So, Some time back, I made quite a few comments regarding the fact that I’d bought a stripped lower receiver for an AR platform rifle and decided to assemble myself an AR-15 like some sort of lethal Lego kit. An important thing to me about this whole build was that all of it be made from parts Made in the USA. Because it was AR-15 parts, I was better able to do that than with other projects. At least we still make something.
‘Murica.
*red-tailed hawk screech*
Anyway, I got it together after far too much expense and far too many minor stumbles. It would undoubtedly been cheaper to buy premade. But I wanted to put it together. I like putting things together. I like it even more if they work when I’m done. This is not about the assembly process. I did not document that. I was using the process to de-stress, and setting up a tidy, photogenic spot to take pictures of progress would not have made it the calming frustration it was.
Calming frustration?
Of course! Things went wrong, you have to expect that, but they were solvable problems. The most annoying factor was trying to assemble a rifle that A: was not a banned “assault weapon” under the unconstitutional laws of the State of New York (hope this requirement is dated really soon), B: easily converted into a normal variant when the unconstitutional laws no longer apply to me (either moving out or properly struck down), and C: didn’t look completely absurd.
So, here’s what the rifle looks like on the 100 yard range at the gun club Not Adahn and I both belong to.
Those are snap caps on the table next to the magazines. You have to test the mechanism somehow, and live ammo is not the best choice when you’re sitting in your living room. They were still in one of the magazines when I went to the range. For the non-Gun Glibs, a snap cap is a fake cartridge built to the dimensions of a real one. Where the primer on the real cartridge would be is a safe part for the firing pin to hit without damaging either the firing pin or the snap cap. If you really really don’t know, the primer is the part that starts the boom when hit.
So, there are a few details I have to go into detail about. Eight to be exact.
To comply with New York’s Unconstitutional law, we have to know the law.
Part 1 – It applies to semiautomatic weapons. I just pointed at the upper receiver in general because there’s a lot of parts that make it semiautomatic. But this one is built to be.
Part 2 – That accepts detachable magazines. Check, we accept detatchable magazines. I’m pointing at the magazine well rather than the magazines because I have another point related to those to get to. But that’s where they would attach to and detatch from.
With Parts 1 and 2 certified, we cannot have one violating cosmetic feature or it is an unconstitutionally banned weapon.
Part 3 – It cannot have a pistol grip that prodtrudes conspicuously below the mechanism. The swept back classic rifle stock grip does not protrude conspicuously below the mechanism. I could not use a paddle grip, I needed to be able to wrap my thumb around it, not couch the rifle like a lance.
Part 4 – Not part of the assault weapons law, but a different Unconstitutional Restriction. Those are ten round magazines. I’ve found that I am less irked by buying naturally ten round magazines over pinned magazines. I have bought something that does exactly what it is designed to do, not something that had been handicapped after being able to do better.
Part 5 – It cannot have an adjustable stock. Mind you, the buffer tube fills up a good portion of that fixed stock, so the only thing mandating a fixed stock does is make it more difficult to make it a comfortable fit for the shooter. Because adjustable stocks are pretty much the standard issue AR backend, finding a fixed stock was annoying enough on its own, but finding one that worked with the grip I had was another issue. This one is supposed to have additional optional external shims that slot between it and the back of the receiver to hold it in place. This left insufficient room for my thumb. So I did something that would make Kathy screech like a banshee – I designed and 3D printed an internal shim to set the length of the fixed stock and prevent it from sliding forward from the force of recoil. I could send shim.stl to anyone in the world and without my context, they would be hard pressed to identify the function of the part beyond the filename’s clue.
Part 6a – Your barrel must be a minimum of sixteen inches long. Under that you are an SBR and extra extra illegal in New York. Never mind that green thing behind the barrel. That’s a bench rest for people actually shooting. At the moment I’m still showing off.
Part 6b – You are not permitted a laundry list of muzzle attachments nor a threaded barrel able to accept these. Mind you, those attachments are bog standard for AR platform rifles across the free world, as is providing a threaded barrel when none are built in. I did manage to find this unthreaded barrel that the manufacturer had discontinued but not yet sold out of. It’s an “HB” variant. “Heavy Barrel”, which is why it’s so fat for a .22 caliber bore. It is just shy of .75 inches outer diameter, widening to that at the gas port, and even wider still from there back to the barrel nut where it locks into the upper receiver. That’s a lot more metal than I need, but at least I’m confident the barrel is solid.
Part 7 – A red dot Made in the USA. Optics are not on the list of features that can trip an assault weapon classification.
