Archive for July 15th, 2011

Some feedback after finishing the Dean Caputo AR15 armorers course

It has been several decades now that I have been shooting firearms and we’re working on the second decade of military style semi-auto experience.   Some of the guns I have  owned in the last 10yrs are breaking down from time to time, but I’m still learning about the firearms. When something breaks,  its somewhat fun to learn about how a firearm was designed and how much trial and error went  into a firearms design before it was done right.   All of those little springs and detents probable came about after trying other things, but they are all very important parts of keeping  a firearm running.

Recently I had a stock come apart on my and the spring and detent fell out, I couldn’t find the stock wrench that I had so I had to pick up another one from Tapco.   It is now staying in my range bag,  I’ve had magazine failures and ammo failures, but getting the AR15 Armorers course gun dvds is a good gift or good thing to watch with your gun buddies.   There are good ideas on keeping gun parts and small compact gun tools around to keep your gun up and running or get it up and running when you’re at a range.   Something like a $1 spring can shut your gun down for the day if you weren’t prepared.

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Range Report on M4 Carbine

I’ve had an LWRC Carbine for several years now and it has served me well.   I’m not going to brag about  how great this thing runs compared to other firearms, all I’m going to say is that this was the gun I really learned about gunsmithing with.   I recently stripped the gun down to do a repair after the stock came loose and i lost the rear take down pin detent and spring.   I was shooting and noticed that my M4 Carbine rifle stock was starting to unwind and I was a little surprised.  I thought I broke the stock for a moment and then I realized that it was just lose.  I didn’t have a stock tool with me so i just hand tightened it, but then I noticed the rear take down pin was falling out.

Well, I wasn’t in a gunfight, but I did learn that more than just an optic or a magazine can fail you, you’re gun may just fall apart if you don’t pay attention to it.   While I took the gun apart to analyze it a little more I notice that the fore grip that I was using was cracked, it had not broken off on me, but man, did it look like it was close to snapping, there are a great many things to lock down and tighten, spending $1800 on LWRC uppers, doesn’t mean the gun isn’t allowed to have an operator induced failure of some sort or sheer neglect.   Everything that can come loose needs to be checked.

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