Rockey Brass Polymer80 CL Build Kit

RMR, Vicker's Slide Racker, Suppressor Sights, Apex Trigger, Slug Plug not included with kit

Quick Reference List:
Accessory Rail - Picatinny

Glock Holster Compatibility - Maybe, probably not

Slide Compatibility - Gen3, Gen4 with modificaiton

Slide Material - 416 Stainless Steel

Slide Finish - Black Nitride

Optics Cut - Yes, Trijicon RMR pattern
Optics Screw Size - 4-40, hex socket screws included

Lowered Ejection Port - Yes

Parts Kits OEM? - Frame, Yes; Slide, No

Barrel Length - 4.49 inches

Barrel Material - 416R Stainless

Barrel Finish - Black Nitride

Rifling Type - Conventional

Barrel Crown - Recessed

Polymer80 PF940CL Frame

Besides the benefits of not having to go through a licensed dealer, there are a few advantages to using a Polymer80 frame.  Although I don't find the hump at the bottom rear of the grip or finger grooves of a Glock frame to be horrible as some shooters do, I can't find a negative to not having them either.

The trigger guard is undercut.  After my first 2-day pistol class, I got a blister on my middle finger from the Glock trigger guard (the dreaded Glock Knuckle), which made it quite painful just to hold a pistol for a couple weeks.  If you look closely at the photo of the Glock frame below, you will see that it's now undercut for that exact reason.

The Polymer80 frames also have a very aggressive grip texture.  You might find the texture a bit too agressive, but that's easily fixed with sandpaper.  The rail up front is true Picatinny-spec, not the Glock rail, which is a bit unique.

The Polymer80 frames are relieved around the magazine catch button.  This gives the effect of an extended mag catch button, but without  actually increasing the width.

Unfortunately, Polymer80 frames will not fit into most form-fit holsters made for Glock pistols.  Holster shown in the photograph was made specifically to fit a Polymer80 V2 frame, but works just as well for the CL frame.  Since buying that holster, I have gotten set up to make my own Kydex holsters, and have made a couple.  I'm a hobbyist; you don't have to go that far if you don't want to.

I'm one of those people that face-palmed when the Glock 19X was announced.  WTF do I need a short slide with a long grip for?  To each their own, but a compact grip with full-size slide is what I wanted, and that's what the Polymer80 CL frame is.  I wear a man's large glove, and although the grip feels a bit small to hold, I can get all my fingers on it and I don't notice the size of the grip at all when I'm actually shooting.

I was an early-adopter of the CL frame, and not surprisingly, I did encounter a problem.  With the black CL frame that I ordered around Black Friday 2018, holding the trigger back after firing would not allow the slide to return to battery.  Polymer80 sent me a new locking block which fixed the problem.  The blue titanium CL frame that came from Rockey Brass with the kit that I ordered a year later around Labor Day worked properly the first time that I took it out, without issue.

Rockey Brass Blue Titanium Frame Build Kit (Top), Older Black Polymer80 Frame With Glock 17 Slide (Bottom)

I also found that some magazines would not drop free from the early black frame.  When the Polymer80 PF940C (Compact) frames were new, I ordered a grey one from Brownells, and I had the same problem with that one.  The Brownells frame got sent back before I cut anything.  I took some magazines to a gun show, and found a vendor that would let me try magazines in one of their compact frames for sale - same deal; some mags would drop free, but some wouldn't.  I wrapped some plastic bags over a magazine, and stuffed it into the black CL frame that I had warmed up with a heat gun.  Taa Daa!!  All my Glock magazines now drop free.

The blue titanium CL frame from Rockey Brass didn't need to be stretched.  All my magazines dropped free right from the start.

Why wasn't I happy with the standard Glock 19 type frame and slide?  My Gen3 Glock 19 is picky about ammo.  NATO-spec (hotter than +P) and defense ammo cycles the 19 just fine, but a lot of your average off-the-shelf 115gr FMJ ammo is prone to short-stoking and stovepipes.  My Glock 17s are reliable with almost anything you can find off the shelf, although there may potentially be some specialty loads that won't.

The CL frame is a bit of a 2nd generation frame for Polymer80.  It uses a coil spring for the slide lock, rather than the leaf spring typical of Gen1 through 4 Glocks.  This is a change that Glock also did, beginning with the 42.

Between the two CL frames, I've fired 1983 rounds, split between a Glock Gen3 17 slide, a Lone Wolf AlphaWolf 17 RMR-cut slide, and the Rockey Precision 17 slide.

It's not something that I have messed with (yet?), but a couple Polymer80 hobbyists have modified the CL frames to accept Gen4 slides.  Previously, this was a problem with Polymer80 frames, because cutting the frame to work with Gen4 or 5 slides required removing so much material that they broke at the dustcover rail slots.  With Gen4 slides often being cheaper than Gen3 slides, this could be a significant benefit, if you are willing to permanently modify your frame.  Glock never offered a Gen3 M.O.S. (Modular Optic) slide option, so this could be a desireable mod for certain situations.

Slide

I ordered my build kit with the black radiused Glock 17-size slide.  Slide appears to be exactly the same as the Wuelf slides on ebay.  Both Rockey Precision and Wuelf offer either radiused or chamfered slides.  Rockey Brass says they are American made with American 416R stainless billet steel.

The ejection port is enlarged, but only slightly (see photo above with Glock 17 slide and Rockey Precision slide).  Cocking serrations are a bit shallow.  Otherwise, the machining looks decent, without much in the way of tool marks, actually better than some of the Brownells slides.  Finish is semi-gloss Nitride, and looks pretty perfect to me (Wuelf slides have a Cerakote finish).

Slide has an RMR cut with raised bosses around the screw holes.  The cover plate was included in the kit along with 2 each of 2 lengths of screws.  My Trijicon RMR fits quite snugly into the niche cut for it.

Barrel

Rockey Precision 17 Barrel After 2316 Rounds

Rockey Precision 17 Barrel Hood After 2316 Rounds

Chamber Support of Rockey Precision 17 Barrel is good

I've gotten into the habit of checking ammo in new barrels before heading to the range.  Like my CZ-75B, a lot of my reloads would not plunk into the chamber.  Bullets were hitting the rifling and getting stuck.  I tried some factory 115gr ball ammo, and I still had some of those stick in the rifling.

I've had a .38Super/9mm throat/leade reamer since 2008 or so.  I used it to cut the KKM threaded barrel for one of my Glock 17s.  I cut the leade of the Rockey Brass barrel just a little bit, and was able to plunk the 115gr ball loads and some reloads with XTreme plated 147gr bullets.  That was good enough to get the barrel out to the range for live-fire testing.  Initial results were decent.

I let Rockey Brass know about the barrel, and really expected to get a "you messed with it, so now it's your problem," response, but they apologized for the out of spec barrel, and said to let them know if there were any other problems with the barrel.  This is how customer service should be done, folks!

The XTreme bullets shot well from the Rockey Precision barrel.  I never could get these bullets to group from Glock or Rock Island barrels.  From that, I would suspect that if I slugged the barrel, I would find that the bore is in the tighter end of the .355 to .356" range.

With initial testing out of the way, I carefully finished cutting the leade, so that I could shoot just about everything that I have available.