Part 8 – Bipods, shockingly, are not a feature which can get you classified as an assault weapon. This one is aluminum rather than plastic.
So, now that I’ve assembled a rifle that follows the hoplophobic, unconstitutional legislation, I have to test it. I stacked a magazine with one live round and two snap caps. It should fire then cycle the inert snap cap into the chamber. I put a target downrange, loaded my rifle, put the red dot on target, turned off the safety and pulled the trigger.
It went bang as expected.
The shell casing came out, a bit less entusiastically than expected.
The snap cap was not fed into the chamber.
Not good. Not good at all. I wondered if the caps might not be the right dimensions, so I loaded a magazine with live rounds and tried to fire some more.
First shot went bang – then the trigger would not budge. I could not turn on the safety. I dropped the magazine and manually cycled the weapon to clear the chamber. The spent cartridge plunked out on the bench.
Not good. Not good at all. There was definitely something wrong with the rifle. I took a few more test shots to gather the symptoms.
A: On manually charging the first round, the cartridge was properly fed from the magazine into the chamber and the hammer cocked.
B: On trigger pull the hammer properly struck the firing pin and set off the round.
C: The shell did not eject.
D: The hammer was not re-cocked.
E: No attempt was made to feed another cartridge from the magazine by the rifle on its own.
F: On manually cycling the mechanism, the shell was extracted from the chamber and came out of the mechanism, and a new round was fed from the magazine into the chamber.
From this I can conclude that the bolt and carrier group did not move far enough back when fired. It feeds, extracts, and ejects when manually operated. I could fire this all day as a bolt action rifle. This narrows down the problem to the gas system. For those who do not know, the AR platform has a small hole in the top of the barrel to borrow some of the propellant gas from the shot being fired to push the bolt back and do all of the mechanical tasks of cycling the rifle. Not enough gas was getting to the bolt to move it properly.
One of two things jump immediately to mind – either the gas block was installed improperly and the hole is obstructed, leading to insufficient gas in the system, or there is a leak, leading to loss of pressure. While I did not see evidence of a leak, the system is all inside that hand guard between the bipod and the upper reciever. My off hand was near the magazine well, and would not have been near the likely spot of a leak, which would be the gas block further forward.
Clearly, this is the result of a mistake I made. Problem is, I don’t know what that mistake was until I take it apart and look at the pieces.
Since I didn’t get too many shots off, I didn’t manage to zero the sight. Here’s the one shot on paper I managed, relative to my aim point.
It was a 1x Red Dot at 100 yards that had not even been zeroed yet, I’m lucky any of them hit the paper.
In theory it could also be an over-strong buffer spring.
But the most likely answer is I made a mistake installing the gas block.
I’m hating the asinine NY compliant stock. I’m assuming NJ requires something similar if not identical.
Is it more comfortable than it looks?
With proper thumb clearance (the reason I ended up creating the shim), it is no worse than firing a bolt-action rifle in terms of ergonomics.
Having nightmares of CA Off List and On List lowers, and how RETARDED that was.
The Third Circuit recently declared NJ’s Assault Weapons ban and large capacity magazine bans unconstitutional.
It was a 1x Red Dot at 100 yards that had not even been zeroed yet, I’m lucky any of them hit the paper.
Seriously: Move to 25 yards (ideal) or 50 yards.
I’m interested in what you find out about the gas system.
I have a magnified sight to go on to this rifle. The problem is it was not Made in the USA, so I was not going to feature it in this article. Honestly, the only reason I put a target down range was to make sure I kept myself aimed at the berm.
there is no 25 yeard target hanger for the rifle range. I could have shot at 50, but for whatever reason had to go to 100.
Ever since I learned it exists, I’ve been looking over at a gas piston retrofit. It’d be another ~$300+ to get the parts. But I still think about how the direct impingement gas system is just dumping exhaust into the mechanism and coating everything.
I have to pull of the gas block anyway…
10 right, 12 down 3 rounds.
Group should be close enough to start a final zero.
/Assumes 1 click = 1 inch at a 100 yds.
Better yet, get some iron sights, get them set up, and learn proper shooting.
I know you’re serious but you haven’t seen my glasses and hands shaking. I like crosshairs.
The point is that one needs to learn the basics to start with. You have learned all of that!
I had enough of irons with my Mosin, Elmer.
Were you grouping cloverleafs at 100 yards? No?
Then you haven’t had enough iron.
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Unclamp the rifle from the 500lb lead sled, grandpa.
