blue collar kit

By: pueblowestdude on 03/10/2014 10:44:07 PM

Ordered the kit and jig. Mounted burris AR536 optics. Used magpul rifle stock. Took rifle out to range for sight in. Shot tula steel, pmc 556, independent 556, american eagle 223. 55grain. Don't shoot steel case. Worked for a while, but when it did jam had to take it home to get case unstuck. Accuracy is pretty good. 100yds group varied from 1" to under 2". Zero stuck cases with brass cases. At 300yd easly hit 24"gong over and over. Shot about 200rds. Front rail looked way to big at first. Found out it felt great to handle with. Next rifle will have this rail system. Little on the heavy side, combined with 18oz scope and heavy butt stock rifle was easy to steady. I like the weight. I am not going to carry on marches just bench shooting. Trigger was ok, not fancy but, worked just the way it's supposed too. No surprises. First ar that I assembled. Took my time. Was careful with roll pins and press fits. Had to polish barrel end to get barrel to slide into upper. Used fine sand paper in lathe. Nice fit. I liked the way Isreali mako magazines fit. Seemed like magpuls were a tad loose, but they worked fine. Machined lower on a jig bore machine older than me. Only problem with ares jig was dowel pins were slightly out too far and end mill rubbed them. So that caused the upper not to fit into lower since endmill bounced around on hardened dowel pins. But that turned out for the good because I had to remove material by hand in lower. Doing it this way caused the upper to fit tight without any play into lower. The upper and lower don't wiggle in each other now. The factory rifles I have all wiggle around. I only measured the depth on milling. Just made endmill barely rub on upper jig plates. Drilled trigger pin holes. I wanted to ream them but got in a hurry. The jig really makes it easy to work with. Ares didn't send me anything low quality. The jig is heavy duty. Their basic rifle is assembled from suppliers selling correct made parts. Knowing that I did all the work assembling my rifle makes you feel like you appreciate the thing much more than just picking up a factory rifle. I now know where every part is and how to service my ar with confidence you can only get by doing it your self. I used Walt Kuleck's book The ar15 complete assembly guide. For me the ar is NOT a assault rifle. It is a sporting rifle. The thing shoots almost as good as a bolt action rifle. It will take me some time to get good enough at shooting to make my rifle perform up to what is capable of. What I bought from ARES is one of my better purchases. Very satisfied. thanks