper with a faster twist barrel? Buy a complete rifle (and modify it to my preferred configuration)? DIIK. It will not be long, but let's all call this thread a wrap and perhaps make whatever I do next with this rifle a new topic? Thank You to all readers for hanging in with my verbosity!!

Full sympathy. I had to spend too much of my life working on my own cars. It sucks.

Visited the shooting range last Thursday, August 9, 2012. Could not remember the date when I was marking the targets and put the 10th on the paper. LOL. Temperature, officially, was 100 F. The sensor under the front bumper of the car said 109 F. No apparent wind. At the same time of day for the two days since, the official temperature has been down to mid-90's. Could not find my factory ammo from the last shooting session. It turned up a day later and I will eventually repeat the sequence reported on July 01. I had a box of reloads that I used instead. The reloads are mixed brass accumulated from the previous range trips. I eliminated the steel cases with a magnet. I full-length resized in a Hornady die & Lee Hand Press. The Hornady die decapper has a belling die which was too much for the hand press. I decapped with a Lee Loader. Very nice to have several systems to back each other up. The Lee Loader is cheap, easy to have available, and will do it all very well if needed. Except the Lee Loader is neck-size only; but usually that is enough. I do not so far clean my cases. The case lube and handling do enough but I intend to buy an ultra-sonic case cleaner. Eventually. My fired cases are caught in my range box or picked up from the carpeted range bench or the concrete floor and do not get visibly dirty. I had 179 fired cases to reload. Decapped; cleaned the primer pockets with a Lee tool and reamed them with a Lyman tool for trimming military brass primer crimps; full-length resized; primed all with WSR primers. Then picked cases from the pile at random and loaded with three different bullets and three different powders. Took 10 of each loading to the range. Originally I had intended to fire the reloads after doing the factory ammo sequence. At the range I realized the factory ammo was not in my ammo box but the reloads were there. It was another case of my Angels watching over. My body was having a bad day and the heat was tough. It was hot enough that when the rifle was sitting idle, bolt open and when needed for safety the yellow plastic flag in the chamber, the rifle did not cool but kept getting hotter. I was glad for every inch of the free-float tube. It was uncomfortably warm all the way at the end, too hot for shooting even trying to hold it in the middle. Note that there is a full overhead canopy and the benches and shooting gear are all fully in shade. The 30 rounds I had available to shoot were more than enough and already too many trips down the range to service targets. There was also some Ruger 10-22 shooting, posted elsewhere in this forum. Target pics are below. The new scope did well and validated my suspicions about the previous scopes. Those scopes will go back for warranty review. I used a Magpul 20-round clip intended for 5.56x45 cartridges. I loaded 5 rounds at a time. Target 1: The loading was taken from an article in "Shooting Times." Sierra MatchKing 69 gr HPBT, Ramshot TAC powder; all loads done with a Hornady bullet seating die with the crimp backed out to not crimp. The boattails of all the bullets used slipped into the tops of the cases without any belling and seated properly and tightly. I used a dial caliper to measure every round and did a little adjusting or removed and reseated the bullets for OAL plus or minus .003. Powder charges are measured on a Lee beam scale so that powder weight is within, generally, two or three or so particles of powder. My loadings were the single charge weight in the magazine articles or 60-65% of the difference between minimum and maximum plus minimum. That is, for example, if minimum with a given powder and bullet was 20.0 grains and maximum was 30.0 grains, 65% of the difference is 6.5 grains plus 20.0 grains giving a final loading weight of 26.5 grains. This is a good conservative loading when working from formal published data. It allows a slight margin for error in modern well-made guns in good condition. My calculations are done with an inexpensive scientific electronic calculator (bubble pack at Wally World, Target, other places) to eliminate any brain glitches when doing the arithmetic. The calculator will also do all the statistical gyrations for results or other data with no fuss, no muss. When I had 5 to 15 rounds loaded I used a second Lee Hand Press with a Lee Factory Crimp Die to crimp all cartridges after a final check for OAL with the caliper and some more adjusting for length. Back to Target 1: The first clip with the Sierra bullets was high. I adjusted the vertical dial on the scope 'down' 10 clicks. The second clip of 5 rounds did well. The flier is me. I did not change the scope settings beyond that for the rest of the day. When shooting I was holding the rifle free of support, on my hands and against my shoulder, seated at the bench with my left wrist against sandbags and my right elbow on the bench. Target 2: The bullets are MidwayUSA Blems. Origin unknown. 75 gr BT Poly Tips. Dead ringers for Swift Scirocco's in a magazine article that had a loading I used. OAL 2.270 with Varget powder. I got two or three rounds to fire properly. Then a misfire. Dropped the clip, waited 30 seconds and the round would not eject. Several tries and then it just fell out unexpectedly. No dimple in the primer. Obviously failure to feed/seat properly and the bolt group not being in battery the hammer could not hit the firing pin properly so no big problem. The bolt carrier is designed this way for safety. Put the round back in the chamber by hand, inserted clip. Gun fired and double-fed jammed. Finally got that clear and the remaining rounds fired. Three holes in the target and all that struggling with the clip and double-feeds. I have no idea. Same problem with the second clip, two holes in the target presumably from the first two cartridges that seemed to load and fire properly. Then it was double-feeds and failures to eject. I still have 40 rounds of this stuff. I'm not going to buy a bolt or single-shot rifle just to see what the rest of these do. Target 3: After that struggle with the Poly Tips I took a break. An entire cycle of range hot and safe. Rifle placed securely, bolt open, yellow flag in chamber, just backed off and rested and regrouped. The rifle may have cooled a little but not enough to tell by touching it. My body needed the break, too. Then there was the final two clips with Barnes Match Burners 69 gr HPBT. Reloder 15. Barnes website, loading taken from TSX bullets of this weight. After the chaos of Target 2, I was expecting trouble. It never happened. Clips #5 and #6 went smooth as greased glass. The spread of the holes in the target may be me or maybe I need a better loading for these bullets. When I was loading, I loaded the 50 casings that was my norm for that load session and then used up the left-over cases by loading these Barnes Bullets in them. So I have ~70 rounds of this loading still to shoot. Bottom line: The newest scope seems to have fixed the accuracy problem. I am thankful to whatever gods may be.