I thought you were crafting some sort of Ogham script.
Nope, giving both fingers.
🤯 wow did not see that at all
Speaking of unconstitutional NY. I wonder how this going to fuck up my using the web at work.
NY social media users face age authentication requirement starting in January
Can you use a VPN from the office?
My office uses a vpn already. I frequently exit in the Midwest.
However, I wonder if they can continue to do that. We are regulated nine ways from Sunday so there is no way we’d pick this fight. We’d just comply and exit employees in the state they work.
Is there any reason the company actually needs to operate in New York?
What’s the last straw to get your bosses to move?
It’s a financial services firm of 15,000 employees.
So no reason it should be here at all. It can do its work from anywhere in the world.
Love the smug grins on the authoritarian censors.
PS. Don’t think this isn’t coming to at least half the other states.
Is there a list of targeted wreckers?
PS. who uses that stuff at work? Other that NYPost stringers looking for “news”?
@Pat: One of the ways XY got around our internet lockdown when he was still in single digits was to go to the library and check out a mifi. He says, “May I go to the library?” WTF am I supposed to say? No? No. I had no idea you could do that.
I love what you did with the arrows!! 👑 ✨ 👸 🦄 🌈
I do have a background writing technical documentation for non-technical users.
Sometimes a big red arrow just makes things easier.
As for times I’ll be In Indy area – I have to leave by 9/18 on the outbound to make ot to the HH,
Earliest I might be there on the return would be 9/22.
I haven’t made reservations outside of those for the HH weekend proper, so the dates are limited by time to get there or back.
#metoo
And it irritates the shit out of me that I can’t install better software at work to help with that. The built-in Windows screenshot tools blow.
Roger. As of now, I have no plans. The 22nd is my 7th anniversary of The Incident, and the 23rd is Dad’s… 77th. (We don’t do anything special.) I’ll be working until 5pm in Carmel, weekends off. Let me know if there’s anything you’re interested in.
Conner Prairie is a ‘town’ museum set in 1836. Mom’s an Interpreter there. It’s pretty in the fall.
I don’t want to step on important dates, so lets aim for 9/17. I do tend to defer to locals if they have recommendations. If you still have my email address that might be a better channel to continue the conversation. If not, I can give it to you again.
I’m sure it’s there somewhere, but best to mail me again to check. I’m sure you’ve still got mine.
Adding the 17th to the calendar for now.
Evan – I do not have your email address. At some point during a previous mail migration I lost the emails from that time period.
(Seriously, that’s a good looking, modern and practical rifle.) Congrats on building one. That seems a fun project, esp with the semi subversive angle tied in.
Looking at the bits ‘subtracted’ from the stock, etc to save weight, I wonder the trade offs of saving weight v being tangled in a dense, jungle like environment.
What do you mean I can’t fly around the U.S. with an expired visa?
Love the NYT spin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/28/us/ice-arrests-airports-visa-overstay.html
https://archive.fo/brvNl
NEW FRONT IN DEPORTATION DRIVE!!!!1!
Or, in before-times speak – nothing controversial whatsoever.
So goddamn tedious.
If it’s expired, you can’t use it to pay for anything.
/Wrong type of Visa
NYT’s considers the story so important that it’s even *free* to read their top tier journalisming.
Journalisming is when they literally orgasm all over the page. Like uncontrollable spoolging.
Color me crazy, but if I was a serious person trying to stay in the country legally I’d probably have applied BEFORE it expired in the first place.
If I had to guess people in that boat just let it expire and didn’t bother with it when Biden was in power to begin with because ya know fuck our immigration laws.
Bingo!
Apparently the Trump regime has taken to calling areas without a detention center “detention deserts.” I have to admit that I kind of love that.
Use their own derp against them.
I remember freaking out when I was 17 years old when my temporary visitor visa to live in Germany expired. I knew it was coming ca. six months in but somehow I missed the letter. I knew I had to rectify the situation, and did so.
I did not cry to mass media that it was NOT FAIR to break their immigration laws.
OT… picked up 25 plastic moving bins from storage today. 8 were full of junk I had left in storage for 3 years. Domestic chaos will reign for the next couple weeks while my life gets shoehorned into the other 17 bins.
I am glad Superduperstorm Sandy wrecked the company I rented these things from in 2012. They were invaluable in my last move.
When do ya move, and where? I’ve mostly forgotten the final destination in your search. What type of place did ya find?
