Ar 10 lower, maybe upper too.

[leftiye]

Hi, I saw the thread on the sheetmetal lower for the ar15. There was a mention of the upper being made too.

Anybody for an AR 10? While we're at it, let's get rid of the charging handle, and go back to a bolt handle (on the operating rod) and also while you're at it, go back to piston operation. You might want to modify the bolt carrier and/or the receiver to not require the bolt carrier to travel back into the buttstock. Put rails in your receiver to control the bolt, and eliminate wear to the tube. Attach full travel piston rod, and incorporate operating mainspring around rod (use m14 piston and rod assembly). We could get rid of the buffer in the buttstock, have folding stock too. That'd be a man's gun!

[Andrew Mason]

sounds very complicated.

but very cool!

[leftiye]

One of the reasons I don't have an AR (either 15 or 10) is that , plainly, I don't like 'em much. Everyone runs around praising them, and I think they're mechanic's guns. Buy the parts, assemble a gun. Actually that's good in the present case, because it lends itself to building the parts you need the way you want. There aren't many details that present dangers, or hard to solve problems. Strength is there - in the barrel extension. A 30 dollar Green Mountain rifles barrel made for a minigun threaded onto an AR 10 barrel extension (buy the bolt first to set headspace with) pretty much obviates kabooms. The other area that could produce problems is gas port placement. With an adjustable port, one can start light, and open up enough to get cycling without taking their life in their hands. Any weight , length, profile you want, just turn it. Barrel nut with threads on the outside, just screw on a tube type free float forend.

If you haven't seen the other thread by you might want to look at it. One can see in their mind's eye the parts migged, and the welds ground, and a pretty good looking lower happening. It really looks like all of the forging/machining involved on the ar lowers is make work to make them possible in alunimum - lighter, and they're definitely too light if you ask me. With a little planning and drawing, this project could be pretty straightforward, and not present any nightmares.

[buyobuyo]

Sound to me like you're trying to turn the AR into an AK. It would be faster, cheaper, and easier just to go with the AK from the get go.

[leftiye]

More accurate than an AK. Better caliber too. Dragunov, I could get interested. Still better in .308.

[leftiye]

You've just gotta be able to see the superiority of the basic American design over the AK. Just as the Garand family of weapons makes an SKS look like it was designed by a Chinese farmer. Lighter, more compact, as dependable in most cases (gas tube excepted), resulting in weapons that handle well, shoot accurately, etc. In .308, you have a cartridge that outclasses the .762X39 (which was never meant to be competitive with the old battle calibers, but was rather a following of the WWII german assault rifle the STG 44 and the 8mm kurtz), making possible (in an AR platform) full auto controlled fire (something the M14 wasn't acceptable at) the common uses, plus even sniper use.

[Willbird]

I think using the existing stoner system for the upper makes sense, might make sense to use fal mags in the lower.

The value added cost savings in being able to just BUY an upper as an unregulated part is HUGE.

Bill

[savingprivateyang]

Picturing what you said in your OP, I can see that being not too difficult since you would be starting from scratch pretty much. I can't wait to get started on my AR 15, just gotta plan in some time for it.

ETA: The only thing I could see wrong with this is the loss of standardized (sort of with AR 10's) parts, but since you're going to be the one fabricating everything, you could always make extras.

[DCM]

I like the idea of a piston driven system that doesn't spew filth in to the whole FCG.
The interchangeable top ends would be nice.
Some kind of a modified H&K setup that doesn't launch your brass 30' and beat you up maybe??

[Willbird]

I like the idea of a piston driven system that doesn't spew filth in to the whole FCG.
The interchangeable top ends would be nice.
Some kind of a modified H&K setup that doesn't launch your brass 30' and beat you up maybe??

