Critique of a build

[DD78]

Hey everyone.

While my first 3 gun season may be drawing to a close up here in the north, I've picked up a great deal of tips on stage plans, but also gear along the way.

One of the things that has served me well this year has been my rifle. I pretty much took an existing AR, and improved as much as I could so that I could shoot 3 gun somewhat with the right sort of equipment. Now that the season is pretty much over, I figured why not build a dedicated upper using what I've heard and seen work best for some of the better shooters up in my neck of the woods.

The lower I'm using is already built and I've used it since the beginning of the season. It's an RRA lower, but the important stuff first....Hiperfire 24 3G trigger, with a Luth AR MBA 3 buttstock.

Now onto what I'm putting together (well technically my buddy/gunsmith is building it for me)

Upper receiver: WMD with nickel boron coating on the inside

Barrel: Satern 18" from Make Ready Pro Shop

Hand guard: Armalite M-15 15" 3 gun competition hand guard

Brake: Armalite tunable muzzle brake

BCG: RCA titanium BCG, also having a POF roller cam installed

Gas block: Joe Bob's adjustable. I would've spent more on one, but my other two have been adjusted once, and I've never touched them again. No sense in spending more if I didn't need to. It's an easy to replace part if I change my mind later on.

Gas tube: Melanite rifle length tube. Can't remember brand

Scope: Vortex Razor HD Gen 2 1-6 with the JM-1 reticle, will be mounted in a Warne XSkel cantilever

Charging handle: Probably just going to use the Brave company medium sized one I have laying here in the package.

Having never used a lightened BCG before, I don't really know what to expect. I'll more than likely be using a carbine spring and buffer since that's what I already have. Open to suggestions on this, but I'd like to keep the buffer tube the same since the MBA 3 stock is specifically made for that.

Any thoughts on this build? I kind of went crazy and ordered everything in one day since Armalite put those hand guard and brakes back in stock. It pretty much all went downhill from there lol.

 

[Matt1911]

My biggest suggestion would be for you to hang out with your buddy while he build the rifle and watch how easy it is to do it will help you to know your rifle better especially if anything ever happens to go wrong you can fix it on your own

 

[DD78]

My biggest suggestion would be for you to hang out with your buddy while he build the rifle and watch how easy it is to do it will help you to know your rifle better especially if anything ever happens to go wrong you can fix it on your own

I could build it myself, the only problem is that I don't have a vice since I'm in an apartment. I really need to move so that I can set up a permanent gun cleaning bench alongside a permanent reloading bench. Right now the desk in my home office serves as both lol. My Dillon 650 is mounted to a storable and moveable table top thing called the C4M3RON. My single stage is mounted to a piece of butcher block. I use wood clamps to clamp both to the desk when I need to load ammo.

I've seen temporary vices, but they'll definitely screw up my desk.

 

[Matt1911]

Fair enough, I just wanted to make sure that every red blooded American knows how to build their own AR from a pile of parts, cause, Murica' Damnit!

 

[Matt1911]

With my lightened BCG, I use a JP lightened buffer with a Magpul rifle stock.

 

[jtischauser]

Everything you're doing is perfect. There are different options but the result will be the same. A carbine buffer with a low mass BCG and adjustable gas block was the norm until the last two years with the silent capture buffers and zero mass buffers like Taccom and no weights in a carbine buffer started being played with.

I'd go with way you got and shoot it for 1-2 years at which point hopefully you'll realize more gear won't help you anymore than more rounds down range will.

 

[DD78]

Everything you're doing is perfect. There are different options but the result will be the same. A carbine buffer with a low mass BCG and adjustable gas block was the norm until the last two years with the silent capture buffers and zero mass buffers like Taccom and no weights in a carbine buffer started being played with.

I'd go with way you got and shoot it for 1-2 years at which point hopefully you'll realize more gear won't help you anymore than more rounds down range will.

Thanks Jesse!

At the beginning of the year, pistol was my weakest skill set. After shooting a season of USPSA, it no longer is.

