Got a new AR for my Son

[MarcSpaz]

Just picked up a new Smith and Wesson M&P 15 Sport for my son Nick. His 16th birthday is on the 6th... figured an early present was in order.

[Snakester]

That's a fine piece of hardware there....I've shot one many many times. He will enjoy it , I'm sure !

[MarcSpaz]

Thank you Sir! I hope he has fun.

You know, some times I have to bug him to take a bath, clean his room and do his homework, but it is amazing how diligent, disciplined and respectful he is to safety and life when he handles a firearm.

I'm glad too. It is one of the things that he and I can really enjoy together. I love the time we spend at the range and out in the mountains.

He always says "your rifle" when he talks about a long arm I share with him. Even though I have to legally own it, I can see the pride in face when he can hold that rifle and honestly say its his. Its over-due and he deserves it. He's a great kid.

[Snakester]

Marc, Your son and his AR will both be welcome at out Meet and Greet on Sept. 6 !!!

[MarcSpaz]

Very cool! I appreciate it. I'm sure he will too.

[MarcSpaz]

Well, it didn't take long to find a problem. We are going to head to the range to test this puppy out on Wednesday. So, I did the initial tear down, inspection and lube.

The first problem I found was the rear pin was so snug I had to hammer it out. And I'm not talking "it was a little stiff". I mean 3 or 4 solid cracks like I was driving a nail.

I want a quick way to see where the problem was, so I grabbed my Sig M4. My upper fit in his lower perfectly, but his upper wasn't even close to going on my lower. So, time to inspect the M&P upper.

First I notice that the finish bottom edge wre the upper an lower marry up, there was a wave making a high spot on the left side above the pin. Then I noticed the bottom of the pin loop block (sorry, don't know the correct name) was too thick. That got me to grab the caliper. Found out the rear hole was .3 mm too small and .3 mm too far forward.

Well, far be it for me to turn down a nice DIY challenge, so me and my trusty grinder went to town. LoL

The M&P upper and lower now fit perfectlythere is zero play, the pin has a nice snug fit, but can be torn down without tools, and it dry-cycles perfectly. The M&P upper still doesn't fit in my Sig M4 lower due to being to snug, but that wasn't the problem I was solving for. I was not trying to take off any more metal than I needed to for the M&P to work.

Wish me luck on Wednesday. Hopefully the rifle doesn't fail. I think 1 round in the mag for the first shot or 3.

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[Bags30]

A new AR fit that poorly? I'd have returned it. It is S&W's job to get it right.

[MarcSpaz]

Yep... brand new in the box. I chalked it up to the difference between a $700 AR15 and a $2,200 AR15.

[dorminWS]

I bought an M&P15 a while back. Didn't break it down and "mic it out", but it has performed pretty much flawlessly; and I have run a lot of rounds through it damn fast with the slide-fire stock I put on it (I bought a "cheap" AR precisely because I was going to put that "gimmick" on it). We have the gas tube glowing like an electric stove eye every time we take it out. I expected mine to be mediocre and give some trouble, but I can't complain because I have nothing to complain about. Comes as a surprise, given my generally low opinion of S&W. I've been pleasantly surprised.

[Bags30]

$700 is a lot of money in my budget. I would not have accepted it. I am also not as confident in my gunsmithing skills as you appear to be. I picked up my PSA on sale for about $550 not sure what to expect and so far, no trouble. Good luck with the S&W. Hope your son gets years of fun out of it.

[MarcSpaz]

I bought an M&P15 a while back. Didn't break it down and "mic it out", but it has performed pretty much flawlessly; and I have run a lot of rounds through it damn fast with the slide-fire stock I put on it (I bought a "cheap" AR precisely because I was going to put that "gimmick" on it). We have the gas tube glowing like an electric stove eye every time we take it out. I expected mine to be mediocre and give some trouble, but I can't complain because I have nothing to complain about. Comes as a surprise, given my generally low opinion of S&W. I've been pleasantly surprised.

Generally speaking, S&W seems to be okay quality wise from what I hear. I was a little surprised I had a problem, but only a little. LOL

I would have never put the digital calipers to it if the tear down went okay. I always do a visual inspection and initial clean/lube on new guns before I ever fire them. Typical, unless something really jumps out at me, I'll slap it back together and give it a shot. Hammer to the rear pin falls into the category of "jumps out at me".

Getting one to put a Slide Fire stock on is a great idea. I'm glad to hear you are not having performance problems with it running a high cyclic rate too. Is it as easy to use the Slide Fire as their promo videos show? I would love to buy a full-auto, but under $400 sounds a lot better than $25k-$35k to just spend ammo at the range faster.

$700 is a lot of money in my budget. I would not have accepted it. I am also not as confident in my gunsmithing skills as you appear to be. I picked up my PSA on sale for about $550 not sure what to expect and so far, no trouble. Good luck with the S&W. Hope your son gets years of fun out of it.

I have to agree that $700 is a lot of money. I guess I took it as is because I felt like it was something I could dial in myself after a quick inspection. I figured the benefit of not having to go back to the dealer or dealing with S&W directly far outweighed the risk and level of effort of making the corrections.