An attempt was made to improve accuracy by floating the barrel. The pad under the base of the barrel was put in place and removed and replaced during a shooting session. The result was inconclusive but leaving the (red) pad in place seemed best. I used a file and Emory paper to try to put a little space between the barrel and the inside top of the barrel band. Pressure was relieved a little but removing enough material to give air space seemed to be not practical. The thickness of the top of the barrel band seemed to be getting too thin for comfort. Cold blue was used to restore color. Shooting was done with and without the band in place and again, results were inconclusive. That shooting was done some time ago; a lot of targets and a lot of different ammo. Could not see anything to single out. On August 9, 2012, I did some more shooting with this rifle in what has become its standard configuration. That is: the new barrel band, the pad near the action end of the barrel, other components as described in this thread. A pic of the target from Aug 9 is below. I find that with a variety of ammo from the same boxes, firing 10 to 20 rounds of each to make comparison groups, the 'best' or 'most accurate' of them changes each time I visit the range. Clearly, the ammo from all manufacturers is very close to the same. Do your own comparison shooting to see if your rifle has any preferences of its own?

Or try my method: a .17 cal brush; wrap it with paper towel strips just enough to make the plug tight-- tight enough to wipe the bore, not so tight as to make it excessively difficult to push through the tube. A powder solvent a couple of times and a dry swab a couple of times. Then use Mobil One 10W-30 full synthetic motor oil with a little Kroil mixed in a few times and let the oil/Kroil soak. Dry the oil with a couple of dry swabs before the next shooting session. My .17 cal brush has a threaded shank that will not fit any of my (.30 cal) cleaning rods, but will slip inside the threaded socket on the end of the rods; I push the swab into the chamber, slip the rod end over the swab's shank, push through the bore. It is helpful that when the swab exits the muzzle it falls off into the catch bucket (trash can?) and saves unscrewing it. Motor oil-- wherever; Kroil-- some gun shops, MidwayUSA, industrial supply. Only need a pint or 1/2 pint for a whole lot of cleanings; small oil can-- try Harbor Freight or any other place of choice. Note: when you go to shoot, fire at least a couple of rounds after that dry swab/patch to clear the bore. It will be too slippery for the first few rounds. A 5-shot string with 22LR, 2 or 3 shots with any thing else. Then all will be fine. Residual synthetic oil molecules in the metal will dramatically reduce leading. Lead, copper, powder residue, whatever, and cleanup will be a snap. Go to extremes to keep that oil off optics or electronics.