That is a manufactured event, the amount of "spew" is tiny, and in fact it is a design FEATURE, the earlier stoner guns did not use it and they sucked **** INTO the gun every cycle because the bolt/carrier moving back and forth pumped air in and out of the action, and that air brought dirt and dust with it. But the choice of upper is up to the end user, if they manage to convince folks they need a new heavier, more complicated, unproven system, and can sell them, more power to them .

The piston upper might have some advantage for using with a beta mag, but the canadian LMG setup was designed to work that way, and it uses a gas tube and the original stoner gas system.


Bill

[DCM]

The amount of spew may be tiny per shot, but builds up very quickly over many shots.
Try not thoroughly cleaning that spew for a week at the national matches at camp perry and see what happens to your rifle.
Now try that same thing with an M14/M1A and the same # of rounds.
Strangely one can go the whole shooting season without ever cleaning their bolt or trigger group on the M1A/M14 try that on a 15 sometime!!!!!
Usually 88rds per day every Sat. & Sun. + at LEAST another 88 for practice during the week often more.
Yeah you have to clean the gas piston on the 14 once in a while but not anywhere near as often as the bolt on the 15.
Anyone that has actually used the 14 knows how to put it back together without changing the zero too, one small mark on the gas plug solves that one.
So to completely clean the 15 we need 2 special carbon removal tools to get the carp off of the bolt and out of the carrier quickly and efficiently.
With the 14 you need 2 drill bits.

Do you want to talk about MRBF next?

H&K 416?

Or should we bring that other piston driven rifle known for its' reliability as a bullet hose into the discussion too?
Seems folks in the fridgid polar region to those folks in the desert, jungle and all points in between like the reliabilty of that system.
The NVA said that "the black rifle is useless to our cause", 40 years later they may have worked MOST of the bugs out but oddly it didn't take Kalishnakov that long and his still functions betters in dusty sandy environments.
Strange thing when somebody is shooting at you, you really want your rifle to go bang.

So now I suppose you want to talk accuracy of the AK Vs. the AR?
Ok let us take our issue M855 in a combat carbine at average combat distance with open sights and we will take an = barrel length AK with open sights and issue ammo in the hands of a Skilled marksman and find out how little difference there is.
Apples to apples not a tricked out 20" A2 against a short barreled AK like most folks want to pound their chest over.

[leftiye]

My early experience with Armalite Mattel toys (in RVN) was upsetting. My M16 wouldn't hit a standard 350 yard silhouette target. You might try to say that I meant that I couldn't hit it, but I had no problemo with that range plopping down on my butt and hitting those 350 yd targets with an M14. The M16 would shoot all around it, but not hit it. Mine may have been defective, I'll never know. Thank God I didn't need it for air traffic control! Especially since they wouldn't allow me time to adjust the sights! So, as I said in the OP, I don't much like them, but I like to have guns around that are competitive when Bubba and the slobs or the storm troopers stop by and try to kill me.

[Willbird]

My early experience with Armalite Mattel toys (in RVN) was upsetting. My M16 wouldn't hit a standard 350 yard silhouette target. You might try to say that I meant that I couldn't hit it, but I had no problemo with that range plopping down on my butt and hitting those 350 yd targets with an M14. The M16 would shoot all around it, but not hit it. Mine may have been defective, I'll never know. Thank God I didn't need it for air traffic control! Especially since they wouldn't allow me time to adjust the sights! So, as I said in the OP, I don't much like them, but I like to have guns around that are competitive when Bubba and the slobs or the storm troopers stop by and try to kill me.

I shot the small arms firing school at Camp Perry in the early 1980's. At that time they used the pencil barrel M16 with a sheet metal device between the pistol grip and the lower that locked out the full auto setting. We shot at 100,200, and 300 yards national match course. Everybody turned in good scores. I think the service men coaching and working with us were national guardsmen maybe ??

