KG_mauserman
09-28-11, 16:38
At the end of my second deployment to Iraq in 2005 I decided I wanted to buy myself a new AR. I don't remember how it was that I decided upon the DSA lower LMT MRP upper, but it probably had something to do with me being into DSA FAL's at the time. Anyway when I got home I went to the local gun shop and ordered one with the CQB sized rail and 16" CL barrel. A couple of months later the weapon showed up at my dealer with a rifle length rail. It did however have the 16" CL barrel and not wanting to send it back and have to wait for another two months for it to show up again I went ahead and paid for the weapon and took it on home.
It was a good shooter although it was a bit on the heavy side. The trigger on it from DSA was terrible and I mean terrible, but other than that everything else worked and felt just fine. It was completely reliable and I never had any problems with it aside from some reloaded BVAC ammo I had that like to pop primers which got into the fire control group. I can't blame that on the weapon though. I used the weapon pretty hard, but as I acquired more and more rifles it was used less and less.
I don't remember when, but an old army friend of mine Todd down at Noveske suggested he could make a barrel for it if I ever wanted. I kicked the idea around for a while and last year around this time I finally took him up on the offer. I sent my upper receiver down to him and told him I wanted an SPR type barrel, but that he could contour it and cut it to whatever length he thought was best. What he came up with was a 20" SS barrel with a heavy profile which had a gradual tapper from the barrel extension out to the gasblock. It has a rifle length gas tube and the barrel itself was guncoated or duracoated (I can't remember which) black. It has a 1/7 twist with their polygonal type rifling.
On the original LMT barrels there is a bridge that holds the gas tube in place and after building this barrel we found out why. The hole in the upper receiver on LMT MRP uppers is a bit larger than on regular uppers and if there is no bridge to support the gas tube it can bounce around when fired causing it to not line up with the gas key on the bolt carrier as it comes back into battery. How Todd solved the problem was to put in a small brass sleeve in the upper receiver gas tube hole which kept the gas tube from bouncing around. While this may preclude me from using one of LMT's piston barrels I never had the desire to own one so thats not an issue.
I went down and picked up the rifle from Todd and we went up in the hills behind Grants Pass and tried it out. It has run like a top since the day I picked it up and I don't ever recall having any issues with it other than the horrible trigger that was on the DSA lower.
While I used it occasionally I didn't have a scope dedicated for it and it didn't get much use compared to my other rifles. In the last month I have finally picked up a dedicated scope (Luepold mark 4 3.5 x 10 which I got for a song) and a geissele SSA trigger. I put those on last weekend and yesterday took it out to the range to see how it would shoot.
I used some American Eagle M193 to get it on paper at 50 yards and zeroed it with 77grain FGMM at 100 yards. I then took it to the 300 yard line to see how it would perform.
The picture below is my first ten round group fired at the 300 yard line and came in at just a hair over 2".
http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j326/KG_mauserman/TgtGfx.jpg
I'm really looking forward to seeing what I can do with some good handloads. I'm hoping I can tighten up that group by 1/4 MOA.
As a disclaimer Noveske does not offer these for sale the one I got was just a one off that Todd was kind enough to do for me.
http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j326/KG_mauserman/DSC_0280.jpg
It was a good shooter although it was a bit on the heavy side. The trigger on it from DSA was terrible and I mean terrible, but other than that everything else worked and felt just fine. It was completely reliable and I never had any problems with it aside from some reloaded BVAC ammo I had that like to pop primers which got into the fire control group. I can't blame that on the weapon though. I used the weapon pretty hard, but as I acquired more and more rifles it was used less and less.
I don't remember when, but an old army friend of mine Todd down at Noveske suggested he could make a barrel for it if I ever wanted. I kicked the idea around for a while and last year around this time I finally took him up on the offer. I sent my upper receiver down to him and told him I wanted an SPR type barrel, but that he could contour it and cut it to whatever length he thought was best. What he came up with was a 20" SS barrel with a heavy profile which had a gradual tapper from the barrel extension out to the gasblock. It has a rifle length gas tube and the barrel itself was guncoated or duracoated (I can't remember which) black. It has a 1/7 twist with their polygonal type rifling.
On the original LMT barrels there is a bridge that holds the gas tube in place and after building this barrel we found out why. The hole in the upper receiver on LMT MRP uppers is a bit larger than on regular uppers and if there is no bridge to support the gas tube it can bounce around when fired causing it to not line up with the gas key on the bolt carrier as it comes back into battery. How Todd solved the problem was to put in a small brass sleeve in the upper receiver gas tube hole which kept the gas tube from bouncing around. While this may preclude me from using one of LMT's piston barrels I never had the desire to own one so thats not an issue.
I went down and picked up the rifle from Todd and we went up in the hills behind Grants Pass and tried it out. It has run like a top since the day I picked it up and I don't ever recall having any issues with it other than the horrible trigger that was on the DSA lower.
While I used it occasionally I didn't have a scope dedicated for it and it didn't get much use compared to my other rifles. In the last month I have finally picked up a dedicated scope (Luepold mark 4 3.5 x 10 which I got for a song) and a geissele SSA trigger. I put those on last weekend and yesterday took it out to the range to see how it would shoot.
I used some American Eagle M193 to get it on paper at 50 yards and zeroed it with 77grain FGMM at 100 yards. I then took it to the 300 yard line to see how it would perform.
The picture below is my first ten round group fired at the 300 yard line and came in at just a hair over 2".
http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j326/KG_mauserman/TgtGfx.jpg
I'm really looking forward to seeing what I can do with some good handloads. I'm hoping I can tighten up that group by 1/4 MOA.
As a disclaimer Noveske does not offer these for sale the one I got was just a one off that Todd was kind enough to do for me.
http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j326/KG_mauserman/DSC_0280.jpg