
Well, since the second day of the Texas shoot was cancelled, the first chance I had to take out the now complete AR was this past weekend.
I mounted up a relatively cheap Bushnell Sportsman 4-12x40 scope on sale for $60 from wally world (until I can decide on and acquire the permanent optics), and I grabbed the rest of my 75gr A-Max experimental loads... the ones that were loaded with 24.5gr of Varget, with no crimp... and this time I didn't let them sit out in the sun for an hour before shooting.
The last trip I had some overpressure problems, even with the Federal commercial loads never mind my max pressure A-Max loads using 2230. The overpressure made the loads inconsistent, and the powder was pretty dirty... and I had wanted to use Varget anyway (they were all out of stock locally) so I was happy enough to switch over.
The first news was the functioning. For the first 20 rounds everything was great, but then I got one failure to feed after another. Finally I got really irritated and looked at the mag lips... well, the cheap national mags I bought as a stopgap (Brownells was out of stock of everything else) were completely out of spec, with the mag lips flexing and bending; and galling against the bolt.
SO, I unloaded those mags, and loaded into some good mags JohnOC brought with him, and we were golden; not a single problem for the remaining 60 rounds.
I will say though, even in a 10lb AR, you definitely feel the max pressure 75gr loads a LOT more than a 55 or 62gr standard .223. It's by no means unpleasant, in fact it's a lot like a .243; which is appropriate considering that it's performing at about the same level.
So, how well did it shoot?
How does 5 shots into one ragged hole at 50 yards, and one slightly larger ragged hole at 100 yards sound?
We only had 100 yards where we were shooting so I didn't get to try anything at longer ranges, but the gun was quite literally putting down 1/2 moa or better groups at 50 and 100 yards; making one big hole in a lot of cases.
Even better though; not only was I getting one hole groups, but so were JohnOC (who will tell you he's no great shakes as a rifle shooter), and Mel; and this was only the third time she'd ever fired an AR.

At this point I'm very confident the gun is going to make the 1/4 moa mark, at least out to 300 yards; and hopefully with the right tuning at least 1/2 moa at 600.

Next up, my 75gr hornady BTHP Match loads, hopefully at 300 yards. Oh, and my new progressive press arrives tomorrow; so I can crank out some bulk loads for plinking.... time to place that powder valley order.
This was also the first time I'd been able to take out my new Defender; and I also have to say, I'm VERY happy with it. It groups well, shoots well, and even with my hottest loads it's still controllable; something I couldn't say when I had a G36.
Here's an amazing, but HUGE pic of Mel in a rapid fire string; where I managed to catch some brass in the air. Seriously, it's cool, but its 1.3 megs so don't click unless you're prepared to wait.

