Posted in the "Anybody get anything cool..." thread a couple weeks ago re: finishing my AR-308 build and promised a range report once I was able to take it out. Well, earlier this week I took my first shots on the new rifle and, having never shot an AR-308 in any of its variants, I learned a lot.
I'll start by describing the build: based around an Aero M5 receiver set with an 18" .308 WIN Ballistic Advantage HBAR Nitride barrel. Except for maybe the Luth-AR MBA-1 stock and an ODIN Works adjustable gas block, I wouldn't say anything on this build is particularly special, mostly mil-spec budget or mid-grade parts that (excluding the scope, which I'll get to later) all told comes in at under $1200. I am not a real long range shooter--and even if I was, I recognize .308 would be a poor choice (which is why I have a second upper I'll eventually put a 6.5CM barrel on
). Ultimately this rifle was mostly to see if I could put a AR-308 together so I could help my brother with one, and partly for fun and maybe trying to reach out to some longer distances and have a semi-auto hunting caliber rifle.
To the point: she shoots, and pretty well at that. Initially I was having trouble zeroing my optic because it was so far off the paper I couldn't tell what direction to adjust. Once I got that figured out and started getting things on the paper it appeared to be shooting ~1.5" groups at 100 yards from prone off a tripod (which I am still new to using and consider a weak link in my groups). One issue that became apparent early on was a failure to fully cycle. With the gas block all the way open it would eject the brass but not pick up and chamber a new round (I also discovered, incidentally that the cheek riser on the MBA-1 stock prevents the charging handle from coming all the back, so will probably have to trim that down some
). Brand new PMAGs, bolt cycled manually just fine, no obstructions, no obvious reason for failure to fully cycle. Eventually it started trying to pick up a new round and on a couple occasions I created a double feed by racking the charging handle without realizing a round had been partially pushed onto the feed ramps, so I began to think that perhaps the buffer spring was just stiff and needed some breaking in. By the time I had about 30 rounds through it, it started feeding normally.
About the time the feeding issue got figured out, I was just starting to get the optic fully dialed in when The Incident occurred. I had picked up my gun on the tripod to relocate it a bit when someone entered the range. I went to go talk to them and at some point while talking the tripod fell over (neither of us heard it). It was on shortened legs so it didn't fall far, but it was enough to bend the scope mount. Whoops. So at that point my day of shooting was done, since I didn't have backup sites and my scope was now oriented well off the bore. Now, if I had invested as much in the scope as I had the rifle, I would have been indescribably mad, but fortunately for my dumb self, I super-cheaped out on a supposed unicorn of a 6-24x50mm SFP scope by Twod (assuming it's pronounced Two-Dee, like 2D, hell if I know...) on Amazon, because I couldn't believe you could even make a scope for that cheap, much less something functional. Is it a good scope? Probably not, but it was so ridiculously priced I figured it was worth a try and if it didn't work out I wouldn't be bothered much. Since it was a cheap scope, I put in on a cheap scope mount, and that might have been what ultimately saved it. The mount bent on impact and as a result the gun was not damaged, and as far as I can tell the scope appears to only have minor scrape. I haven't been back to the range to verify yet (I just got it back on a new mount today), but so far it looks like the scope may still be good. I'll update after I get back to try it out.
Prior to the fall, the scope seemed to be working quite well. The glass was clear and had pretty insignificant loss of light transmission at full magnification; the reticle was pretty basic but looked to have decent BDC capabilities, and it had both red and green illumination, though I didn't use it much and I would hesitate to call it daylight bright; the covered turrets had very positive clicks with the ability to reset the zero (but no locking turrets or zero lock); and the eye relief was pretty forgiving at full magnification, and the eye box was decent, but not great. It came with some other accessories like an eyecup and sunshade, but I didn't even bring them to the range. According to ReviewMeta.com, only 4% of the 1000+ reviews are removed for an adjusted rating of 4.3 stars (not sure how well ReviewMeta works these days, but it's been my go-to in the past for weeding out review padding). To get started, this may actually not be a bad optic, however I'm planning on upgrading to an Arken Optics SH4 Gen 2 for Christmas
.
So, the rifle works (after some break-in apparently), and the scope may still work (after some breakin'). For anybody interested I'll update here after my next range trip and let you know how it worked out. But bottom line is: I guess I can help my brother build an AR308 now (or 6.5CM, more likely), but I think I'll encourage him to get a builder's kit rather than piece it together like I did.