I do fancy myself purdy handy with the Dremel. I am far from a gunsmith, but I have lots of experience doing automotive work as a hobby, including complete engine and transmission rebuilds. I have even made engine parts from a solid block of aluminum before. I was pretty confident about this task given my past success.

[dorminWS]

The Slide-Fire is really pretty easy to get the hang of, and it's a lot of fun. Just a matter of the right amount of tension on your off-trigger arm. Most people get passin' fair at it after 3-4 tries. Those drum mags (the plastic ones we tried, at least) tend to hang the last few rounds, but the 60-round quad-stack Sure Fires consistently shoot plumb empty without a problem. I'd guess we can have 6-8 empty hulls hanging up there in the air at a time. And believe it or not, you can actually be reasonably accurate with the infernal thang. I'm glad I bought it. As for the M&P, I really bought it because I told the dealer I hated to butcher up my N-I-B Colt Match Target with a gimmick stock, and he said, "No problem-o, young'un....I got just the THANG for you..." and forced one of them M&P15s on me; sold it to me whether I wanted it or not, he did! I worried that it had no forward assist, but bought it anyway because it was a new AR-15 for (at that time) something like $659. I don't think I've ever needed a forward assist when using & abusing it, best I can recollect. I'd had a S&W, mod 4506-1 that gave trouble and didn't hold up, and a SW1911 that didn't want to feed right, so I was leery of S&W pistols (their revolvers are fine, AFAIK). But the M&P15 can't be complained of, in my book.

[0ne5hot]

The Slide-Fire is really pretty easy to get the hang of, and it's a lot of fun. Just a matter of the right amount of tension on your off-trigger arm. Most people get passin' fair at it after 3-4 tries. Those drum mags (the plastic ones we tried, at least) tend to hang the last few rounds, but the 60-round quad-stack Sure Fires consistently shoot plumb empty without a problem. I'd guess we can have 6-8 empty hulls hanging up there in the air at a time. And believe it or not, you can actually be reasonably accurate with the infernal thang. I'm glad I bought it. As for the M&P, I really bought it because I told the dealer I hated to butcher up my N-I-B Colt Match Target with a gimmick stock, and he said, "No problem-o, young'un....I got just the THANG for you..." and forced one of them M&P15s on me; sold it to me whether I wanted it or not, he did! I worried that it had no forward assist, but bought it anyway because it was a new AR-15 for (at that time) something like $659. I don't think I've ever needed a forward assist when using & abusing it, best I can recollect. I'd had a S&W, mod 4506-1 that gave trouble and didn't hold up, and a SW1911 that didn't want to feed right, so I was leery of S&W pistols (their revolvers are fine, AFAIK). But the M&P15 can't be complained of, in my book.

Alot of manufactures are now omitting the forward assist from their "Mil-Spec" uppers, because it is not really needed, saves on weight, machining time, and cost of parts; Also the bolts on 308 AR are not machined for their use. I still like having a forward assist on my hunting AR (6.8SPC for the curious game wardens), because I can make sure the bolt is seated if I need to ease a round in the chamber without spooking the game.

[MarcSpaz]

This is old news to many of you, especially the brave men who have served or continue to serve our country... but I'm going to add some points of interest for the guys and gals new the the AR world.

I'm not too worried about a forward assist in general... there or not. The original ar15 platform, in variants such as the M16, needed a forward assist because of their intended use; combat. I'm not an Operator in the sandbox or some jungle somewhere, just a target shooter who hopes for the occasional hunt and prays never to need to use it for self defense. So, not really needed for my application.

The primary reason it was added for combat weapons is because when the bolt carrier group (BCG) gets dirty, the ejector starts having trouble wrapping around the cartridge rim. This causes failures to feed, fire and/or eject. In a small arms battle, you can't stop and clean your weapon to fix feed problems. Solution... use your hand, which is stronger than the buffer spring, to seat the cartridge correctly in the bolt and the bolt correctly in the barrel extension.

At the range or hunting... eh, not so critical. I did try nursing the bolt forward and using the forward assist to keep the noise down. I just felt like "I" was making more noise instead of less. Easy remedy for me was to simply chamber a round right away, toss the safety on and close the dust cover before trekking through the woods.

Now, the lack of a dust cover; that is a bit of a concern to me regardless of what you are using the rifle for. We really never want to experience a feed/fire/eject problem. Especially after cleaning the rifle since last use, but now dust, dirt, mud, or other contaminants are causing problems. But again, not in battle... so we can clean it again if there is a problem.

[Siffer703]

Nice!

[MarcSpaz]

Made some minor cosmetic upgrades to my kids AR today. I think it looks pretty good. What do you guys think?


Before:




After:

[Snakester]

I like it...Especially the forearm !

[MarcSpaz]

Thank you Sir!

I think he is really going to like it. He was telling me he wanted it setup with these parts and in OD Green. When he gets home from vacation, I'm going to surprise him with it.

I feel bad for him. Between the minor mechanical issues I had to fix and him going on vacation, he hasn't been able to fire it yet. As it stands right now, the first time he shoots it will likely be at the Meet & Great.

I hope they are haven't a good time, but I miss the family. Have to work though.