I have several months of steps, but I’ve got my spot kinda already picked out on 86th St. (I work at ~126th., live 136th, brother at 44th.) It’s a really nice goal coming together. That’jj be a weird transition. (Mostly) Can’t wait.
Mid-August, back to the NYC area.
Easier access to the office I’m supposed to be working at, the doctors I need, and everything else.
I pity the fool that has to clean up my mess when I cash in my chips. We’ve given away a lot of stuff but most of what we have left is kind of works in progress.
We’re planning on leaving the major appliances and all equipment that uses gasoline for the new owner, when the time comes. OTOH the new owner(s) may have all of their own. Kids/grandkids don’t want it, auction is a break even situation. GoodWill, bring a truck!
PS. the type of place is the 15-minute city that all of you make fun of. I want to walk more. Interestingly, there is a bigger supermarket within 10 minutes than the huge suburban style supermarket that is half hour walk I am too lazy to do where I am now.
My new place has a gas range. Oh, how I miss gas.
I have no idea how to judge those numbers. Indianapolis, right?
It’s amazing how much junk I’ve abandoned over the years. The 8 packed bins I mentioned above could really just be abandoned again – I did not miss any of it over the last three years. But there was SO MUCH MORE that I had the movers toss on my here to three years ago.
And friends remark how “spartan” I am. Which is true, to an extent. I value visible floors and shit.
Your grip has Peyronie’s disease.
Oh, you mean “PD”.
I can’t identify any medical conditions by words anymore, just two-letter abbreviations.
I have been told that the gas block should not sit tight against the shoulder in the barrel, but should be some distance (30 thou? I don’t recall) forward, because the in the original design there was a sheet metal part of the handguard that sat between the shoulder and the gas block. And while no one uses that kind of handguard anymore, the spec for the location of the gas port has not changed. I have no idea if this is true. Seems like it can’t be, since if it was, an appropriately thick shim would be commonly available. Or half the home-built uppers people put together wouldn’t operate.
🤔
I had not heard that.
I did just see a shoulder that looked like the spot where the gas block should seat. None of the assembly guides said not to.
I ended up engaged in an argument on the racism of Western philosophy. I asked someone for an example of the sort of ideas they’d specifically like to incorporate from the rest of the world. The conversation itself is somewhat interesting, but this is kind of the tell how this all boils down to politics:
You could say this to any number of normies and they’d say hey that sounds swell enough. But when they specifically mention “rights” it’s a bright flashing red light on what the aim of pushing this is.
African culture isn’t that harmonious either. So I wonder how widespread any such belief system is among the locals of the continent? I mean, I suspect plenty of Africans are fine with the notion of others having obligations to them and less so the other way around. Like all other human beings.
The proof is in the pudding when it comes to Western ideas. And where we are failing most, I’m inclined to say it’s not where we so much strayed but where there is the greatest influence from the ideas that formed among our more useless sorts as a backlash to our success. You know, the commies/Marxists as one prime example. They turn everything they touch into shit and the only way I can conceive of a system of rights based on harmony grounded in interconnected personal obligations would essentially be some flavor of socialism.
Everyone has equal rights and no rights at the same time basically. It’s the community that has rights, and the community is everyone but the person that is being stolen from at any given point in time.
I’d in fact wager that wherever “ubuntu” has become relevant politically, that is has produced nothing but socialism and failed miserably. Though I would never waste my time studying failed African states to prove such.
But these are the great ideas that the West should look to learn from apparently. Totally disproving my initial thought that the goal of the sort of person who wrote that article and those who would support it is really the dismantling of the Western tradition.
Correction to this. We haven’t failed because we were too committed to the Western tradition as people here would understand and value it, but where we allowed the critiques (or comically enough, the ultimate reactionaries in the West) of our system of ideas too much power.
Is there really anything as “reactionary” as a Marxist for all the play as revolutionaries? It’s a system that in practice ends up looking like a lot of other shitty governments that came before. It turns people into peasants and government parasites the lords, only with a coat of paint on top to make it look shiny and new.
“Harmony” just means stamping out individuality.
And yes, it’s exactly what marxists and communists want to impose.
There is nothing unique to any of these other cultures that self-loathing westerners revere. All of it has been played with and rejected before.
A focus on harmony is a justification to punish disharmony, for example a person outside whatever leadership structure exists trying to rise in status, or a person innovating in some fashion. Both social mobility and technological innovation are ‘disruptive’.
See also “consensus.”
You won’t see where this one is going.
I miss when I was younger and had some of them in my life to mock. No, not the retarded…
I love hotel economics.
