by Woodsbum
Similar to last week’s report, I wanted to follow up and tell you about how my newest AR 15 build faired while out in the field. Again, I don’t really have much in the way of pictures to show you. When I go shooting I do not go to a range. I take off to the hills and shoot clay pidgins, potatoes, or tannerite. Couple that with the fact that only I am out there and you have a very difficult time shooting while taking “selfies” of your firearms in action.
When I break in a new AR, I tend to use steel cased Wolf ammo to wear in the chambers a bit and make other rounds cycle easier. On this outing I blew off the last 90 rounds of steel case I had and then started on factory and reloads. Other than my brother’s reloads which usually have feeding issues, I had no other failures at all. Overall I put about 400 rounds through it.
The Vortex Strikefire 2 optics are just awesome, like always. One of the many things I love about them, aside from how easy it is to get on target and the fact that they just work flawlessly, is how easy it is to sight in with this optic.
Here is a “redneck” guide to sighting in an optic without using paper targets: I usually pick a very soft dirt pile and pop off a couple rounds to see where it is hitting. Then I adjust until I get to where I am on target at 25 yards. I then move it out to 50 and repeat the process. Finally I move to 100 yards and do it one last time with full sized clay pidgins. If I am using only a red/green dot optic I stop here. If I am sighting in a scope I have more to do. To fine tune a scope I move from full sized clays to the broken pieces and repeat the process while slowly moving down target size. This will usually get me down to about a 1″-2″ group at 100 yards.
A couple of the things I really loved about my new build are the weight and the handguard. By installing one of the keymod rails, I actually opened up the entire barrel length to allow for better heat dissipation. Although the barrel did get hot while rapid firing (as expected), it cooled off within just a couple minutes rather than having to wait several minutes like any other configuration I have used. It really was nice to have that full handguard covering almost the entire barrel as well. I did not have to worry about melting things into the barrel after shooting or burning myself by being stupid. It truly is a great configuration. And in regard to the weight, it was an absolute pleasure to shoot such a light rifle. I don’t consider the .223/5.56 to have any real recoil, so that was never a consideration with regard to weight. It was just so nice and easy to carry. I truly love this new build.
For those of you who have been skeptical about ordering from Daytona Tactical, I will give you a few tidbits. Their order processing is VERY slow. From the time that I ordered until my parts were delivered was almost 3 weeks. They also ship via USPS, so that does suck a bit. You can’t track your packages like you can with FedEx or UPS. The product is quite good, however. I have absolutely NO complaints about the items I received and the pricing was absolutely amazing. If you are after a quick build that you just want to be able to shoot, then I REALLY and HIGHLY suggest you make an order through Daytona Tactical. You will be happy with the results.