The Rockey Precision barrel was 13 feet per second slower than a genuine Glock 17 OEM barrel, firing rounds from the same box of 124 grain ammo.  I think that difference may be statistically insignificant.

Bore has conventional rifling, so it is safe to shoot cast lead bullets, but check your ammo to make sure it fits the chamber before shooting it through the barrel.  Me personally, I don't bother with cast bullets anymore.  Almost everything that I shoot is polymer coated, which can be used with polygonal-rifled barrels.

The barrel has a recessed crown, which is nice, but maybe not as trendy as a tapered cone crown.  It is a pretty plain-vanilla barrel, in the standard Glock pattern, with no fluting, flashy plating, or cosmetic cuts.

The bore, initially, did not look that great.  After a couple thousand rounds, 950 of which with jacketed bullets, it's now looking pretty nice.  Finish wear on the outside of the barrel is pretty minimal, considering the round count.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the Rockey Precision barrel.  It's nothing special to look at, but I have not experienced any problems that I could trace to the barrel, and accuracy and consistency with a variety of bullets has been very good overall, provided that the shooter was up to the task that day (Ahem!).

Parts Kits

Lower parts kit included with the kit is Glock OEM.  Nothing more to really say about it.  I will note that I installed a Gen4 ejector, rather than the Gen3 ejector that came with the kit.  The Gen3 ejectors are more prone to chucking brass at my head, which is not the end of the world, but is unpleasant and distracting.  I have done this with a few Glock frames also.  I swapped the Glock smooth trigger shoe for an Apex trigger after initial test firing.

Upper parts kit is "Rockey Precision Enhanced Glock Slide Parts Kit."  Here is where things get "interesting."  The recoil spring assembly in the kit appears to be Glock factory.  The guide rod has the same number as any other Glock 17 polymer guide rod.  All the other parts in the slide parts kit appear to be from some aftermarket supplier.  The firing pin and firing pin safety plunger have a bronze coloring (Same as MidwayUSA Swenson brand?).  With the exception of the recoil spring, the springs in the slide parts kit do not appear to be either Wolff or Glock parts.

I have installed a couple channel liners in slides before.  The channel liner in the Rockey Precision kit installed with much less effort than I have experienced before.  I don't know if this is bad or just unusual.

With the slide fully assembled, depressing the firing pin safety in would not allow the firing pin to move freely in the slide like it should.  I believe that this is due to the unknown-manufacture channel liner and/or spring cups.  I wasn't feeling confident about the quality of the slide parts kit at this point, and I was really expecting to have failures to fire.  I made sure to bring a pin punch to the range so that I could swap out the firing pin assembly in the event of light strikes.

The sights included in the kit may or may not be Glock parts.  I'm not really sure, to be honest.  I've never seen a Glock plastic front sight that's held on with a screw, usually they are staked in.  Rear sight looks basically identical to one of the plastic take-off Glock sights I had in my parts box.  At first, I opted to install a Trijicon rear sight, and Hi-Viz front fiber optic sight that I had left over in the parts box.  I bought an RMR a while later, and then installed suppressor height sights.

I put the assembled Rockey Precision slide on a black Polymer80 CL frame that I had already finished with a Gen4 dot connector and polished trigger bar, and measured a trigger pull of around 6 pounds.  This is about a pound and a half higher than it should be.  After some dry firing and range session, it had settled down to about 4 pounds 10 ounces, which is about normal for this set up.

Live Fire

My fears of light strikes seem to have been unfounded.  I initially could not release the slide with the slide stop lever, but it started to break in a bit after slingshotting it a few times.  When using both standard and suppressor height sights, the pistol was and is shooting slightly low.  This isn't so bad with the irons now being back-up sights, but it would bother me if I had just spent $125 on night sights with no elevation adjustment, and I wasn't using an optic.

There was a conveniently-timed Glock Operator course scheduled nearby, not long after buying the kit.  I put the Rockey brass slide and barrel assembly on my now very well-used Glock 17 frame, and took it to the class.  I fired 686 rounds of 115 grain FMJ Independence and Blazer Brass bulk-pack ammunition (I think they are both literally the exact same ammo, all with Blazer headstamp) during the class.  I had 2 failure-to-feed stoppages with my #2 magazine (imagine a poop emoji here), which I had used in a previous class, and it had been dropped on concrete several dozen times, possibly stepped on, and then dropped in mud several times.  With the #2 magazine set aside, there were no more failures.  Those were the only two stoppages I have ever had with the Rockey Brass upper.

Rockey Precision Slide And Barrel Went With Me to Glock Operator Class, But On A Glock 17 Frame

I tried challenging the build with a few different hollowpoint bullets, and a couple hundred rounds of 147 grain flatpoint bullets.  Although some of the hollowpoint loads and the flatpoints were loaded hotter than the usual practice fodder, all fed so smoothly that you wouldn't notice anything unusual going on.

124gr Xtreme Plated Roundnose, 124gr Acme Roundnose, 147gr Black Bullets Flatpoint, 125gr Zero JHP, 124gr Nosler JHP, and 124gr Gold Dot tested in Rockey Brass build kit pistol

Total round count now sits at 2316 rounds, about equally spit between Glock and Polymer80 frames.  I'm confident enough with it now that I carried the Polymer80 CL frame and Rockey Brass slide as my EDC until it got a bit too warm for a jacket.

I would buy another slide and barrel from Rockey Brass, but they have been out of stock every time that I've checked for several months now.

My Holosun HS507C is Dying/Dead

Okay, I guess I've joined the club.  My Holosun HS507C is failing me.  Yes, I knew going in that this was a possibility, but I didn't really think it would happen so soon.

I bought the Holosun from Aim Surplus on April 14th, with the intention of just trying out the slide-ride red dot concept.  I got about 425 rounds of 9mm fired before it started to shut itself off.  Today I took it out, and fired about three rounds, and then the reticle disappeared.  I can turn it back on, which puts it back into auto-brightness mode, which doesn't work well at all, and then a few rounds later it's turned off again.  It is rather hot today, but I know that hot for July in Pennsylvania only qualifies as "warm" for a place like Louisiana.

I have made no attempt to "torture test" the sight.  Never banged it against anything to rack the slide.  This is just 425 rounds of normal use with standard pressure 9mm.

Although changing settings is somewhat complicated with only two buttons, I like the Eotech-type reticle for this kind of application, and was enjoying using the sight.

I filed a warranty claim with Holosun on July 30th.  I haven't yet received any phone calls or emails yet.
EDIT: Received return label on August 7th
EDIT: Replacement sight shipped August 26th

Thoughts on Powder Coated Bullets

I'll give my nutshell opinion on pistol bullets. Jacketed bullets are great, but are about the most expensive bullets you can buy, and my range no longer allows them when shooting steel targets after one range officer took a trip to the ER after getting hit with a bullet jacket. Plated bullets, in my experience are tempermental - you will get huge groups if you don't flare the case mouth enough or the crimp cuts into the plating. Lubed cast lead bullets are fine and cheap, but if you rapid fire, you'll end up standing in a cloud of nasty acrid smoke, especially if you use a hot-burning powder like TiteGroup. Powder coating adds a little cost over cast bullets, but you don't get as much smoke, and I get 50 extra feet per second, plus you can use them in polygonal barrels without lead buildup in most cases. Coated bullets are kind of the best compromise, provided that you are not going for ultimate bullseye accuracy.