Because they are priced by demand versus availability, it can create some odd results. For my return from the Honey Harvest, by extending my stay in Cedar Rapids for a second night, I halved the cost of the remaining hotel stays. So it might be one more day in a hotel, but significantly less expensive than paying for the higher demand days in the next stops.
I know Kinnath will tell me there’s nothing in Iowa to see or do, but doing nothing is a valid vacation activity too.
You can join the natives out wandering around.
Rate this woman on her firearm discipline
in the area of Hooker Avenue
Purple grip. Checks out.
I’m unclear from the story whether she shot the guy or hit him with it.
I was under the impression she pistol-whipped him.
A quart of whiskey. 12 beers. Melatonin and still cant sleep.
Keep having to run to the bathroom to offload fluids?
Jesus. That would put me in the hospital.
Up und at zem!
Don’t assume the day’s pronouns!
Good morning, ChipP, U, homey, Ted’S., Roat, and Sensei!
Good morning, GT!
Morning, GT.
Nice and rainy today. Not sure if downpour or torrential, but it’s heavy rain. Slowed down the highway traffic by 10mph. Some parts of the city streets had enough standing water that I felt the loss of traction. And then there was this one suicidal bastard zipping about on an eBike darting through traffic with no lights, no reflectors, on a dark bike in dark clothes. No way he could see anything the way the rain was coming down. I swear he just wanted someone to hit him and end it.
I avoided him and made it to the office just fine, however.
How are you today, ChipP?
Yikes, U! Sounds as if that guy wanted to hit the lawsuit lottery! 😳
How goes things?
A little worrisome. TT had a rough night – possibly side effects of one of his meds. I may call off work and leave just long enough to go pick up my car from the shop (before they report the loaner stolen.) We’ll see how he feels after a little more sleep. 😟
😦🤞
Hope the sleep does him some good.
House digital modernization push includes new AI assistant
I can’t wait for AI floor debates.
AI page sex scandal.
The shipping attacks don’t count, right?
What a cluster fuck the OMB got into. Or Israel dragged him into depending on your POV.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-launches-surprise-missile-attack-on-u-s-forces-70955a30?st=WCVKS2&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I remember when bombing weddings in Yemen was A-OK.
Why did the Yemeni bride get cold feet?
How dark an answer do you want?
Wakey, wakey lads and lasses!
🍀🇮🇪🌈
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQl9J_JuiJs
🎶🎶
Them again? JK. I like them.
They deserve more attention.
PT Barnum
https://www.wsj.com/style/loonen-glass-bottled-water-microplastics-97c5d6f8?st=QtZBgR&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I take it these people didn’t hear that the source of the microplastics in the testing was narrowed down to the gloves the researchers were wearing.
Has anyone actually identified a health issue created by microplastics? Or are we still in the cause searching for a problem to solve stage?
The latter
They’ve been “linked to” a number of ailments. See last Sunday’s “P-hacking” horoscope for more information.
So the thing that we are told is omnipresent has been linked to ailments? That’s surprising…
Nitrogen has been causally linked to more ailments than microplastics.
Remember to decompress properly when surfacing from a dive.
Why introduce causality? That just interferes with fearmongering.
Because I’m not allowed to gut fearmongers and string them up by their entrails.
@UCS: Here’s my email, just take out the spaces, and there IS only one T in my last name:
evan g mathews @ gmail
I am going to pronounce your name like a Scot bragging about his muscles Di Ye ken ma thews?
@Evan sent an email to verify I got it correct.
“social-signifying waters”
No.
Good morning!
Nice article, UnCivil.
Should I futz with the gas block, or drop $300 on a piston retrofit and futz with that gas block?
Don’t know. I am a lesser Glib when it comes to guns. And I prefer revolvers and such, not semiautomatics. So my opinion here would be worthless.
Among rifles, revolvers are at a disadvantage.
I can think of only one in modern production, it uses pistol ammunition and isn’t terribly good as a rifle. The cylinder gap just robs them of the pressures that give rifles all their desirable characteristics of range, energy, etc.
Miniguns eliminate the gap
Jar, those are not rifles, they belong in the machine gun category
At some point I want to do a complete build. However, my ARs have been complete uppers and usually complete lowers since I’ve been most interested in putting them to immediate use in games.
When you do – buy spare springs and detent pins. They love to ping off into the aether.
I can loan you the takedown pin installation tool I bought to simplify the installation to a five minute process. (I had been fighting that one for an absurd amount of time before just buying the specialized tool)