Impulse buy AR lower needs a direction. 9x39?

Romeo458

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Sep 20, 2019
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I got one of the Virginia 15 lowers because I thought it was cool... now what am I gonna do with it?

I've got a MK12ish, MK18ish, Valkyrie, Blackout, and a 16inc 6.5 Grendel already.

Kicking around doing a little 9x39, or longer barrel Grendel. I've got an A2 upper so a classic 20inc with some NM sights would be cool too.

I've been wanting to start playing with the 9x39 since wolf and dies have become available, but I just got a 6.5CM and am building a stock for it. Anyone here been messing with it yet? The Ruskis say it's still effective to 400, but they sat a lot.
 

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that's the prob, the actual lowers are inexpensive but then $$$ to make rifles out of them...

so how about a pcc build? 9, 10, 45... then you can play with it in uspsa etc. guess you'd need a mag block vs a dedicated 9mm lower.
 
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Im done buying lowers. If I buy another it will be a pistol caliber. Why bother having a bunch of duplicate lowers when it's so easy to swap uppers and shoot any caliber you want. Plus uppers take up less room in the safe.
 
Build yourself an Upper around this barrel in 24" length; it is set up for the type 2 bolt.

I did, and it's currently doing load development, which is going nicely after the first round of test loads. I'm running Speer 120gr Gold Dots and W748. The process is going smoothly with no surprises. Will chrono, but am saving that for once the right load emerges.

My closest guess is that this is a Satern/Liberty barrel, button rifled for AR Stoner. I borescoped it and its 20" 'Sister-Upper', and it looks very nice inside. The price is very definitely right for an experiment.

So why double down on the 6.5 Grendel? I did it because I'm a tinkerer/experimenter. I've concluded the 6.5G and the AR-15 are a very efficient and versatile package. The 20" (and your 16") are suited for walkabout applications, and I've seen what the 24" can do in 5.56. I'm figuring the 6.5G in 24" would amp that up somewhat desirably.

Why have extra uppers? Good question, and one I held onto for over a decade. I still have more Uppers than Lowers, but I upped the number of lowers this year with three PA-15, and one PA-10 Lower.

In the end it was simply a question of convenience. The basic PA-10/15 Lowers, Two-Stage Trigger upgrades, and Bolt Release Extension upgrades were cheap and quick, transforming the basic stuff into something a lot more tolerable. I'm a cheap guy, and the cost of doing this was very agreeable. My two Grendels are complete rifles.

There are three 5.56's (two of which are Stag Model 6 24" Super Varminters, the other is an 'M4gery'), the two Grendels, and a 20" PA-10 308. Should the need arise to pass out a few in a dire situation, I maybe could. I live 50 miles above Mexico, and there's a lot of illegal traffic running right through the bush in our A/O. They leave us alone and vice-versa, but the Coyotes and Traffickers could be another matter.

So for me, the real question is why not?

Greg
 
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I had an upper for a while in 5.56 with a 24inc barrel, we called it captain ridiculous. It's almost 1inc bull with a brake on it. It was fun to shoot, and I still have the barrel. I thought about the Midway brand barrel you mention, but I haven't seen much on them.
 
That(those) Stag Model 6('s) are some fine shooters.

I got my first somewhere around 2008-2010. It came with a 1/2MOA at 100yd w/Factory Match Ammo Accuracy Guarantee. I set out to see if it would, and came come with about half of the targets doing as promised, using PPU 75gr Match.

It was my first AR, and the urge to build an Upper soon followed. Franken-Upper, actually, but it had a Stag 3G barrel on it and it shot surprisingly well; still does. Several other (bought) Uppers later (CMMG Bull WASP 16, AR Stoner 16"), and I had the bug for life.

Then, our Grandkids started coming out to the range, one of them shot my Stag in a Nationals 600yd F T/R Match, and I gifted the Stag 6 to her. I immediately built another identical one from the Factory kit. So I then had two Lowers, and upward of a half dozen Uppers, including a 20" and a 24" pair of 6.5 Grendels. A 20" PA-10 fell from the sky into my waiting arms, and it soon became abundantly apparent that all of those 5.56 Uppers needed Lowers. Most of them got theirs.

It's a syndrome...

Personally, I think there's nothing ridiculous about the way my 24" AR's shoot.

Greg

The 24" 6.5G is relatively new; the 24" Stoner 5.56 has been around longer. I talked a friend into one of the latter and he built an Upper around it. I gave him a bunch of my handloads made for my for my Stags, and now he's solid supporter of the AR Stoner barrels, along with myself. Hell; his 24" shoots AE 55 FMJ like it's Match ammo.

I did a lot of searching on the net to see if anyone actually knew who was fabricating the AR Stoner barrels. A while back, there was come convincing suggestion that it was Bear Creek, and that wasn't what folks seemed to like hearing. But more recently, there's even more convincing suggestion that Satern is selling them fabricated and marketed through their Button Rifled division, Liberty.

All I can say is that they group round and the groups are getting smaller as the load development progresses.

Greg
 
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I did, so far I'm pleased with the wolf ammo except the printers are deep as hell and I had to rob the longer pin from another gun. I haven't gotten past 100 yet and I'm looking at buying a shop so the brass for loading hasn't been purchased yet. I did fire form 10 7.62 casings to play with.
 
I did, so far I'm pleased with the wolf ammo except the printers are deep as hell and I had to rob the longer pin from another gun. I haven't gotten past 100 yet and I'm looking at buying a shop so the brass for loading hasn't been purchased yet. I did fire form 10 7.62 casings to play with.

please share pictures & your related experiences with the 9x39.
 
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you could do anything you want with it including your own laser rifle that would be really sweet but maybe not so practical yet but this kid not sure why I keep calling him a kid he's probabaly 30 years old but he made one maybe you could make a better one more power Mr. Scott I'm giving it all she's got captian .

you could move it to an ar style shot gun also that looks really fun .

you could do a short ar or a long ar oh a 50 cal ar ?
what ever you get or build or do may you have a blast with it and enjoy .
 
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Call Frank Green at Compass Lake. Have him make you a 22-24" barrel on the mk12 profile in .223. Much lighter than a varmint. That extra 5 or 6 inches really helps with the blast and velocity. 1-8 twist with a cut blank. Larue 2 stage trigger. Put your money in a barrel/trigger/optic/ammo....in that order. Now you have a powerful 600yd+ battle rifle that isn't too long or heavy and it's great to hunt with also. Varmint profiles are just too heavy at that lenght. IMHO the first mass shooting with a suppressor being used and the gov't will come in and scoop them all up. Make a fightin' gun that won't leave you totally deaf without one. Now load up a thousand Swift 75 gr bonded rounds and your ready to go......for anything.
 
Once I get some spare time closer to fall I will. I have applied for the sheriff's department, and it looks like I'll get the job so lots to do. I also neetld to get in touch with Griffin armament about using the optimus with the 9x39. Its low pressure so it should work as I see a lot of people using pistol cans. My 45 can might work also since its rated to 300 blackout subs.

I have to talk to compass lake as it is about a barrel I got last winter. I posted a thread on it and thought it was solved but the one good group I got was a fluke apparently. I need to dig up my order info and email them about it.
 
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