I will throw in a quick note, that I will not buy Black Bullets again. I measured diameters with a micrometer, and checked the variation in bullet weight, and they were horrible. I don't know if Roger's Better Bullets are cost effective if you need to mail order, but they were three times more consistent in weight in diameter compared to Black Bullets.

Snapsafe Titan XL Modular Safe Review

After putting it off for way too long, I finally bought a proper safe.  After much research and a few calculations, I finally decided that a large modular safe is what I wanted.  I believe that there are currently only two options for that - Zanotti Armor, and Snapsafe.  Zanotti doesn't offer much in the way of fire protection, and Snapsafe seem to offer decent fire protection, so I placed an order for a Snapsafe Super Titan XL.  Price was a buck under $2000 shipped, but it may be different when you read this.  There are smaller, less expensive safes available if you don't need, or can't afford, a safe that will hold 30-something firearms.

I guess I should also note at this point that Zanotti is, and has been, several months behind on filling orders, and Snapsafe keeps stock.

I ordered mine with the mechanical lock, because the keypad for the electronic lock simply lifts off, and the housing is made of plastic.  I have a smaller quick-access safe.  I don't mind if it takes a couple minutes to dial the mechanical lock on the big safe.  The mechanical lock seems fine.  No regrets.

The safe was delivered in a honeycomb cardboard crate on a pallet.  The driver put it in my garage.  Usually if you buy a safe, they won't take it beyond the curb, unless you pay to have it installed.

Getting the top, bottom, and sides of the safe into the basement was cake.  Pulling the door off the front of the safe, and getting that down wasn't nearly as bad as I thought.  The door is smaller than what Zanotti uses, but the Snapsafe door is easier to manage.  I can live with the smaller door.

Now, it was time to move the back of the safe from my garage, up the stairs to the front door, and down the stairs to the basement.  The back panel of the safe weighs about 200 pounds, and measures 38x59", so it's both quite heavy and bulky.  Can't slide it down the stairs, because it will threaten to run away and crush whoever is on the downhill side against the wall at the bottom of the stairs.  Don't attempt to even move this without a shoulder dolly set, so put that in the budget.  If you have a pair of steel-toe shoes or boots, wear them, and really consider buying a $30 pair at WalMart if you don't have them.  Kinda lost control of it, when getting to the overhang at the bottom of the stairs, and the damn thing threatened to kill me, but at that point, I could let it go, and it couldn't do too much damage to the stairs or walls.

Attempting to assemble the safe, I discovered that the sides of the safe were bowed out, and I couldn't get the holes to line up with the studs attached to the back of the safe.  Thought about slotting the holes, but there are a lot of them, and was afraid that the sides of the safe would still look bowed out after I tightened everything down, which would tip off anyone that it wasn't an ordinary safe.  Redneck ingenuity - put a ratchet strap around the sides, and crank on it until those bastards submit.  SUCCESS!  Holes now lined up and 5 out of 6 sides are now mated.  Add $12-15 to the budget if you don't have a ratchet strap.

The front of the safe, having a big hole cut out of it for the door, was not nearly as hard to manage as the back of the safe.  Grab a(nother) beer, the hard part is over.  Line up the front with the sides and top, thread on a few nuts, remove the ratchet strap, and you're almost done.

I secured the safe to the concrete basement floor with drop-in anchors and 3/8" bolts.  The Snapsafe people recommend 1/4" wedge bolt anchors*, but then I'd have to pick the damn thing up off the studs to move it, or disassemble it.  NUTS TO THAT!  It's back in a corner to make it harder to break into, and that also makes it that much harder to pick up.  The drop-in anchors are seated below the surface of the floor.  Four of the anchors, the tool to set them, and standard 3/8" bolts I think were less than $15 from Lowe's.

None of the panels were drilled for the cord of a dehumidifier or lighting.  You will probably want to at least install a Golden Rod dehumidifier, so have a drill bit ready for cutting an appropriate hole in the safe for that, and a rubber grommet for that hole is highly recommended.  Drill the hole before you start to install the interior.

Last step is to reinstall the fireproofing panels, and maneuver the interior panels into place.  Ran into a snag with the interior panels.  The sticker on the left interior panel was on upside down.  It was obvious that either the sticker on the right or left panel was wrong.  I had a 50/50 chance of guessing which one was right.  So, obviously, I guessed wrong.  Because the side panels have rails for hanging the shelving, I couldn't get the bottom panel in.  The rails were in the way.

With the interior installed properly, I put the big shelf up high, and rifle holders around the outside, but you could install more shelves for pistols, cameras, or whatever if you wanted.  The safe comes with multiple interior options, so that you can configure how you like.

Once you get the interior installed, you need to hang the door.  After dealing with the back panel of the safe, hanging the door on the hinges seemed like a piece of cake.  Although it would probably be easier to do with two people, I managed it on my own.  Remove the inside panel of the door, use the key to change the combination, and I'm finally done.  Took me a couple days altogether, a couple trips to ACE Hardware, and a trip to Lowe's for the anchors, but now it's all done.

Breaking into the safe should be quite difficult, since it's anchored to concrete, and can't be tipped over.  There's a wall in the way, so prying it open where it stands should be quite difficult.  If you could pry it up from the floor, you'd have to get the big, 600 pound safe plus contents down the hall.  The railing at the bottom of the basement stairs is actually a part of the wall, so you'd have to tear that down first, before even considering getting the safe up the stairs.  I'm not sure you could get it out the front door without removing the railing outside, and even then you'd have to try to negotiate the stairs and a small landing that abuts the garage.  You'd have to take down part of the fence, and remove a 7-foot evergreen tree if you took it out the back door.  These are a few of the reasons why I didn't buy a welded safe.  I didn't think it was geometrically possible to get a safe the size that I wanted into the basement where I wanted it, and I surely would have needed more help.  Buying and installing two smaller safes rather than one large one would have been cost prohibitive.  I don't know that the Snapsafe is as secure as a Liberty safe, or similar high-end safe, but I knew going in that I was making a compromise.  "You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well you just might find you get what you need."

A modular safe is maybe not the optimal security solution, but is probably adequate in most situations, and almost certainly better than the thin-gage gun lockers (i.e. Homak, Stack-On).


* - I don't think they really meant 1/4".  Perhaps someone made a typo, or had difficulty with metric to SAE conversion.  The holes in the bottom of the safe are about 1/2" in diameter, which is the diameter of a drop-in anchor for a 3/8" bolt.  A wedge bolt anchor really isn't a bolt at all.  A wedge bolt anchor is actually a stud, and they sell them with a nut that drives the wedge, and secures whatever you need attached to the concrete.

