The AR-15 Thread - AR-15's and Magazines

[Ninurta]

Nope, not worth it at all modifying guns illegally.  For full auto or a homemade suppressor.  I will say I'd go for a suppressor before I went for full auto if shit actually hit the fan.  In that case, I'm glad the Palmetto came with a screwed on A2 flash hider rather than pin welded on.

You can modify them for FA legally, but it takes about a year for the paperwork to go through BATFE before you can even start, and between that and the actual modification work involved, versus what you get in the end, it's not worth it to me. The Century AR I bought in the 90's during the ban had a blind-pinned flash suppressor, but that's the only pinned one I've ever owned. Is someone still pinning them now? All I've seen of recent manufacture have screw on flash suppressors with a crush washer instead of the old peel washers they used to use.

I'm not an expert on ARs, but I kind of regret not going with the mid length instead of the carbine based on what I've read about both.  Mine has the nitrided barrel, I've heard chromed is the way to go for longevity, but again, I'm no expert.

Chrome was used to line the barrels for jungle work. It prevents corrosion and pitting in the bore. They started doing it during the Vietnam war because of feedback from the troops in the early days of M16 use. Russian bores are chrome lined, too - at least my AK-74 had a chrome bore. Reports are that the melonite bore lining in my S&W is supposed to be just as good as chrome, but I baby my guns, so I can't say for sure.

I love the old iron sights, this Palmetto has the Magpul flip-up rear sight on a picatinny rail with a fixed front sight, but I also want to get a red dot, I've been eyeing an affordable Sig Sauer that's gotten nice reviews, but I'm split between a red dot and a lower magnification rifle scope.  I don't want to be cheap with either but I'm limited to one or the other for now.  

That depends on what use you intend to put it to. Red dot is the way to go for quick target acquisition for home defense ranges out to about 150 yards or so. Magnified scopes are for longer ranges. I had one of the old 4X military scopes for one of mine, the kind that mounts on the top of the carry handle, but it just got confusing and disconcerting when I had to pick up close targets, so I never used it much. Long range shooting is what I have a scoped bolt action rifle for.

I agree on the hand guards with quadruple rails all over the place, I hate the feel of them.  I really like the Magpul handguard, very comfortable in my opinion but also has slots for attachments if you want.  You got the wider grips or the narrower grips?  I think that's one of the reasons I didn't go with the Ruger, I didn't like the narrower hand guards it came with. 

I always preferred the smaller, round hand guards with 6 vent holes, but they are hard to find with heat shields in them now, so I use the bulkier M4 handguards with 7 vent holes and double heat shields in them. It takes a little longer for that heavier barrel to heat up, but when it does it also holds the heat longer, so the heat shields are a must on it for me. Some of the handguards with quad rails have covers for the rails, but since I don't need all those rails, I don't use them. Rail covers are just something else to loose in the weeds to me.