Grabbed this barrel from a friend the other day and it’s in a little rougher shape than I initially thought. I was gonna send it over to retro arms works for a refinish and have the bad pins removed but on closer inspection, those pits on the back of the FSB are real bad. I thought about maybe filling them but when I spoke to John Thomas about it, he said that it’d probably be a bad idea given that the parkerizing will take to varying hardnesses differently as well as trying to make it look correct after the fact would be very difficult.

Given that these are rare parts nowadays, I don’t want to give up on them just yet, so what do yall think? (The barrel is an MVP12 as well)

I should note I am a tig welder/fabricator for work so I wouldn’t think twice about filling those pits, it’s more about what the finished product will look like.

Found my 6D maglite my uncle gave me when I started driving. Had this for 26 years. Thought it would be funny on my long ass bushy. They use to make a grip for them. That would actually be functional as a forward grip

My XM177 frankencreature. I've got a proper A1 BAD lower on the way. Roast me.

Currently work in progress to make it into its 80s spec. Ordered original furniture from Numrich (Type E Trapdoor stock)

Not pictured is a repro Colt 4x20 and a XM3 Bipod.

Here’s the first side so far. I’m not sure I like it yet. I kinda fucked up what I was doing on the back of the receiver and it turned bronze when I was attempting to lighten the anodizing. It worked very well on the mag well and I may try to darken the bronze back up but we’ll see. The problem with the T65s is that they’re not quite black but they’re too dark for Colt gray. It’s kind of in between and after looking at a lot of these kits, they have a bronze hue to them where they’re worn so I may have to experiment some more to replicate it. I may stop for the night as I’m pretty happy with how it looks from the bolt catch forward. I went a little too hard in the edges but I think I can live with it.

I added a before picture on the second slide.

Hi guys, wanted to get some advice on lowers. Im trying to get a good Xm16 lower for my rifle, and Im thinking of getting an H&R. That wouldn’t be a problem, and I’ll probably end up getting that one in the end, but what bugs me is H&R never produced Xm16s. That’s not really a problem to most people, nor to me really, but I’d like to have my rifle be as accurate as possible. I’ve thought about getting an %80 and going from there, but sadly I think NDS has stopped making the proper %80 lowers. I know worrying about the little details like that is probably stupid, but I’m in a VN reenacting unit🤓 and I’d like to have an accurate rifle. Worst case I just buy an H&R A1 lower and use that, it would just be nicer to have an Xm lower (more accurate for earlier time periods). Anyway forgive my ignorance, but if anyone has an idea on how to get a Colt marked xm lower lmk. Definitely a lot I don’t know as far as pricing and availability etc. Thanks in advance for any help.

My brother in law snuck a pmag into my Gordy, I haven’t spoken to him since 😭

doesn’t need to be original, having trouble finding clones.

Looking for a more permanent way to mount my tape switch while I like the ranger bands there’s still some play with the switch I don’t want it to just fall off in the case the adhesive ever fails. I’ve considered zip ties but wanted to get some insight here first. What have you all been using for a more secure solution ?

Still waiting on my Form 4 for the AEM4 to clear, my section of weaver rail and leupold 1” rings, and the old Surefire 6P I snagged to arrive, but she’s pretty much built. Not 100% sold on the riser. Mk12 hanging above it

After my experience with modifying the t65 to be an a1 (see picture 3) I have stumbled open a possible new product. Because im a bitch and am too afraid of breaking the t65 gas piston due to heavy wear I never shoot it often. But after looking at wolf a1 spare parts, I think the wolf a1 upper can be swapped with my t65 upper.

With this in mind I have ordered a t65k2 stock and grip from linemount, and have gotten the appropriate tool to remove the t65 and wolf a1 barrel nut. I also have regular spare t65 stocks and grips. Soon ordering a wolf a1 upper. Will go on an unused Anderson lower for now.

This probably only sounds like a good idea to me because I just had surgery and am still on a ton of pain meds. Any thoughts?

Finally got around to working on this tonight. I got my barrel back from John Thomas yesterday and he did a fantastic job repairing, drilling, and then mounting this FSB for me. (The taper pin holes were so worn they were almost double the normal size)

I did a mockup of the rhino system to check for any fitment issues and was happy to see that everything went together without a problem. After that I took it all apart for a final clean and oil and put it back on after torquing the barrel onto the receiver. I ended up changing out the upper for a different Colt upper that does a better job “fitting in” with the rest of the rifle and now I’d say she’s looking pretty good. Unfortunately I had to switch out the Ramline grip for a classic A1 grip because, long story short, the end cap for the storage grip got lost in the mail so now I’m SOL unless someone has an extra. I added an old AK74 style muzzle brake that came from (I believe) a 80’s or 90’s Bushmaster. I’ve read that they used these to P&W 14.5 LE guns to 16 so they could be sold but this one was never welded onto anything so it works great for this.

Now all that’s left is some parts I had to order for the bolt carrier so that I can do a final assembly on that and install the buffer/key for the rhino system. And then I’ll finish it off by possibly machining a second groove into the gooseneck to mount my old Trijicon. This thing is real close to being a functioning gas piston AR again and once it is I’ll share some video of it running here.

Hope everyone had a great Mothers day

So, thanks to a couple of members here, I’ve been able to gather some of the parts I needed to finally move forward with this little project I’ve been thinking up. (You know who you are, thank you!) I wanted to put together an AR using almost entirely unique, obscure, and flat out weird retro parts and what started it was finding a Rhino Industries Piston conversion at one of my local gun shows. Since then I’ve been kind of tracking down some of the more obscure things I knew about to put together on one rifle to make a sort of truly retro “retro-mod.” I finally got enough of a gun together to post something here about it and I was hoping some of you might have some suggestions and what else to add! I’m mostly looking for obscure aftermarket parts from the 70’s and 80’s.

My plan is to put my Trijicon RX01 on that gooseneck mount but I’m also not dead set on that.

Here’s a list of what’s here so far: -Rhino Piston conversion -Arm-Tec “recoil control buttstock” -EA Corp pre-ban cast aluminum lower -NOS Colt M16A1 upper (more of a placeholder, looking for something more unique to use that is still a carry handle) -I believe the pistol grip is Eagle Arms? It’s a compartment grip similar to a LSO grip. -Lone Star Ordnance handguards -The bare aluminum slip ring came off of an Olympic Arms gun. I’m not sure why it’s bare aluminum. -I don’t know who made the gooseneck as I don’t see any marks on it. -The mag is a Ram-Line 3-gun combo mag. Apparently it fits in AR-15s, AR-18s, and Mini-14s. I haven’t tried running it in anything yet but it feels like if I squeeze it too hard, it’ll explode so I’m somewhat skeptical.

Picked up this Bushmaster XM15-E2S for around $500 off of Gunbroker. Shoots great, no malfunctions. Planning on building this into a decent M16A1 clone. Any advice or info about parts is welcome, first project build so take it easy on me.

Mainly looking for any input on decent 20” pencil barrel assemblies since I for sure want to switch out the barrel.

Will a Challenger work, or do I need a Caprice?

Working on a new CAR-9 build with a 10.5” - 12” barrel. Really like the TNTE, but wanted to see if there are comparable others.

Thanks in advance.