The two areas I'm weakest are short range hoser rifle, especially when the targets are super close. I just can't seem to increase my rate of pulling the trigger. This is one thing I'll practice extensively over the winter. The other is hosing down shotgun targets. I can run slugs like a boss out to 100 yards, but hosing down the short range clays and steel knock over targets have proven to be a challenge. This is another area I can work on in the offseason.

It was good to shoot a full season because at least now I know what my weakest areas are and what to focus on this year.

The last area I need to work on is shooting as I enter a position, as well as shooting as I leave. I'm still much slower than I should be and I think most of my time is being wasted in those areas.

 

[drmitchgibson]

People have been removing weights from the buffer for a long time. It just isn't spoken of all that much. Buffers are cheap, buy an extra one and try it out.

 

[jtischauser]

Thanks Jesse!

At the beginning of the year, pistol was my weakest skill set. After shooting a season of USPSA, it no longer is.

The two areas I'm weakest are short range hoser rifle, especially when the targets are super close. I just can't seem to increase my rate of pulling the trigger. This is one thing I'll practice extensively over the winter. The other is hosing down shotgun targets. I can run slugs like a boss out to 100 yards, but hosing down the short range clays and steel knock over targets have proven to be a challenge. This is another area I can work on in the offseason.

It was good to shoot a full season because at least now I know what my weakest areas are and what to focus on this year.

The last area I need to work on is shooting as I enter a position, as well as shooting as I leave. I'm still much slower than I should be and I think most of my time is being wasted in those areas.

I think this is the first time I have ever heard of someone's hosing holding them back. You're in a good spot if those two are the things you need to work on.

 

[DD78]

I think this is the first time I have ever heard of someone's hosing holding them back. You're in a good spot if those two are the things you need to work on.

Even with pistol, I can't seem to pull the trigger as fast as some of the guys that routinely finish ahead of me. I'm guessing that it's all mental and I need to specifically work on that.

I'm betting that it's the result of years at public indoor ranges where shooting more than 1 round every 2 seconds gets an RO to walk over to yell at you, and then after finally becoming a member of a private club, just practicing long range slow fire.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with how much I've progressed since starting in April. The first few matches I shot, both 3 gun and USPSA, I was up in the 40th or so range, out of 60-70 shooters. I think it was around July that I jumped up into the 15th range. It was really weird, because it seemed like something finally "clicked".

Hopefully over the winter I can get some of the areas I mentioned worked out.

 

[Matt1911]

Trigger pull weight has had a huge effect on my ability to run a trigger faster. That may be one of your issues.

 

[mike cyrwus]

My guess is that you have no concept of trigger control, of prepping the trigger, of letting the sights tell you when to press the trigger. Hugely common

 

[DD78]

Trigger pull weight has had a huge effect on my ability to run a trigger faster. That may be one of your issues.

My pistol has a 2.5 lbs trigger, rifle 2.25lbs, and shotgun is around 4 lbs.

The one thing I haven't practiced is hosing so I'm hoping that if I work mostly on that, it should improve. I have sped up a bit from earlier in the year because I recall trying to get a perfect sight picture before pulling the trigger each time, and then realized that that's slow as hell.

 

[DD78]

My guess is that you have no concept of trigger control, of prepping the trigger, of letting the sights tell you when to press the trigger. Hugely common

I'll be honest, I don't even feel the trigger after the first shot so you might be on to something.

My accuracy is really good, but on the longer pistol shots....25 yards+, my accuracy is horrible.

 

[Matt1911]

Take a trip to tulsa and attend a TDSA class.

 

[mike cyrwus]

I'll be honest, I don't even feel the trigger after the first shot so you might be on to something.
My accuracy is really good, but on the longer pistol shots....25 yards+, my accuracy is horrible.

It's as deep as the matrix, take the green pill!

 

[dennishoddy]

My pistol has a 2.5 lbs trigger, rifle 2.25lbs, and shotgun is around 4 lbs.

The one thing I haven't practiced is hosing so I'm hoping that if I work mostly on that, it should improve. I have sped up a bit from earlier in the year because I recall trying to get a perfect sight picture before pulling the trigger each time, and then realized that that's slow as hell.

