All posts tagged Ruger 556

Getting bored with your AR15?

It wasn’t until the later 1990’s that the M4 carbine really took hold in the civilian market.   We usually only saw the AR15 A2 on the firing line and that was about it.   Then we started to see the heavy barrels and then the light barrels.   In the last 6yrs there have been so many calibers and manufacturers making the AR15 firearms that I have completely given up on keeping track of them.   There are so many custom AR15 models that it’s really more like asking someone what kind of Legos do they like to build.

I am going to be taking the dive into the AR15 market again very soon.   I recently got to fire a Ruger 556 and was really amazed that Ruger of all people would step into the market, even more so than Smith & Wesson have the guts to make a 5.45×39 AR15 upper receivers.   CMMG makes a darn good version for the money and we’ve sold a ton of those to people that didn’t want to spend $1800 on another firearm.    Once again, the beauty of the AR15 design is that you can put any type of AR15 upper on them and only have a minimal amount of gunsmithing to do if something doesn’t fit quite right.

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The Beauty of owning an AR15 Carbine

There was a time when I bashed the AR15 time every time I heard somebody rave about them, but that part of my outlook on the design has ended.    The differences between AR15 rifles as varying as the differences between cars.  You can get a compact car, pickup truck, van or monster truck and they all basically work the same on the outside, they roll, drive and turn, but internally they can be different and they all have different operating purposes.   The AR15 upper receivers you see now can be direct impingement, piston driven, 22 caliber converted, 6.8 SPC, 50 Beowulf, and on and on.  I can’t back it up, but I’ve read there are up to 40 different calibers you can get them in.   I really only could ever seen the need for 3 or 4 of them, but the design is so well received, that there is still plenty of new things to come for the design.

I have always been a fan of piston guns and not direct impingement.  Modern technology has made firearms more reliable even if they are still DI guns and arguments about gun reliability really only get blamed on the operator and not the designs.  If you want to compare an M16A1 to a piston driven gun it’ll be a slaughter over reliability, but AR15 really give you what you pay for them.   I am an LWRCI upper receivers fan.   If you still have an old Bushmaster DI gun laying around and wants something really different, you gotta spend the dough, but it’s fun with less cleaning time.  If I think of the last 20 times I went shooting, and did no more than 10 minutes of cleaning each time, I’ve saved hours of slopping gun cleaner around.  Gun cleaning supplies don’t cost much, but if you shoot often and clean your guns,  you will save time and money on just those things as well as bolt carrier life ect by switching to a n LWRCI upper receiver.

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5.45×39 is still cheaper than 5.56

Just a reminder to all of you that forgot about that fact that 5.45×39 ammo is still cheaper than any of the 5.56 .   I have heard a lot of good things from our customers that have picked up the Smith & Wesson 5.45×39 upper, but I’m still not sold on it’s combat worthness.   Something about the direct impingement being dirt enough and how much worse is it going to get with that type of ammo?  One defense I’d have to make of the notion that semi-auto guns jam because they are dirty is something that I have never witnessed.   I have witnessed several handgun and AR15 malfunctions due to lack of lubrication, but I don’t know how much sludge you’re really going to end up  having if you put 1000rds through a 5.45×39 DI upper.

LWRC has recently put an AR15 upper that I am seriously considering to optain, as a matter of fact, Rogue Elite has just signed off on the papers to become a parts dealer for LWRC.   If you think having a piston driven gun means the gun is more reliable, well, I think you’ll get some pretty headed debates, but if you make the decision to pick  up any of the AR15 complete upper receievers that are piston driven, you will defanitely notice your gun is easy to clean and won’t take up 1/4 as much as you use to.   If you are a serious shooter, I would think that is worth spending the extra money for a piston conversion kit or a new piston upper.

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Is the gas piston a new thing?