(Thanks for reading my essay lol, didn't plan for it to be so damn long...)
I'll start by describing the build: based around an Aero M5 receiver set with an 18" .308 WIN Ballistic Advantage HBAR Nitride barrel. Except for maybe the Luth-AR MBA-1 stock and an ODIN Works adjustable gas block, I wouldn't say anything on this build is particularly special, mostly mil-spec budget or mid-grade parts that (excluding the scope, which I'll get to later) all told comes in at under $1200. I am not a real long range shooter--and even if I was, I recognize .308 would be a poor choice (which is why I have a second upper I'll eventually put a 6.5CM barrel on
). Ultimately this rifle was mostly to see if I could put a AR-308 together so I could help my brother with one, and partly for fun and maybe trying to reach out to some longer distances and have a semi-auto hunting caliber rifle.To the point: she shoots, and pretty well at that. Initially I was having trouble zeroing my optic because it was so far off the paper I couldn't tell what direction to adjust. Once I got that figured out and started getting things on the paper it appeared to be shooting ~1.5" groups at 100 yards from prone off a tripod (which I am still new to using and consider a weak link in my groups). One issue that became apparent early on was a failure to fully cycle. With the gas block all the way open it would eject the brass but not pick up and chamber a new round (I also discovered, incidentally that the cheek riser on the MBA-1 stock prevents the charging handle from coming all the back, so will probably have to trim that down some
). Brand new PMAGs, bolt cycled manually just fine, no obstructions, no obvious reason for failure to fully cycle. Eventually it started trying to pick up a new round and on a couple occasions I created a double feed by racking the charging handle without realizing a round had been partially pushed onto the feed ramps, so I began to think that perhaps the buffer spring was just stiff and needed some breaking in. By the time I had about 30 rounds through it, it started feeding normally.About the time the feeding issue got figured out, I was just starting to get the optic fully dialed in when The Incident occurred. I had picked up my gun on the tripod to relocate it a bit when someone entered the range. I went to go talk to them and at some point while talking the tripod fell over (neither of us heard it). It was on shortened legs so it didn't fall far, but it was enough to bend the scope mount. Whoops. So at that point my day of shooting was done, since I didn't have backup sites and my scope was now oriented well off the bore. Now, if I had invested as much in the scope as I had the rifle, I would have been indescribably mad, but fortunately for my dumb self, I super-cheaped out on a supposed unicorn of a 6-24x50mm SFP scope by Twod (assuming it's pronounced Two-Dee, like 2D, hell if I know...) on Amazon, because I couldn't believe you could even make a scope for that cheap, much less something functional. Is it a good scope? Probably not, but it was so ridiculously priced I figured it was worth a try and if it didn't work out I wouldn't be bothered much. Since it was a cheap scope, I put in on a cheap scope mount, and that might have been what ultimately saved it. The mount bent on impact and as a result the gun was not damaged, and as far as I can tell the scope appears to only have minor scrape. I haven't been back to the range to verify yet (I just got it back on a new mount today), but so far it looks like the scope may still be good. I'll update after I get back to try it out.
Prior to the fall, the scope seemed to be working quite well. The glass was clear and had pretty insignificant loss of light transmission at full magnification; the reticle was pretty basic but looked to have decent BDC capabilities, and it had both red and green illumination, though I didn't use it much and I would hesitate to call it daylight bright; the covered turrets had very positive clicks with the ability to reset the zero (but no locking turrets or zero lock); and the eye relief was pretty forgiving at full magnification, and the eye box was decent, but not great. It came with some other accessories like an eyecup and sunshade, but I didn't even bring them to the range. According to ReviewMeta.com, only 4% of the 1000+ reviews are removed for an adjusted rating of 4.3 stars (not sure how well ReviewMeta works these days, but it's been my go-to in the past for weeding out review padding). To get started, this may actually not be a bad optic, however I'm planning on upgrading to an Arken Optics SH4 Gen 2 for Christmas
.So, the rifle works (after some break-in apparently), and the scope may still work (after some breakin'). For anybody interested I'll update here after my next range trip and let you know how it worked out. But bottom line is: I guess I can help my brother build an AR308 now (or 6.5CM, more likely), but I think I'll encourage him to get a builder's kit rather than piece it together like I did.
(Thanks for reading my essay lol, didn't plan for it to be so damn long...)