As to fouling from firing the AR, I have shot them to death and worst case hosing the action out with a little wd 40 without even dropping the lower was all that was needed after the first 500 rounds to keep them running. Trading a little grunge in the gun that would not begin to prevent it's operation firing even TWO basic loads of ammo without any cleaning for a SIMPLE rifle without some cobbled on piston type operation is a no brainer. The gun simply does not fail due to fouling within any reasonable number of rounds. And any "failure" is quickly resolved with any aerosol gun hose out stuff.

I challenge anybody to show a system that offers the soldier the same number of rounds fired for the total weight of rifle, ammo, and magazines that the M16A1 did. Even the A2 if you do the math offers the soldier about double the rounds within the same package weight of gun, mags, and ammo.

Also the AK was not without it's failures, the first run of them was so dangerous they were recalled and destroyed. And overseas they have pretty much set aside AK's and use M16's, it is in many ways the worlds battle rifle.

I had a DCM M14 for 4 years(a real live machine gun with a welded selector), they are not a BAD rifle, but if it does not fit the shooter well for most of the time it has been avail too bad for that shooter, suck it up(now there are finally some aftermarket stocks). If you wanted a scope it had to be mounted on some funky clunky mount, if you wanted a different upper...well there IS no upper, suck it up. If you would like an aftermarket trigger in the oz not pounds, nope...suck it up none avail. If you want a 100 round magazine...nope. The M14 and semi variants are the rifles of "NO" hehe.

Also if an armorer builds up 10 M14's, and 10 AR's. The 10 AR's on average will shoot better than the 10 M14's, and be easier to keep in top shooting form. You can assemble an AR with no glass bedding or other stuff required.

But still, options are nice....the piston (give me your money to fix a non existent problem) uppers work within the whole platform.

Bill

[leftiye]

You remind me of the law enforcement types here trying to tell us that we didn't have the experiences that we had.

During the late unpleasantness in RVN, the M16 loaded up with carbon to the extent of costing lives, and I'm sure that didn't happen either.

As for fit and it being too bad if an M14 didn't fit a given person, the Ar platform doesn't fit ANYBODY. The classic M14 wooden stock in sporter configuration is much quicker on target, and also better for accuracy. Granted it doesn't lend itself to control during full auto fire, but that could have been much more easily solved than the solution the powers that be undertook with initiating the M16. Perhaps as easy as raising the buttplate/stock so that the center of the buttplate was on the line of the bore.

If they had but waited a little, the AR 10 problems would have been corrected and at least you'd have had a better cartridge. Under full auto fire, I suspect the AR 10 to be truly awesome. In every war up until the present, they have had to use the M14 to back up the M16. In RVN it was for light machine gun support, in Ganistan it is because the .22 won't reach out, not at least and do any good when it hits. True, your favorite varmint cartridge does kill people, but if it's not in FMJ configuration, the 223 projectile produces surface wounds on human size targets. In FMJ configuration, it must lose terminal stability and tumble to be even remotely "effective". The whole issue looks like a situation where the powers that be hammered a solution onto a problem. A problem that they produced themselves by poor management.

[Willbird]

You remind me of the law enforcement types here trying to tell us that we didn't have the experiences that we had.

During the late unpleasantness in RVN, the M16 loaded up with carbon to the extent of costing lives, and I'm sure that didn't happen either.

As for fit and it being too bad if an M14 didn't fit a given person, the Ar platform doesn't fit ANYBODY. The classic M14 wooden stock in sporter configuration is much quicker on target, and also better for accuracy. Granted it doesn't lend itself to control during full auto fire, but that could have been much more easily solved than the solution the powers that be undertook with initiating the M16. Perhaps as easy as raising the buttplate/stock so that the center of the buttplate was on the line of the bore.

If they had but waited a little, the AR 10 problems would have been corrected and at least you'd have had a better cartridge. Under full auto fire, I suspect the AR 10 to be truly awesome. In every war up until the present, they have had to use the M14 to back up the M16. In RVN it was for light machine gun support, in Ganistan it is because the .22 won't reach out, not at least and do any good when it hits. True, your favorite varmint cartridge does kill people, but if it's not in FMJ configuration, the 223 projectile produces surface wounds on human size targets. In FMJ configuration, it must lose terminal stability and tumble to be even remotely "effective". The whole issue looks like a situation where the powers that be hammered a solution onto a problem. A problem that they produced themselves by poor management.