Rock Island 1911 FS GI 9mm Review

Rock Island 9mm with some minor modifications

I picked up a Rock Island Armory 1911A1 5" FS (full-size, i.e. 5" Government Model) GI 9mm pistol from Sarco for about $430 with tax and transfer.  It's basically a replica of a Post-1985 Colt Series 70 pistol, not really a replica of anything that was issued by the U.S. military, at least not in large numbers.  The ejection port is lowered an flared, and the the thumb safety has a little bit of a shelf, rather than the little bitty tab of the G.I. thumb safety.  I didn't want the Tactical model, because the grip safeties do not fit very well, the triggers are not adjustable for pre-travel, and I didn't want to use Novak-type sights.  The RIA GI model is more of a blank canvas.

Why 9mm?  Well, I already have a 1911 in .45ACP, and I shoot a lot more 9mm, like 12 times more.  I have buckets full of 9mm brass.

The pistol came in a plastic hard case with one Mec-Gar 10-round magazine, and a chamber flag.  That's all.  The recoil spring is about 12 pounds, and the bushing is loose in the slide, so you really don't even need a bushing wrench.  A G.I. style L-shaped tool (as shown in photos above, purchased separately) with a slotted screwdriver and pin punch would be a nice and inexpensive addition for detail stripping and tightening grip screws (more on that a bit later).

Out of the box, I measured the trigger pull at 4 pounds, 10 ounces, which puts it about half way in the advertised range of 4-6 pounds.  A trigger job got it down to a crisp 3 pounds, 10 ounces (EDIT: trigger job settled in to about 3 pounds after a couple thousand rounds).  I couldn't get any lower without hammer follow or making the reset weaker than I would like.  The hammer and sear are cast or probably Metal-Injection-Molded (MIM).  The hooks on the hammer were not terribly long, but they were pretty rough, and hooked (not 90-degrees).  The sear had a smooth edge, but no break-away cut.  I'm not sure how long that trigger job will last.  Hammers and sears EDM cut from hardened steel will last much longer than cast or MIM parts.

Stocks are completely smooth, plain wood with a surprisingly low density.  They almost feel like balsa wood.  I think they are comfortably sized, but provide no traction.  I did have the grips screws (plain slotted) loosen frequently with the wood panels, and I believe this was due to the screws sinking into the soft wood over time.  I know these are only a cheap placeholder, so that's all I'll say about the grips.

The pistol passed safety checks - thumb safety blocks the sear, and grip safety blocks the trigger.  I have not had any trouble disengaging the grip safety.  Thumb safety is single-side Colt Series 70 style.  The thumb safety firmly snicks on and off.  Not sure if the firing pin spring is extra power or not, but the firing pin is steel.  I'm not sure that the firing pin would pass a drop safety test the way the Springfield 1911s with titanium firing pins will, although it seems that RIA .38 Super and .45ACP pistols pass the safety test for sale in California, so I could be wrong.

The GI grip safety is not terribly comfortable, even on a 9mm pistol.  The tail on the grip safety is narrow, and is not at all rounded.  I didn't know what was going on, at first.  It seemed like the pistol was kicking far more than a 9mm full-size all-steel 1911 should.  After several shooting sessions, I noticed a callus had developed on the web of my hand.  The hammer was biting me, but not drawing blood.  Bobbing and rounding the hammer and "melting" the underside of grip safety tail make it a much more comfortable pistol to shoot.  After this modification, I fired over 200 rounds in one session with no discomfort.  It's like a completely different experience.  Changing to a commander hammer, and notching the grip safety to clear is a common fix for the same problem.

Although the barrel seems to lock up pretty well, the bushing is quite loose in the slide.  The slide also rattles on the frame a bit.  Best groups were about 2" offhand groups at 50 feet, which is about on par with most service pistols, but not as good as a match pistol.  A bushing that fits tighter to the slide and barrel would likely tighten up groups significantly, and a rear sight with a smaller notch would also help.  There is a lot of light showing on either side of the skinny little front sight.

First groups were about 2 inches high, and an inch and half to the left.  It is my intention to take or send the slide to a gunsmith to have it milled for a Bo-Mar adjustable sight, and have it flat-topped and serrated.  I can drift the rear sight for windage, but have no way to fix the elevation other than filing down the rear sight.  I tried 115, 124, and 147 grain bullets, and it always shoots high.

Reliability with standard velocity round-nose ammo is 100%, apart from magazine-related issues.  147gr flat-points were jammed hard into the ramp at the bottom edge of the barrel.  I got a couple of the flat-points into the chamber to fire, but I gave up after about 6 3-point jams.  The barrel appeared to be throated, and thus you would think would feed flat-point bullets.  That ramp at the bottom edge of the barrel is nearly vertical and the flat points just run right into it and stop dead.  Apparently this is not uncommon, as the manual says to use FMJ only, and other users report that their RIA 9mm pistols won't feed flat-point or hollowpoint ammo.  This is not exclusive to RIA pistols, as there are others with 9mm 1911s with non-ramped barrels reporting the same problem.

I'm debating whether I'm really that interested in buying a ramped barrel.  A good semi-drop-in barrel, with bushing pre-fit (Bar-Sto, Kart, Nowlin. . .) runs more than 50% of the price of the pistol.  The tools to gunsmith-fit a match barrel and bushing alone would cost more than the initial price of the pistol.  Take these costs into consideration when you look at pricing of something like a Dan Wesson, Les Baer, or STI pistol which might set you back $1200 or more.

My 7 magazines drop free.  Getting the slide to lock back with the three Metalform magazines required bending the tab on the follower out to the left side.  The steel follower of the Mec-Gar has the same problem, but can not be adjusted.  I may try to get Mec-Gar to send me one of the newer plastic followers, and see if that works better.  My 3 Chip McCormick 10-round magazines have been working well, so far.

Modest bevel on the bottom edges of the slide, except for the slide catch notch, which is left square.

The magazine well is modestly beveled.  The bottom edges of the slide also have a small bevel - a nice touch.  Ejector is extended, but I believe that all 9mm ejectors are extended.  The pistol comes with a flat steel (not plastic) mainspring housing without any silly lock, although I changed it out for an arched Colt mainspring housing, because I'm used to the hump on a Glock grip.

Finish is a decent-looking and even dark-grey phosphate (Parkerized), at least it was before I clamped the slide in a vise and had to wail on the rear sight for 25 minutes to get it to move just a little to the right.  The matte black, "murdered out" look is kinda growing on me.  I added an extended Wilson slide-stop which is a matte blue, and it's a little darker in color, but you'd have to look pretty close to notice.  When I bobbed the hammer and "melted" the tail on the grip safety, I refinished with cold blue, and again, it's not something most people would notice without looking closely.

The bore was also phosphated, which I wasn't crazy about.  After 2000 rounds, I thoroughly cleaned the barrel, including running the Lewis lead remover through a bunch of times and using aggressive solvent.  The barrel now has a dull shine, and the phosphate finish has worn away.  The rifling is sharp and well-defined.  It's not up to the level of an old Colt or Smith & Wesson, or a match barrel, but let's remember that I bought the pistol new for less than $430 out-the-door.  EDIT: After a couple thousand rounds the Park has worn away, but still doesn't have the polished bore of a really good barrel.

Fortunately, RIA no longer puts a giant Rock Island billboard on the left side of the slide.  There is only a small white logo on the left side behind the cocking serrations.  This I will polish out eventually, before I get the slide blued.