The flash suppressor mounting and the crown will get a close inspection and check if this newest scope does not fix things. I am still considering a Ranier barrel.

Here we are in August. New scope. Cabela's did not have one in the store; ordered it online on a Thursday; it arrived direct from Vortex on the following Wednesday. This scope is a Vortex Viper: 3 - 9 x 40 MM, 1 inch tube. The scope mounts previously in use did well on the previous scope and would have worked with a 50 MM objective lens scope but were too tall for me to be comfortable for this new scope. I replaced the Burris scope mounts with Warne Quick-Detachable scope mounts that are half as tall. The reticle is a Vortex BDC. It looks a lot like a Mil-Dot reticle. I wanted a Mil-Dot; I think this reticle will be OK. The glass is spectacularly clear. I bore-sighted the scope in my usual manner. Balanced the upper on the kitchen table with BCG removed on top of a couple 12-packs of bottled water so I could see that chimney cap 4 houses down, 80 to 100 yards away. The double stack of water cases keeps the bore and the scope above the cross-bar of the window. On the rifles & scopes that have done well, which is all the 308's and the 7 MM, this has resulted in a 2 to 4 inch diff between the POA and the first POI, less rather than more. If you have been reading all the way through this thread, you understand my attitude as I write this and my clenched teeth. The Burris scope mounts needed a 1/2 inch socket wrench; the new Warne QD scope mounts have finger levers. Never mind that they lock up tight enough with fingers to easily justify a pair of pliers when releasing the scope: it will be easier to de-mount the scope while cleaning the rifle (to protect the scope). Pics below: DPMS Panther-Oracle 5.56x45; mods are 12 inch DPMS slotted Free-Float tube, Battle Arms Ambi Safety Selector, CAA grip, RRA NM trigger, Vortex Viper 3-9x40MM scope in Warne Quick-Detachable mounts. Range trip for live-fire tests as soon as I can manage it; will post results. As usual, click on the pics to make them bigger.

I have an answer to "How Long?" Sometimes, apparently, instantaneous. It has been an hour since I posted my previous message. Had reason to go to the front door, a parcel was on the porch. The scope is here. May have been here when I posted that message at 6:37. Magic?

Thanks for the votes of confidence on the Vortex scope I ordered!! Cabela's sent a nice Email advisory thanking me for my order and telling me my account has been charged (I think that's what it meant). They also promised to tell me if the scope ever actually gets shipped. I suspect that a lot of gun stuff was 'on hold' until the outcome of the recent UN Referendum was clear. Now the factories in China are making gun stuff again and then there is that trip by container ship; then handling in the ports and time to get it all warehoused and inventoried; AND eventually shipped to the stores and the customers with backorders. How long is all that?

Went to Cabela's store in the afternoon. Wanted to buy a new riflescope and a can of Hodgdon's new powder for the 223 cartridge. No powder in stock. No scope in stock. AHhhhh- - - - lots of powders, lots of scopes; not the ones I was looking for. Wrong brands of scopes or the ones I cannot, in my own mind, justify paying that much for. Came home, stewed about it for a couple of hours, finally ordered a Vortex 3 - 9X, 1 inch tube scope from Cabelas.com online. It ships direct from the manufacturer-- it says in the fine print; and is imported. This is the scope that will be the next step on my DPMS 5.56 AR, ref: "Plunging In."

They look great!!

Sorry. Went there, could not find the place to vote. Do not want to 'join' that forum. Yesterday within the Twitter that I Follow, there was a link to a British newspaper article. Again, sorry, I could not get my act together at that moment to put the link here. The article was about gun violence in England. They use the term "Britain" but it was only describing England. We all know that the same things are occurring in all the other British Isles and British Commonwealth countries. Ten years ago, guns were almost entirely banned in the British Isles and in England. A gun buyback was done by the government at a cost that remains a secret. The avowed purpose was to reduce/eliminate gun violence with the promise from the government that gun violence would entirely disappear. The predictable result over ten years is that the general law-abiding populace is unarmed; guns in the hands of criminals and even more in the hands of gang & organized crime members have dramatically increased. Gun violence has increased by 89%. Police in Britain historically could do very well -- when the general populace was armed -- with a nightstick. When I was in the Air Force, in the 1960's, there were individuals who had been stationed in England in the late 1950's and early 1960's. These individuals liked to speak of the British Bobby armed with only a nightstick and on foot, controlling motor vehicle traffic and everything else by yelling at the drivers and motioning to pedestrians and others. No one driving in a car or other motor vehicle would dare not comply or fail to stop so the Bobby could issue a ticket. Now that the ordinary person is not allowed to be armed, the routine news items point to how bad things have become for all. Recently the police have begun routine patrolling in groups armed with loaded sub-machine guns. Laws are being passed to either provide guns to all police, depending on the perceived threat in any given jurisdiction, or allow them to obtain and carry guns on their own. The comments at the end of the story included a few that make it clear that the ordinary British citizen is well aware of all this.

