Re: New SR-25 to my company
Eddy,
One modification that "can" be made with any AR design (although I'll bet you'll have a tough time convincing your unit armorer to go with this...let alone the CO) is to file down the "magazine catch projection stop" on the bolt catch. This WILL STOP the rifle from catching the bolt and holding it open when you empty a mag. This will do three things: 1. decrease wear on the bolt catch, which has been PREVIOUSLY known to have broken on SR-25's when it was the old one (as in, the same one as the M-16s), and 2. Prevent you from having the bolt/BCG from being held open and filling up with sand in sandy/windy environments (but there's certainly no operations like that going on...and of course, everyone always remembers to close their dust cover before running from position to position as you were taught at Benning), and 3. With repetition, it will train you to ensure you reload on opportunity, instead of when a mag has been emptied. The one thing I'll offer there is that it is pretty nice to either have a Badger charging handle or PRI gas-buster for the large, forgiving handle since you will be working the charging handle more than before (obviously).
I'm not telling you you "SHOULD" do this, or "MUST" do this AT ALL; I'm simply trying to offer some information of how other people have attempted to help solve some minor shortcomings.