Middy and optic advice?

Yup!

Alrighty, finally got out to the range to play with my new middy.  I needed to zero my irons and EOTech, and also needed o re-zero my Bushmaster carbine with the carrying handle irons re-attached.  I've only got the one lower, here is a picture of the two bang-sticks.  I tried to line up the uppers so you can see the differences in the barrel length and handguard length.  The bushy is a 14.5 barrel with a pinned flash hider, and the middy has a 16" barrel with a pinned flash hider.



I zeroed both uppers at 50m.  Bad on me, I didn't take any pictures of the zeroing groups.  Dumb.  I slow-fire zeroed with Winchester 'Q' series 5.56, which is my primary stacked deep zombie stockpile.  Minus the occasional flyer, my groups were consistently around 3" with both irons and the EOTech, which is plenty good for me.  I walked in the rounds with 4 shot groups, on the middy I ended up 3 up, 1 right to zero the irons, and 5 right on the EOTech.  My carry handle irons on the BM ended up zeroing at 2 up, 6 left.

I also wanted to get a feel for how the new middy operated under a little bit of stress, similar to what it might do at a class, and how it shot with the different rounds I had on hand.  I did get pictures of my target after shooting 20 rounds of each flavor of ammunition that I usually stockpile.  Based on Browning35's post about where brass should eject, I also noted that data.  I didn't do any individual shooting to see how groups of different ammo compared to other groups, because I wanted to run the gun semi-hard to try and see if there would be any issues.  I shot as soon as I could get my sight picture back, probably averaged a second or less per shot, and did an immediate reload with a magazine of the new rounds then resumed firing.  Picture of the plate after all that was said and done.  This was also done at 50m, all rounds hit the paper plate, no flyers.





I was using 'range quality' mags, not beaters but nothing that had been babied, and didn't have any malfunctions or FTF / FTE.  The following is of note as far as Browning's diagram, I wrote this down in the order it was fired (i.e., the first string I fired was the Hornady, the last string was BVAC reloads):

Winchester 'Q' series 5.56, 40 rounds, no malfunctions, ejected at 2:30
Hornady 64 gr PSP, 30 rounds, no malfunctions, ejected at 2:00
Wolf Gold, 20 rounds FMJ, no malfunction, ejected at 2:00
PMC Bronze, 20 rounds, no malfunctions, ejected at 3:30
Wolf polyformance, 20 rounds, no malfunctions, ejected at 4:30
BVAC reloads, 20 rounds, no malfunctions, ejected at 3:30

The final picture was fired at 100 yards, using the rest of the Hornady I had brought out.  This was slow fire, no flyers, everything landed in the plate.  I can't decide if I'm happy with this shooting or not.  On the one hand, I'm going for 'combat accurate', so every round fired would have hit a zombie somewhere in the middle of their chest.  That's the goal, after all.  On the other hand, I feel like my groups should have been tighter.  Maybe given my ammunition and sighting system (EoTech at 100 yards) this isn't bad shooting, or maybe I just have an inflated sense of my own marksmanship ability.  Thoughts?  I won't get my feelings hurt if the consensus is that groups should generally be tighter at that range.  I'm always willing to work on marksmanship.





I'm going to look at Browning's post and check out the ejection angles, I remember seeing that ejecting at around the 4:00 angle was optimum.  The middy has a midlength gas system, an M16 carrier, and I used an H buffer FWIW.

I was shooting about 1 round per second, I guess not exactly slow fire.  Didn't do the whole 'breathe, pause, squeeze..." thing.  Sitting at a bench, not using a rest.  I suppose I'm okay with it all things considered.  I'm training to hit a zombie center mass, not a prairie dog in the head at 200 yards -- and this rifle / ammo / optic combination might not be able to do that anyway.

The chart you posted says my rifle is ejecting as 'overgassed', which I could address by buying and dropping in an H2 buffer perhaps.  Since I mostly shoot wolf, and it was actually ejecting in the optimum area, and since the rifle ran just fine with all brands, I might not screw with anything and just see if it becomes a problem down the road.  Dunno.  I'll wait and see what others think, if it's worth tinkering with or not.  I could probably borrow an H2 buffer from ZS former member Arch and play around a bit free of charge.

Yes Dissy looks hawt. I don't know about you, but as awesome as the trip to Thailand I took awhile ago was, not shooting for a month just about had me shaking in a corner.

Well the thing is it's just a generalized chart to meant to point people in a general direction if they're having issues and that gives a few possible solutions. 9 times out of 10 the only time shooters are going to be looking at how their gun ejects is if they're having problems.

They look at the chart once, get pointed in a general direction and that's it. After that the chart is done with. Also believe it's more meant for one type of ammo rather than several different loads, whatever load you shoot the most.

If people are really arguing over this (first time I've run across it so I haven't seen any of that) I think that they're looking for deeper meaning where there isn't any and it's actually more an argument about who can pee farther than actually being about that chart. It's just a compass that points north or south, not a GPS.

I dunno, that's what I got out of looking at the thing. :Shrug

Rise, O thread!

RISE!!!!!

I have my ACOG mounted on my middy, and the fixed FSP is just irritating enough, you know? It provides a vertical blur that, while it can be ignored, can also be pretty damn distracting depending on what type of shooting I'm doing. Using the ACOG as a reflex sight? Not so annoying. Using the ACOG as a magnified 'designated marsksman' type optic? Grrrrr....

My first thought was to just replace the FSP with a railed one, so I can put a flip up sight on it. Seems easy enough. Turns out, not so much. The FSP is NOT the active gas block, it just serves as a mounting spot for the handguard front and as a front sight (the actual gas block is a low profile block mounted at the mid-length system, and it's hidden by the handguard). Finding the right hardware is turning out to be a pain, and the specifics of the barrel profile, etc. are working against me (my lead advisor and gun-tinkerer is Arch, and he knows vast amounts about this shit. If he says simply replacing this part is going to really involve a lot of headache and open up a can of worms, I trust him completely).

SO, that basically leaves me with two options: dremel off the FSP riser, which leaves me with no fixed FSP but still able to mount the standard drop-in handguard. I could then put a section of rail on the top of the handguard and mount a flip-up sight. This plan seems kind of ghetto, but would fix the problem with very little effort or expense.

Option 2 involves installing a free-float tube and removing the fixed FSP completely, then mounting a flip up front sight on the new handguard. This option is probably going to cost at a minimum $300. Arch is suggesting a 13.5' free float handguard if I go this route, and I think I like the Keymod attachment system.

SO, my questions to the hive mind are should I....

1. Get over it. Spending a bunch of money or bubba-ing up a perfectly good rifle because you sometimes get irritated at your sight picture isn't worth it.

2. Dremel away.

3. Go full retard and get the free float handguard, etc.

If Option '3', what are some suggestions for a good handguard? I would rather buy once, cry once, but don't really want to spend $500 on fixing such a minor issue.

GO!