As the base for a hobby gunsmithing project, it's a pretty good place to start - that's really why I bought it.  For a range pistol, it's okay, but you're probably never going to draw a crowd unless you paint is pink or zombie green.  For action matches, it will probably do well-enough with an adjustable sight, as bullseye accuracy isn't usually necessary.  The stock sights being actual G.I. style, are notorious for being hard to find.  Because of the feeding problem with non-round bullets, I don't recommend taking it out of the box, and using it as a defense pistol.  Keeping the bargain-basement price in mind, I guess it's not a bad deal.  It's only about 60% the price of a Springfield Range Officer, so you have some money to buy grips, a larger thumb safety, maybe a magazine well and beavertail grip safety and jig, and fit a tighter bushing, if that's what you want.  The Range Officer does come with an adjustable rear sight, fiber-optic front sight, and a ramped barrel, however.

Modifications as pictured - Wilson Combat extended slide stop lever and magazine catch.  Wolff 17 pound mainspring*.  Wolff sear spring.  Colt arched mainspring housing.  Ed brown reduced power mag catch spring.  Nowlin long match trigger.  Fusion small-radius stainless firing pin stop.  ProMag Tough Grips.  EDIT: Added EGW National Match bushing, which installed in about 10 minutes using a Dremel with a cratex cylinder, and a few file strokes on the lug.  The barrel now locks up TIGHT.

I'm not even close to being done with this pistol yet.  My intention is to build an 80's style custom pistol, complete with period holster rig.  Think along the lines of Pachmayr custom shop, Jim Hoag, and Richard Heinie.  Something that would've made Magnum P.I. drool, and considering trading in his Ferrari to free up some cash to get work done on his plain vanilla Mk.IV.  Maybe one of the dumbest ideas I've ever had, because I'll probably never be able to sell it, much less get out of it what I put into it in the 21st century.

Related Links:
Building a Low-Buck Shooter
Brownells Gun Tech - Jack Weigand 2 1/2 pound trigger pull instructions
Armscor/Rock Island Armory Home Page

* - Discovered that the Rock Island 9mm mainspring is 18 pound.  Didn't really need to change it, but I already had a 17 pound spring, and I didn't have to disassemble the RIA mainspring housing, which is a little tricky.

Magazine Update; Korean Glock and AR-15

Korean Glock Magazines

I have a bunch of these, both 15 and 17 round 9mm magazines.  Initially, there were some that were not dropping free when empty, but they have "broken in" and now do drop free from multiple pistols.  I've been in the habit of always taking a Korean mag along when I take a Glock out for some practice, which is pretty often.

Loading the 15-round magazines, along with a couple of Glock factory magazines, I noticed that Korean magazines were noticeably easier to load.  Although I haven't used the Korean magazines all that much, the springs had compressed a bit, and were just a little bit longer than the mag tube.  To the credit of the Koreans, the mags actually never failed.  Regardless, I replaced the Korean springs with Wolff extra power springs, and the Korean magazines soldier on.

All the magazine springs have some use on them.

The KCI spring wire diameter is 0.045".  The Glock magazine spring wire diameter is 0.051".  The Wolff magazine spring wire diameter is 0.048", but is obviously a much longer spring.  It doesn't seem like a lot, but I think you can see that the Korean spring is smaller.

The 17-round magazines don't seem to have this problem, or at least it hasn't manifested yet.

The Korean magazines are significantly cheaper than Glock factory magazines, but consider the added expense of the replacement spring before you buy.  Centerfire Systems sells the Korean mags for $8 and $13 each, and I wouldn't pay very much more than that.  Brownells sells 3-packs of Wolff magazine springs for $18, IIRC.

And yes, I'm sure that that is the right Wolff spring for that magazine, and yes, I can still get 15 rounds into that magazine.

Lancer AWM AR-15 Magazine

I've been trying out one of the opaque black 30-round Advanced Warfare Magazines for a little while.  I was just about to add it to my SHTF stash.  This weekend I was shooting one my carbines, and when I inserted the AWM magazine into the rifle, I noticed that a round popped loose into the action.  Although it struck me as odd, I cleared it, and continued on.  I came home, loaded the magazine back up, and tried that a few more times.  I tried downloading the magazine 1, 2, and 3 rounds.  When inserting the magazine "with vigor," but not abusively hard, I was able to duplicate the failure over and over again.  Dropping the magazine from two and a half to three feet onto a carpeted floor will also release a round about half the time.

I think I bought 3 of these.  I don't think I'll buy any more.

Oh, one of my older Lancer L5 magazines does it too.  D'oh!

It would seem that I am not alone.  Did some searching, and I found a m4carbine.net member, G19A3, had reported the following.

Although I cannot recommend Lancers either, I loved the translucency, but found that they tend to "waterfountain" a round or three when slapped in authoritatively on a bolt-locked-back condition. I experienced this with 30rd Lancer L5's and the later 20rd AWM's. I roll only Colt or OKay USGI 20rd & 30rd aluminum mags now. I'm still hoping one day for a translucent mag that doesn't do this. Someone indicated on another thread they have tested the new HK translucent mags for this and they are GTG in that respect, but I haven't tried them yet. I understand AUG mags do this too in a bolt-locked-back condition. Must be something about the polymer to make a translucent mag, even with metal reinforced lips like the Lancers.

CAA MAG17 AR-15 Magazine

The last couple of times I took this magazine out, I had bolt-over-base malfunctions.  This is with two different brands of ammunition.  Never had this happen before with this rifle.

I had it happen twice within about 12 rounds with Wolf Gold .223 Remington, 55 grain FMJ.  I unloaded the magazine, and loaded the remaining rounds into another magazine, and continued shooting without issue.  Went through 4 other different magazines (that day), without issue.  It's hard to draw any conclusion, other than that the CAA magazine is the problem.

The CAA MAG17 also will not firmly lock into the ACR.  The notch for the magazine catch is a little small, and I guess the ACR mag catch is a little larger than that of an AR-15 or M-16/M4.

Fortunately, I only bought one of these.  I like the features of the MAG17, but I'd rather have magazines that don't induce malfunctions.

PSA Pigsticker and Rainier XTC Comp Update

A while back, I bought a Pigsticker compensator from Palmetto State Armory, and put it on a 10.5" barrel.  Although it seemed to work fine, the muzzle flash was ridiculous. (Original Post)

Yesterday, I swapped the comp over to my 16" Spike's Tactical 5.45x39mm upper, and today I took it out to do some shooting.  Unfortunately, all is still not well.  The comp shoved the muzzle down hard and to the left.  I also couldn't get the tip of my pull-through cleaning rod out through the end of the comp.  No flash that I noticed, though.

The Rainer XTC did fare much better.  While I had the barrel vice blocks out, I put the XTC on my LMT 16" M4gery  Although there is a bit of concussion, there was no tuning fork "ting," and not too much muzzle lift.  Unfortunately, I had another Tula steel shell case get stuck hard in the chamber, cutting short that shooting session.  Even if I had a cleaning rod, it took a half dozen hard hits with a dead-blow hammer to remove it.

