I've tinkered on a lot of LaRue rifles and uppers, never for profit but just for myself, family, friends, coworkers just trying to help fellow shooters get their rifles running the way the want them to. The Navy spent a lot of time and effort to put me through schools so that I could learn how to work on and repair everything from the M2 to the M9, so I do my best to pass that knowledge down the line.
I'm always on the hunt for ways I can bridge the gap between bolt Rifles and semi-autos as far as repeatable precision and I love to tinker with these Lego guns.
A few years ago there was an article where a group of hunters if I remember correctly rebarreled an OBR with a Proof Research CF Barrel and That's what got the wheels turning for me because up until that point there was a lot of false rumors floating around mostly from AR-15.com that the large frame LaRue rifles were "proprietary" and could not be rebarreled unless you cannibalized your old parts, kinda like what you have to do with a LMT MWS and that's just not correct. The only" dimensional" difference I can see with LT barrel extensions is that they are about .015 longer on the chamber side then the DPMS style extensions, and it honestly makes no difference as far as what you can use inside of LT receivers you just have to make sure you use the proper style extension for the appropriate upper and have it headspaced.
So that's what brings me to why I started looking into LT because I can honestly see the Genius in his true free-floating barrel design and monolithic Top Rails and I wanted to see what happens once you start putting quality single-point cut barrels in that completely free-floated upper, and the results were nothing short of spectacular and I still recommend getting a SS Proof Research barrel and a JP BCG for people who want to try a new barrel in a LT. Now a word of caution on if you're wanting to swap barrels out on one of his Large Frame OBRs the handguards are too short IMO to run any gas system longer than rifle length, The gas block just sticks out like dogs balls.
Fast forward a couple years and after working on quite a few LT uppers and seeing everyone else have really good results curiosity gets the best of me and LT starts releasing these new budget-friendly ultimate upper kits so I jump on some of the small frame kits, and the results were nothing short of awesome using Bartlein and Krieger Blanks from a quality Barrel Smith like CLE and Craddock Precision and at that price point I had no issues selling or Shit canning the OEM barrels.
Soon after that LT starts turning out large frame ultimate upper kit so due to the success in accuracy I experienced with the small frame kit naturally I want to see if they would transfer to LARG frame kits
which brings me to the first time I got burned.
As soon as I could I put in two orders for the large frame UU kit I was really excited to get them and the day it shows up the first thing I noticed is the the BCG are Black!! WTF?? I immediately got back on the computer and clear as day the the photos and the advertising of his" nut busting" Chrome BCGs as part of the kits. I finish assembly on both uppers to check if there is any more issues and the next thing I notice is that the fit between the large frame upper receivers and his OBR lowers which is the same one he uses on all of his rifles fits like dog shit with a ton of slop, definitely not the LaRue standard. At this point I think I just got a bad batch no problem I'm sure LT will take care of it, NOPE!!!! I called up and got Brad on the line asked why my BCGs I received didn't match what was on the website?? I was told they were no longer selling the chrome BCGs with the UU kits and naturally I said WTF don't you think you should notify potential buyers and not advertise it as a chromed BCG??? Not my department was his answer. At this point I am more than slightly annoyed and I tell him I just want to have them refunded because they Don't seem to fit properly in the LT lowers... NOPE can't do a refund because "I" assembled them!! Well how the hell else could I find out they don't fit properly without assembling them... FML!!! And of course there was no information disclosed on the website and the LT groupies on AR-15.com don't mention any of these issues because they're just too distracted by all the shiny swag they get. Also those photos that were on the website by the end of that day were gone.!!
The once fired brass out of those new in house LT .308 barrels cannot be resized in a FL sizing die, and don't even try to use a Small Base Die. I'm not sponsored so this obviously does not work. I've owned LMT, JP, Falkor, Rock River and Knights and none of and none of them have this issue. After all this BS I start to dig in to find out why I'm having so many issues with this LT chamber and there is no mention anywhere on the website that his rifles are designed to only shoot factory ammo. I post two threads one on the Hide and one on AR15.com addressing the issues that I'm having.
Didn't really find any useful information on the hide just more dissatisfied people. On AR15.com there was actually one person, and only one who was willing to show that they were successfully reloading for the large frame .308's with the new Extraxn Chamber and I was directed by Brad at LT and this other guy to a post with a OBR owner stating that you have to get a custom die made by Forster with the Neck reamed out to 0.332, ok not ideal but I'll make it work. I received the new die and quickly found out no matter what brass I ran through it that comes out of new Extraxn chamber The body of the brass is still way oversized and of course utilizing imperial sizing wax some Oneshot again makes no difference, still getting stuck cases and ripping off case heads. I still couldn't find out why some people are able to reload and some aren't?? Well here's why... There are several different variations of that chamber floating around here that have been changed throughout the years, and the reason I praise the LW barrels is because those chambers allow the brass to be resized. Here are two pictures both of these are like new barrels with less than 200 rounds.
LW Chamber 2011 Barrel: those chamber flutes not only decrease in depth but they don't even go down to the base of the case.
View attachment 7660991
New in House Chambers: 2016 Barrel
Obviously different style chamber, The chamber flutes are deeper in depth and run from the bottom of the shoulder to the base.
View attachment 7660992
And this is why some people can successfully reload for their rifles and others cannot but they don't disclose this anywhere, you find out the hard way after dropping a significant amount of money and that leaves a lasting sting when you find that out.
There's plenty more I can keep going on about and if you want to know more just ask.