Goodies arrived!

Enough of them, anyway. Had the parts at 9 am. Put the upper together, and swung by Rhine Group. Paid them to check the headspace, just in case- even though with a new bolt and barrel, I should be good to go per every internet expert. Well, I'd prefer to have it checked for my own piece of mind. Checked fine. Drooled over the RRA tactical sight they had in stock (it looks way cool in person, plus I like carry handles), but stuck with the Magpul BUIS for now.

The Aero lower is not here yet, so I used the Armalite lower I previously built- this was to be the lower for this upper anyway. Just needs the black carbine stock installed. And possibly a taller front sight assembly. I wasn't sighting it in- it was on paper, with the groups centered on where I aimed offhand. I ran around 150 rounds through it. It hates Tula- half the time it Failed To Feed or wouldn't lock back on the last round, like they were weak. The lower worked fine with the 6.8. But my 16" Armalite also FTF with Tula today. With Remington, S&B, Hunting Shack, and PMC 55 grain, it ran fine. Also worked fine with the 22 LR conversion- had a few jams, just like with the 16" rifle. I need the proper 22lr charging handle to prevent the bullets tips from jamming between the bolt and charging handle.

It is a chrome lined, 1/9 twist DPMS H-Bar profile. The M4 ramps match the SOTA upper fine. I shot it enough that the hand guards were getting very warm to the touch. When shooting the 22lr kit, I dumped the first mag way too fast and pissed off the RO for once. Guess I need to stick to the steel for that....

Why an 11.5 with a pinned 5.5 flash hider? Short answer- why not? Everyone took one look at it and moved further away from me....... It was fun to shoot.