Quick Bushmaster ACR Update

I'm up to 1110 rounds through the ACR with no lubrication, and without cleaning the action.  The manual says that no lubrication is necessary, so I've been running it completely dry.  It doesn't seem to be doing any harm.  I have cleaned the bore and chamber though, hoping to squeeze a little more accuracy out of it.

I've tried a bunch of "match" loads through it, trying to get a decent group, but the best groups I've gotten have been around 2" at 100 yards.  These same loads have been around .9" to 1 1/8" out of my LMT M4.  I tried removing and reinstalling the barrel, and really snugging down the barrel nut.  I tried supporting the handguard at the middle, and back toward the magazine well.  I checked to make sure my rifle rest was solidly locked down and screwed together tight.  Getting a really good group out of the ACR is proving to be frustrating.  My best load to date through the LMT has been a round with a Midway 55gr varmint bullet, which the ACR puts into sloppy 3 inch groups.  Maybe some of the lighter MatchKing or Hornady bullets will do a little better from the ACR, fingers crossed.

I'm not sure if the 1:7" twist barrels are available yet.  They have been extremely slow introducing barrels for the civilian market, which kind of makes the "A" for adaptive kind of a joke.  Mine is a 1:9" twist.  I was told that 1:9" twist barrels will sometimes shoot heavy bullets just fine, so I tried some.  The Nosler 77gr Custom Competition bullets just sort of sprayed.  I actually couldn't keep them all on a 14x14" target.  It was really that bad.  75gr Hornady match bullets did very much better, but still didn't produce anything resembling an impressive group.  69 grain MatchKings were good, but still not impressive.

But at least it runs.  It's chewed through the softest shooting ammo that I could find, and obviously has no problem with hot 5.56mm spec ammo.  Steel case ammo has not yet posed a problem, at least not with the ACR.

It does have magazine preferances, but then most rifles do, to some extent.  A Fusil steel magazine or two have seemed to lock in, and pass the pull test, only to fall back out when a shot is fired (embarrasing).  A couple of my old English SA80 steel magazines lock in well, but then you have to really mash the magazine release to get them back out again.  But the ACR chugs along happily with G.I. aluminum magazines, PMags of various generations and capacities, TangoDown, C Products stainless steel, Lancer and Troy magazines.  I'm not sure if Fusil is even still making magazines, and I suspect that a lot of the old English steel SA80 magazines have been crushed, scrapped, or trashed, as 3 of the 5 that I bought in 2002 have proven to be sub-par.

Oh, and I dumped the trigger that came with the rifle.  I bought a Geissele SSA-Enhanced AR-15 trigger on sale from Palmetto State Armory, and installed it with the ACR hammer spring, which doubles as the selector detent spring.  Soooo much better.  I run an SSA in my main AR-15, and I've got another with a 15-minute trigger job.  The ACR trigger really sucked compared to both, and couldn't even compete with a Tapco AK trigger.  I usually take 2 rifles with me when I got to shoot, and the ACR always came in 2nd place because the trigger pull was always heavier than whatever else I took.  Just unpleasantly heavy if you have anything to compare it to.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't so quick an update.

Palmetto State Armory Pigsticker Compensator

Here is the video I put up on YouTube.  It's a little less than two and a half minutes.  I spent way too much time on it, struggling with Windows Live Movie Maker, restarting my computer about a dozen times before I got it all together and working properly.

Since I was rebuilding one of my AR-15 uppers anyway, I decided that I should try a compensator.  I would have preferred a BattleComp, but was not willing to pay the price for one.  There are a few options for similar comps, and the one that I chose was the Pigsticker from Palmetto State Armory.  Things did not go exactly to plan.  Although muzzle flip is minimal. . .

That upper will get it's A2 flash-suppressor back, and I'll probably put the Pigsticker on a 16" barrel at some point in the future, to see how that goes.  When that happens, I'll put up another video.

UPDATE, 2/9/2014

Cerakote After 4 Weeks

My first attempt at refinishing was with Lauer Durabake.  You can read the review, if you like, but to make the long story short, is that it's basically very expensive spray paint, with the added inconvenience that you need to bake it.

Next, I tried Lauer Duracoat.  It fared better, but still isn't great.  I took an old belt buckle, with the nickel plating worn off, and sprayed it with flat black Duracoat, per the instructions.  By the end of a week, it was showing wear.  At the end of a month, about half of the Duracoat had worn off.  What didn't wear off, was no longer matte black, it was more like satin black.

The Duracoat seems to work well on Parkerized steel, but it could be that any old dye would work just as well.  The Duracoat applied to raw metal is not what I'd call a miracle finish though, and mixing it for application is no fun.

The Durakote color needs to be mixed in a 12 to 1 ratio with hardener.  Thinner is optional.  If you were spraying a riflestock or something large, this maybe not such a big deal, but if you are spraying small parts, it really gets to be a pain in the butt.  The method that I used for measuring out the color and hardener was to use a disposable dropper, and count the drips.  Yes, it was very tedious.

Cerakote is becoming quite popular now.  Colt is using it on their 1911 rail guns.  GA Precision uses it on their custom rifles.  The Canik CZ75-based pistols are offered with Cerakote finishes.

Not satisfied with the handguard that came with a Tapco Flat Dark Earth SKS stock (the rail is kind of useless and annoying), I wanted to use more traditionally-shaped Choate handguard, but it was black, and didn't match.  Although the oven-cure Cerakote is supposed to be a little more durable, I could not use it on the plastic handguard.  The air-cure Cerakote is also rated to higher temperatures than the oven-cure Cerakote, and the oven-cure Cerakote is a two-part mix like the Duracoat.

Since the Flat Dark Earth is a tan sand color, and I live in Pennsylvania, where there's no desert that I know of, so I decided to respray the whole Tapco stock.  Since there's not much green here from about October to April, I decided on Coyote Brown, sometimes called Coyote Tan.  Air-dry Cerakote is offered in a color called Coyote Tan.

The plate carrier is a Tactical Assault Gear Shellback Banshee, "Coyote Tan."  The little snap-close pouch is U.S. military surplus, Olive Drab.  Next to that mil-surp pouch is the SKS handguard that I sprayed with "Coyote Tan" Cerakote, and it pretty much stands out like a sore thumb.  The Cerakote is a lighter color than the nylon.  The mag pouches are HSGI, "Coyote Brown."

Condor Hydration Carrier, "Coyote Tan," with the "Coyote Tan" Cerakote SKS handguard sitting on top of it.  The Coyote Cerakote doesn't really match any of the nylon gear.  The Coyote Cerakote is a sort of weird color that seems a little unnatural.  It doesn't match tree bark, and I've never seen sand that color.  I don't have an actual coyote to compare it to.

The air-cure Cerakote dries to the touch pretty quickly.  You will need an airbrush, Preval sprayer, or air compressor and spray gun to apply it.  I used a Testors Aztek airbrush kit.  You will also need some kind of degreaser (I used KG-3), and some sandpaper (I used 220 grit) to give metal parts some "tooth" for the finish to grab on to.  I didn't sand the plastic handguard, it had a fairly rough finish already, I just cleaned it.

To test out the Cerakote, I resprayed the belt buckle.