I remember the first time I pulled the trigger on an AR15 rifle I thought it was the rich boy gun.   Back in the 1990s there was a mentality on the State Game ranges I use to dwell on where a certain level of snotty attitudes went with the expensive firearms.   Since just about everyone and there dog owns a 5.56 AR 15 now,  I don’t really look at it that way anymore.  The new trend in 5.56 calibers is to move away from the direct impingement and towards a gas piston driven gun.   There are plenty of people that can honestly claim that their AR15s don’t give them problems, but now that I know more about firearms, this is because they are maintaining their firearms properly.

Alth0ugh you can get the job done with a DI gun, I really have to say the that biggest reason I would want the United States Military to change to an H&K 416 style weapon is so our troops don’t have to break down their guns every day and do as much maintanace.    If we all drove a car that got 75 miles to the gallon, but needed an oil change every 500 miles, I think we get annoyed at how much time we are spending changing the oil filter or dropping it off to get done every month.  The beauty of market we are in is that piston conversion kits are being made for many of the DI guns and for a few hundred bucks we can convert everything over.

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So many ARs so little time..

AR 15 Upper receiversEven though the short stroke and other piston designs have come on the market, and these guns all operate much cleaner, the AR15s DI guns that are being fielded these days are far more reliable than the M16A1 that was issued in Vietnam.   Designs and improvements of metalogy has been tremendous and this can be noticed just by feeling the difference between one bolt carrier and another.   Another major point about why the AR 15 guns have caught on is that they are so ergonimically superior to most of the military style guns out there that they are easy teaching tools.   I normally start people out with learning the fundamentals with a 22lr bolt action with iron sights, but when I’m dealing with an adult that is not afraid of recoil, a .223 A2 style Carbine is an excellent staring point.

It seems that every time I pick up another issue of Swat magazine, American Handgunner, Special Weapons, Guns & Ammo ect. that there is yet another advertisement for another company making another AR 15 gun.   The AR15 is now the most mass produced rifle in America and they are as common as a can of Coca-Cola.    I don’t think I can name more than 3 calibers that the AK was made in, but i’ve already lost track of the number of calibers that I have seen the AR15 being made in.   You can get them in pistol caliber carbines and from my experience, they run very well.   I have to admit that I am glad to see that the AR 15 Upper Receivers have taken a giant step away from the direct impingement design that has been so hotly debated.   I am a big believer that with todays technology and the technology that are LEO and Military are dealing with, using a firearm that is such high maintenance, is a waste of valuable time.

 

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Range time and bullet selections

AR 15 UppersI had the opportunity to get out to the range again this week.   I tend to bring the same bullet weights with me to firing ranges whenever I’m shooting my ARs because there can be really big differences in bullet trajectory when shooting out to 600yds.   There is also a very big difference between bullet drift with just a few extra grains of weight.    I’ve pulled the trigger on 150gr FMJ bullets out to 500yds that missed targets just depending on whether or not I fired during a wind gust or not.   It’s really a  lot of fun to shoot distances because you find out that it’s not all about how well you hold a gun down and how well you pull the trigger.   Timing is something that really plays a factor when shooting into the wind.   I use to shoot at a range that had a wind that blew from right from 100-300yds and when you got out to the 400-600yds, the wind blew from the left.

Today I was testing out how well an M4 could shoot 75gr bullets and tested the difference between a 1-7 twist and the 1-9.   I normally shoot a lot of the M855 ammo for target shooting, just because it’s so darn accurate, but IMHO it is not the type of round that any civillian should consider using for self defense.   The round penetrates entirely too much for urban environments and out of an M4 does  not perform as well as 55gr ball ammo.   I have noticed considereable accuracy differnces in my 1-7 twist rifle vs the 1-9 and I am a firm believer in that the 75gr HPBT is a better round for th M4 rifles even if you are using a 1-9 twist.   I have tried swapping out some of my AR 15 Uppers to different bullet twists and I still think the shorter the rifle, the faster the twist and weights should be.

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