Critique my parts list!

[LRRPF52]

My recommendation is to not waste money on any 18" barrel with a MLGS that uses a .0935" gas port, unless you are prepared to dial it in with adjustable gas and a selection of heavy buffers to find the balancing point where it will extract and cycle slowly.

I've spent several range trips that could have been much more productive with a known performer, trying to tame a barrel like that, and it is frustrating because I've never had any cycling issues with correctly ported guns.

I tried to get one working with adjustable gas, and the guy I was doing it for had already waited months, so I sent it to him with the adjustable gas with the recommendation to use an A5 extension and heavier buffer, because I just don't have the time to keep hoping it will work with another tweak, when I can buy known performing barrels for less money, fluted, with the SAAMI chamber that will shoot out of the box, with recoil so pleasant, you barely know you're shooting anything bigger than a .223 Rem

With the gas slightly open on that problem upper, it felt like the buffer was trying to break out of the extension tube. I've never felt an AR15 recoil that hard that I can remember.

My recommendation right now is to go to AA and look at their $195 fluted barrels, and $680-$760 complete uppers. AA has the details of this system ironed out dating back for well over a decade, and the barrel and bolts are the real differences that count the most. Bill spent $10,000 on different reamers alone trying to get the chamber to shoot a wide range of bullets accurately, while running reliably in the AR15.

I talked with him at SHOT about some of the little tweaks that I do on other bolts, and he said he noticed that, and scratched his head wondering why I'm having to radius ejectors. He thought about it, and remembered that back when he first started trouble-shooting, he spec'd the ejector out so that you wouldn't have that problem of the case rim hitting the side of the ejector with a very simple approach that is easy to mass-produce, unlike radiusing ejector faces.

Now that AA is selling barrels again as individual components, I've been ordering them for people that want uppers. I went to de-edge and polish the extension, and saw that it was already done from the factory. Basically, most of the important mods I do from a hand-fitting perspective are done.

After years of not buying factory rifles, I'm looking at AA uppers as a comparable alternative to all the headache I've been going through assembling my own. I still like to Cerakote, but they have a laundry list of hydro-dip options for those who want a camo pattern or even carbon fiber pattern.