Day 0

Day 0, Different Angle

After a 8 days, the resprayed belt buckle is showing very little wear.  The only spot showing significant wear is the spot where the tongue bears against the buckle.  The leather of the belt is not wearing the Cerakote, which bodes well for holster-carried pistols.

After 2 weeks, there is a new little scratch, but otherwise still holding up very well.

I see now that the wear that I saw at 2 weeks was all from metal-to-metal contact.  Not sure why the finish has now worn off the tip of the tongue or the bottom corner of the buckle.  It's possible that I didn't get these spots very well coated.  I don't see any wear from the leather belt at all.  The Cerakote is kicking the Duracoat's ass, and is pretty easy to apply.  It's not as good as melonite or hard chrome, but you can't do either of those in your garage at home, and neither can be easily touched up.

Cerakote is expensive compared to garden variety spray paint, but is a lot more durable, and extremely heat resistant.  Price some factory auto paint, and there's not really that much difference, price-wise   Although you can buy Parkerizing kits, most don't come with the stainless steel tank required for application, and it only works for steel.  I think Cerakote is worth it.

More Tula .223Rem Fail

I was out shooting some more Tula .223 Remington steel-case ammo, and had a couple more failures.  This time it was a stuck case, one of the things I had been warned about with steel-case ammo.  The extractor would not hold onto the rim.  I had an AK-74 cleaning rod with me, but it wasn't long enough to knock the case out.  I have a Colt bolt with the gold extractor spring, black insert, and Crane o-ring installed in this rifle.  The extractor is still completely intact.  I only had 4 30-round magazines through a clean upper, with a clean chamber.  I have never had this problem with brass-case ammo.  I don't know what else to call it but an ammo failure.

I also experienced a fraction-of-a-second hang-fire.  The Geisselle trigger in the lower I was using was installed for shooting 5.45x39mm Russian surplus ammo, and gives the primers a good smack, so that should not have been an issue.  Again, I have to call ammo failure.

Would I buy any more?  Eh, I don't know.  It's about as cheap as you're going to get in this caliber, but it won't run in one of my rifles, and apparently cakes the chamber with carbon fouling.  I guess for shooting cheaper ammo, I will stick to 5.45x39mm, which at least has a tapered shell casing.  The Spike's 5.45x39mm upper has been running well, now that I have the magazines figured out.

At the moment, there is probably none in stock anywhere anyway.  What there is available is likely marked up so high, that you'd have to be a fool to buy it.  Black rifles, lowers, and "high-capacity" magazines have been selling like crazy over the last 7 days, and finding anything in stock at a reasonable price is getting nearly impossible.

Review: Primary Arms Red Dot Sights

I bought a bunch of Primary Arms red dot sights when they ran a sale a few years ago.

Bright Enough
One of the biggest things to be careful of, when buying cheaper dot sights, is to make sure they are going to work in bright sunlight.  I sucks when you go out shooting with someone, and then you have to explain to them that you can't shoot now, because your dot isn't bright enough to see against the target.  What's worse is when you've traveled to a match, and paid your entry fee and then discover that your sight no worky.  Fortunately, the Primary Arms sights don't have that problem.  The dots in the PA sights can be made bright enough to work in bright daylight.

Blue Tint :(
When I took the M3 clone out of the box, and looked through it, the blue tint of the lenses was immediately noticeable.  I didn't immediately notice the tint with the Micro clones, but it is there, though not as bad as the M3 clone.

The blue tint of the M3 clone is not a deal-breaker, as far as I'm concerned, but it is sort of annoying.  The tint of the micros is barely unnoticeable

Battery Life
One of things you lose, over a real Aimpoint, is battery life.  An Aimpoint M2 will go about 3 years, left on, on a single battery.  The new Aimpoints with the ACET circuits are said to go 5 years.  The Primary Arms sights will not go nearly that long, but I have not personally measured battery life.

I left one of my micros left on for about 9 days with the battery that came with the sight.  When I went to pick up the rifle again, the battery was dead.  I replaced the battery with an Energizer.  I have since left it on for a few days, before realizing that I left it on, and that Energizer will still operates the sight just fine.  So battery life is good, but not as ridiculously long as the Aimpoints.

I don't think I've replaced the batteries in the M3 clones, though I don't use the uppers that they are mounted to as much as I use the uppers with the micros.  A little research shows owners of PA micros and M3 clones reporting about 200 hours battery life.

The M3 clones run on 357 button batteries (that's pretty easy to remember), and the Micros run on 2032 coin batteries (same as the Aimpoint Micros).  These batteries are easy to find and inexpensive at Wal-Mart, and if you are in a pinch, at drug stores and other places that sell electronics for about twice the price, maybe more.  Keep spares in your range bag, your pistol grip, vertical grip, or stock.

Primary Arms Micro QD Riser Mount
The PA micros, with detachable Picatinny mounts, should work with any mount that is made for an Aimpoint Micro.  There are some Primary Arms micros with built-in mounts though.  Primary Arms offers a QD mount high enough to co-witness with back-up or fixed sights on an AR-15, as long as you aren't using the Troy Micro BUIS made for the HK 416 uppers.

The sliding button that locks the lever in place has a stiff spring.  The locking lever itself is rather stiff to operate also.  It's not as good as the American Defense mount that I bought for the real Aimpoint T-1, but the Primary Arms mount is three-eighths the price of the AD mount, and less than a third the price of the Larue mount, so it's kind of hard to complain.  The PA riser mount works, and it's very inexpensive.  It's just not very slick, and it's made in China, or some such place, while most of the other more expensive options are made in America.

AK Platform Use
If you are going to mount a micro sight on an AK with an Ultimak gas tube or TWS Dogleg mount, and you want the micro and iron sights to co-witness, then you'll want one with the built-in mount (model MD-07), not a detachable mount (models MD-06, or MD-08).  The Primary Arms micro with detachable mount I have on the WASR-10 with Ultimak sits too high to co-witness.  The built-in mount would also probably be desirable for mounting on a pistol with a scope rail.  Primary Arms Blog: Why Three Versions of the Micro Sight?

The PA micro sight that I mounted on the Ultimak does get warm after shooting a few magazines through the rifle.  Although it did come loose, the heat doesn't seem to have done any harm to the sight.  I haven't bump-fired drum magazines, but everything seems to be good to go.

Micro Kill Flash
One option available from Primary Arms, but not available from Aimpoint is a micro red dot optic with a screw-in Kill Flash.  If you are not familiar, a Kill Flash is a honeycomb disk that hides the light from the LED emitter from everyone not looking directly through the tube.  Kind of silly, for something that's not really a combat optic, but I credit PA for innovation.

Primary Arms Micro Kill Flash

I tried taking the Kill Flash from my Aimpoint M2, and screwing it into the Primary Arms M3-clone.  The Primary Arms sight seems to be too small in diameter, and the castle nut holding in the front lens goes right up to the front edge of the tube anyway.  No go.

The Verdict
If you need a red dot optic for a plinker, or even a competition gun, definitely consider a Primary Arms sight.  Probably skip the Kill Flash though.

Besides the blue tint, there isn't really anything that I have to complain about.  I haven't had any mechanical or electronic issues.