Hosing at short range is like shooting at a flushing quail. You point the gun and don't aim it.

 

[poopgiggle]

The one thing I haven't practiced is hosing so I'm hoping that if I work mostly on that, it should improve.

I've had that same thought, and the result was that I ended up either hosing (and missing) at intermediate-to-long range targets as well, or shooting too slowly at them.

 

[mike cyrwus]

Hosing at short range is like shooting at a flushing quail. You point the gun and don't aim it.

wrong and wrong

 

[DD78]

wrong and wrong

What I've found and realized after doing it is that with shotgun, if the targets are all clays, and if I shoot the shotgun similar to how I shoot sporting clays, or skeet, not really aiming it like a rifle, I do well. Where things have start going off in a bad direction is after I miss one or two, then I start aiming it like a rifle, and we know how slow that gets.

Now change the targets to steel, and all I do is aim at them like I'm shooting them with a rifle. I think a lot of it has to do with confidence, or lack thereof. I think it's also subconscious because I don't knowingly start aiming the shotgun like a rifle, I just sort of fall into that without necessarily thinking about it.

I believe this is why I'm good at shooting long range slugs....because my natural inclination is to aim down rib, see the fiber optic front sight, make sure I account for holdover, and then pin the trigger.

My plan is to get out to the range with a box of clays, and my knockover steel targets, and throw a case of ammo at them focusing on not shooting the shotgun like a rifle. Then when that has become ingrained, start working on hosing both the clays and the steel. One of the other things I'm going to work on is change distances up to see how much more I'll need to slow down on the longer shots, while hosing closer stuff and come up on a longer target.

With rifle, I plan on just setting up some targets at 25 yards and in, and hosing the crap out of them until I am able to trust that I'll put two on each target. When there's an array of targets nearly side by side, when my buddy shoots them it sounds like he's shooting full auto. When I do it, it doesn't sound that way. So the technique I'll work on is not stopping on each target, but sort of swinging through them as I continue to pull the trigger. I'll probably mix in some of the pistol type drills but do them with the rifle. Bill drills and such.

I've become pretty comfortable with pistol, but my shots at 25 yards leave much to be desired, so practicing group shooting I'm sure would help, along with working on trigger press and prepping the trigger for those longer shots. The goal will be to get on target, while figuring out what kind of sight picture is good enough at that distance, and what kind of splits I'll need to shoot to get alpha charlie at the least. For the hosing practice up close with the pistol, I imagine I'll be doing Bill drills, Blake drills, and El Prez.

It's definitely going to be a lot of work that I'll need to put in over the winter, but a good portion of this shouldn't be too difficult to do considering from all I've heard, hosing seems to be the "easiest" skill to improve. It's just a matter of becoming confident in myself, and the way I typically increase my confidence levels in anything is to see myself doing it over and over successfully. I used to play golf a lot up until I was in my mid 20's, and for a long time, I hated the lob wedge. It was either a fly ball or I'd blade it and decapitate worms. I went out one day and spent a few hours in a field with just my lob wedge and a bucket of balls, and continually hit the wedge until I began dropping balls into the bucket. After that, I loved any shot that involved using my lob wedge. I would actually plan my strategy for the hole I was on based around that club. If the option was to hit the green in two but be faced with a long putt, or laying up short and dropping a ball feet from the hole with my lob wedge, I'd always choose the latter. The guys I would play with would groan every time I had that club in my hand because I felt like I could hole it every time, and it would always land 2 feet or shorter from the hole. The point that this long winded paragraph is leading towards is that I believe that I just need to convince myself that I can hose, and being analytical by nature, I need objective data to convince myself.

If I can get to the point where all of the above doesn't bother me any longer, phase two would be working on shooting while entering and leaving positions, then shooting on the move. I'm okay with shooting on the move, but I still don't know how far I can be from the targets and still hit them while moving, or how fast I can move.

I can also stand to lose 40-60 lbs lol. When I see these skinny dudes moving and shooting stages much faster than me, I always think to myself, how quickly would they shoot this stage wearing a plate carrier with a full load out of plates? Because that's pretty much how much extra weight I'm carrying on my fatass.