Might need to clean up your computer. Malware and spyware. Run your anti-virus in its most detailed clean-up mode. Let it do its thing overnight when it can concentrate. Do not use more than one anti-virus program in you computer. Each program sees the others as evil and the sorting-out takes forever. I have Norton (pre-installed) in this computer and it does these scans automatically from time to time. My other computers are using Avast!, free version. I run the root scan in Avast about weekly with the setting to delete everything questionable. Default is that it will stop and wait for instructions. Avast! does play games trying to make the user 'Upgrade' to the paid version. Do not do this unless you are a business. My own experience with Avast! is that a normal RootScan takes a couple of hours if the 'delete bad stuff' choice is set; it will stop cold and wait forever for instructions in the Default setting. I, personally, see no point in the 'Virus Chest,' and if you do not want the viruses/spyware/malware gone, why run the program (in the other settings) at all? The first time I ran a boot scan it took 12 - 16 hours. There was a whole lot of clean-up to get done!!

I cannot see for beans. There is no point in me shooting without optics. The rifle came with an integral rail and no iron sights. Pics earlier in the thread show the rifle with the OEM handguard and the Nikon scope. The targets in those pics are from the 'phase two' trials with the Nikon. I do have the targets from the initial firing trials with the Pentax scope. The spread of holes in the targets is similar.

A big-rifle scope with a low price like a Wally World Bushnell in a bubble pack is probably your best bet. Saw one in a local Wally World in the last few days, do not really remember, but maybe 3-9X; 40 or so MM; under or very close to $100. I personally usually prefer the look of the bigger scopes (compared to most dedicated 22LR scopes) and think the big-rifle scopes are built stronger to stand up to center-fire recoil. That should make them last forever on a small-caliber rimfire.

I have done my best for the barrel nut. I do not have the tools to do the proper tightening myself. I bought the free float tube because I wanted to have it on the rifle and accelerated the purchase a lot so I could justify the cost of a gunsmith by having the new barrel nut installed (and hopefully properly tightened). I requested the gunsmith personally to tighten, loosen and retighten the new nut. He expressed reservations about the "thin aluminum." He also said he usually torqued the nut to 35 foot-pounds. Subsequently to having the tube installed, I found a mention in a post on '308AR' that 50 foot-pounds may be optimum. Something to request if there is a next time. I am and was aware that the spec on these is 30 to 80 foot-pounds. This nut is most likely properly tight and the barrel is properly seated. It is still a possible until those holes in the targets get a lot more chummy? I wonder if the glass inside the scope tube is loose. I have two of these Nikon scopes and the other one is tight, that rifle/scope (308 Win) makes excellent groups-- probably better than I am capable of supporting with my own abilities. When I adjust the controls on that scope everything is very positive. The scope now on the 5.56 AR seems always to need for the innards to drop into place-- like the Leopold that I dislike intensely and replaced on the relevant rifle. I wonder if this Nikon on the 5.56 AR has always had a problem and perhaps that problem is getting progressively worse. This possibility of internal glass moving seems consistent with the shooting result. The rifle was laid down on its side after each 5-shot string for reloading the mag, loose glass inside the scope tube could easily move around. The few good groups might have had the glass shift during the next reload. Perhaps even the spread of the rest shows the product of internal glass bouncing from recoil? Current plan is to try a new scope first, because I can do it by myself. If that does not fix the problem, I will pay a different gunsmith to retighten the barrel nut and hope that will do the job. Last possible, if push comes to shove, is a new premium Ranier heavier profile barrel. And cross my fingers and burn a bunch of candles. If a new scope does fix the problem, the current Nikon will go back to the factory for evaluation. Lifetime warranty, then I will have an extra scope for back-up. Or, will feel the need to buy a new rifle to give it a home? 416 Rigby AR, anyone?