Durability seems very good.  The lens covers on the M3-clones are holding up, which is surprising for "freebies," considering that I've had several sets just fall apart with normal use, including Butler Creek covers.    The bikini lens cover from one of the micros broke, but that sometimes happens with the Aimpoint Micro lens covers too.  If you look on YouTube, there is a video of a Primary Arms micro sight getting tossed around and dropped on the concrete pad of a shooting range, then picked up, and it's still working.  Placed back on the rifle, it's still holding zero.

97SVTVERT Torture Testing A Primary Arms Micro Sight

For a defensive firearm?  Well, they do hold a zero pretty well.  You can't leave them on, like you might with an Aimpoint, but if you have iron sights co-witnessed through the optic then you should be fine, just turn the sight on when you need it.  Maybe not optimal, but workable and a lot cheaper than an Aimpoint.  Don't spend ALL your money on optics, and not have money left over for ammo.  Live-fire practice is important to develop the software needed to be effective, don't skip it to buy better hardware that you don't really need.

I will also caution you not to buy cheap, and then ending up buying twice.  If you are going to end up with a quality optic eventually, consider holding off and saving your money.  I knew when I bought my Primary Arms sights that I could always put them on rimfires or airsoft guns.  The tan M4 in the photo above is actually an airsoft gun.  The AR upper with the M3-clone at the top of the group photo is a 9mm upper that I bought for practice at indoor pistol ranges, and that sight isn't going anywhere.

If you think the blue tint of the M3-clone might bother you, maybe check out a Vortex sight.

TulAmmo .223Rem Fail

Tula "White Box" 55 grain, and Tula "Black Box" 55 grain .223 Remington

I bought 5 boxes of 20 rounds of Tula "White Box" .223 Remington at a gun show a few months ago and shot them through my 16" LMT M4, tax stamp LMT 10.5", and Bushmaster ACR.  Those, I had no problems with.  So, I purchased a 500 round spam can of TulAmmo "Black Box" .223 Remington sealed up in a "spam can."  Working the coupons and deals for The Sportsmans's Guide, I got a pretty good price on the can.

Today I took a bagful of loaded mags, and the 10.5" LMT and the ACR, out to the indoor range.  I put a few mags through the ACR, including a couple mags of Tula, with no issues before switching over to the LMT shorty.  I loaded up the LMT with a Troy Battlemag full of Tula, dropped the bolt, and flipped off the safety.  BANG!  Dead trigger.  After the first round, the bolt came back and ejected the steel case, pushed the next round maybe a half inch, and stopped.  I thought that was weird, because I had no problem with the "White Box" ammo.  I haven't run the Troy mags much, so I grabbed a PMag full of Tula.  The exact same thing happened.  I pulled back the bolt, and let it fly, chambering a round.  BANG!  Dead trigger.  Short-stroking.

Fortunately, I had brought a couple mags full of PMC Bronze .223 to try, and I had a few mags of my almost 5.56mm NATO spec ammo to shoot through the LMT, and the ACR chewed through the mags full of Tula.  Although I keep a few different recoil buffers in the rifle bag, the one in the LMT 10.5" carbine was already a standard carbine buffer, and I don't have anything lighter, if there even is anything lighter.

I know the problem isn't the steel-cases.  They are Boxer-primed, and I've reloaded hundreds of Wolf and Tula steel-cases and run the reloads through the same LMT without issue.  My loads were approaching 5.56mm NATO pressures though.

So, the ACR is proving to be capable of digesting anything I can fit into the magazines.  But what does it say about the Tula ammo?  Did I get a "vodka special" batch?  The "White Box" ammo, and the "Black Box" ammo should be the same, but obviously what I got wasn't the same.  I suppose this would explain the mixed reviews on Tula ammo.  Luck of the draw?  You get what you pay for, perhaps?

White Box Manufactured: 07/09 (I'm not sure if that's European for September, 2007, or if it's July, 2009)
Lot: 7Q5 4

I think this is the lot for the Black Box ammo, but I don't know how to read it.

Review: Lee Pacesetter .223Rem Dies

All my reloading dies are LEE.  Started loading .45ACP, and then 9mm for a race gun.  Then ammo started getting more and more expensive, and I started using the 9mm dies a lot more.  Loaded over 10,000 rounds with these LEE dies.  When I really started shooting carbines, and working up precision loads, I didn't see any point in trying other brands and Lee was pretty commonly recommended for semi-auto rifles.

Initially, I tried using the decapping and resizing die with my Lee hand press while watching TV.  Although this would work fine for two of my rifles, I have one rifle with short(er) headspace.  Using the Lee shell-holder and sizing die that come with the kit, I can not get the brass resized down to factory spec, and the bolt of the one rifle would not fully lock.  Using the sizing die on my progressive press with the shell-plate for that press, I can resize the brass to work with all my rifles.  If I had a belt sander, or better yet a lathe, I could probably shave down the Lee shell-holder to make it work.

On the rifle dies, the lock-ring with the inset o-rings work nicely.  Maybe it's my technique with the case lube, and lot-to-lot variations in cartridge cases, but I need to make fine adjustments to the resizing die to get consistent headspace dimensions on the casings, and the Lee lock-rings allow for easy adjustments, but they do stay put when set.  It may well be that I'm just too picky about the headspace dimension of resized cases.

The Factory Crimp Die does work.  When the round is raised up into the die, the shell-plate (or shell-holder)  presses on the bottom of the die and the collet closes on the neck of the cartridge case and bullet.  You can adjust the amount of crimp by turning the die in the press.  You can also crimp with the bullet seating die, but I have not tried this.  I don't crimp match bullets, as I have found that is not necessary.  When I'm making bulk ammo for a semi-auto rifle, I'll crimp with the FCD, but when I'm loading ammo for bullseye shooting, I skip the crimp.  I have gotten less than 1" 10-shot groups at 100 yards, and groups around 1 1/8" are fairly common, and I don't really have a .223Rem target rifle.  These groups were shot though a LMT 16" M4 barrel with chrome lining.

FCD collet closed on a round from a recent batch

A micrometer adjustable bullet seating die would be handy, but I nearly passed out when I saw the price for one.  The Lee bullet seating die is easy to adjust with just your fingers, and the micrometer die costs more than double the price of the whole Lee die set.  The LEE seating die gives reasonably consistent overall length when using good bullets.  If you are using cheap bullets your overall length may well be a little inconsistent, but that may be the least of your problems.

The collet-held decapping rod has saved me a couple times.  Even with .223 cases, you can still get pebbles into the neck, and sometimes a Berdan-primed case will make it past my visual inspection.  I have broken a decapping pin, but it was my fault for not using enough case lube to start with, and then I manhandled the pin trying to remove it from the case.  Because the case mouth expander and decapper are all one piece with the Lee dies, you may have to cut the case in half around the pin to remove.  You can buy spare decapper/expander pins direct from LEE, and the current price of $3 is pretty reasonable.

The box I got with the dies is a rectangular one that stacks with my other Lee die boxes.

The only thing, practically speaking, that I would like to see, is an option to have the steel parts plated or otherwise treated to prevent rusting, for an added fee.

I have fired over 2500 rounds of reloads.  The only issues I've had, have been my own fault, with the exception of the rounds that didn't fit the one rifle due to the Lee shell-holder.