The M14 counts as one of several "guns designed by a committee" the krag is another one.

But if you could not hit a target with an M16 yours was a rare happening, and I too had my experiences at the Small Arms Firing School with mostly teenage kids up and down the line all putting spotters in the black at 100-200-300 yards. One event was I'm guessing in the 1960's with a war production gun and the other was in the late 1970's or early 1980's with a peacetime production gun, but they were essentially the same exact rifle design wise.

If you made a pile of all the people that the M16 laid to rest it would be a LARGE pile. I vastly prefer the 20" HBAR to the earlier pencil barrel M16. No rifle is perfect but the M16 was and is designed to a spec, and within a given weight constraint it has offered the soldier more rounds to the pound than what the enemy was fielding.

I subscribed to "them m16's are junk" theory for many years, based on what I had heard here and there, actual shooting experience with one shot a lot of holes in that. Owning a 20 HBAR AR15 for a few years totally destroyed any that remained.

The ar10 and cartridge might be a better solution if we fought WW1 or WW2 all over again with new equipment, but most modern wars would be suited to a ctg smaller than 7.62 nato for the general "grunt", exactly what that should be is an interesting question. But I never find myself drawn to a 30 caliber ctg with a 125 grain bullet.


Bill

[leftiye]

Frankly, you are welcome to your views (opinion). As I said, some of the rest of us have had experiences too, have had thoughts too, have had conclusions too. Unfortunately you have drawn different conclusions, and had different experiences than I have. Can you tolerate me knowing what I know and disagreeing with you is one question you might benefit from considering. It seems from your motivation in denying my viewpoint that you can not. It seems that is the main issue you raise. I'm done, you have the last word.

[Willbird]

Frankly, you are welcome to your views (opinion). As I said, some of the rest of us have had experiences too, have had thoughts too, have had conclusions too. Unfortunately you have drawn different conclusions, and had different experiences than I have. Can you tolerate me knowing what I know and disagreeing with you is one question you might benefit from considering. It seems from your motivation in denying my viewpoint that you can not. It seems that is the main issue you raise. I'm done, you have the last word.

I merely pointed out that most of the world has a DIFFERENT experience, and I did note that yours was in an earlier time when the system may have been less well sorted out.

Using that extreme minority opinion to decide to go to an untested far more complex system rather than simply using what works for literally millions of people every day seems like folly .

2,000,000 standard AR15 type rifles roughly were produced between between 2000 and 2010, and I bet all 2 million work just fine.

The M16 rifle and variants are in use with over 80 countries worldwide. In many cases, it won't serve as the primary service rifle, but as a niche role rifle for certain forces. As for countries which field the M16 or its variants (such as the M4) as its primary service rifle, some of the countries on that list would include the United States of America, Canada, Philippines, Israel, Denmark, Lebanon, Thailand, and Iran.

But the piston systems for the people who like and buy them speak more to how the basic system can be configured to suit the tasted of the user.

[Willbird]

I mean what M14 can go HERE after all ??

[leftiye]

Geesch. Check your oil.

I know I was going to be quiet, but after all it is my "untried system", and you don't HAVE TO worry about it. I guess I'm a majority of one.

[Moonie]

Of course there were issues with the Vietnam era M16's, this is well documented, the slow twist rate that couldn't properly stabilize the bullets, the change in powder used in testing from a clean burning powder to the dirty production powder that was used in the jungle. Those issues have LONG since been solved and to deny them is living with your head in the sand, but so is believing the weapon platform hasn't adapted to overcome those issues. Today's M16/M4/AR-15 is not the same weapon it was in the '60's and early '70's.