Del-ton AR-15 build

[csspecs 1,987]

I've had an Anvil Arms receiver that I bought back in 05' I think. Bought it from the owner of the company, its within the first 1100 of their serial numbers. (Anvil Arms went belly up last year).

 

I've been wanting to build it since I got it over 5 years ago. I actually shopped Del-ton since the week I got the lower.

 

I got the 20" model, fixed stock with a chrome lined barrel. Pretty basic kit. Came packed in that egg crate like foam that is in lower end gun cases, everything well packed and free of any dings ect.

 

Took about 45 minutes to assemble, detents probably took half of it. Just take your time lining parts up when installing. Needed tools are a small hammer brass punches, large vise grips (10CR is the type/size I used), large flat screw driver. If you use a Car stock you need a special wrench.

 

I used this guide to build it.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=3&f=4&t=226782

 

The trigger is stiff probably about 8+ pounds. I plan to use mine for coyote, so a stiffer trigger is OK on a field gun. You may want to upgrade your trigger if this is a big deal for you.

I'll get some pictures up soon.

 

 

Figured I'd put my EGR's together... (EGR = Evil green rifles)

 

 

Early range report:

 

Brought several AR mags from my collection to see how picky the AR was. I can safely say that cheap mags suck, several of the steel bargain bin mags from CTD had feedlips that are so messed up that they would never feed right. The Steel ATI mag seems to be good as are the D&H.

 

Fired 120 rounds out of the good mags without a problem. I was shooting brown bear (it voids the warranty but I don't really care). I did not note the accuracy as I forgot to grab any targets on my way out the door.. But it seemed to group tight, I'll drop a scope on it next outing and post some groups.

 

Brown bear ammo did leave some crap build up in the action, which wiped out easy when I got home. I did not notice any stuck cases or feeding problems, could be due to the chrome lined barrel or that its a 20" with a fixed stock (which internet rumors say works the best).

[whitetrashrn 74]

Great Job dude.. The greenys look great!!

[Casp 119]

Brown bear ammo did leave some crap build up in the action, which wiped out easy when I got home. I did not notice any stuck cases or feeding problems, could be due to the chrome lined barrel or that its a 20" with a fixed stock (which internet rumors say works the best).

 

For the sake of brevity I won't go into the full explanation but, yes, the good reliability comes from the heavier rifle-length buffer. It's also hard to beat D&H for quality metal mags; they're the current mil.gov supplier of the things. Anyway, nice lookin' rifle all around!

 

And holy hell what is the capacity on that AK mag?

[csspecs 1,987]

That is a 60 round mag, took two promag 5.45x39 mags and plastic welded them together like we used to do for the saiga 12s. The smooth band is where the steel mesh is.

 

Good to know that not all the internet rumors are false... Now I want to see how much it jams. I have the feeling after the first run with the rifle, that its not quite as bad as people say.

 

Also I keep hearing that the bolt should be dripping with oil... Is this needed to prevent wear? Because with all the dust from the DGI I can't see a lot of oil helping reliability.

[Casp 119]

The AR's reputation for being a jammomatic comes from stories of their terrible service history in Vietnam persisting to the present and being exaggerated as such stories often are. Pre-68 ARs are pretty much utter crap in terms of reliability, but all the problems from that era have been solved. There's really nothing wrong with DGI; it still has a gas piston and cylinder like any other gas operated weapon, just not where you'd naturally expect them to be, and this comes with (mostly) all the same pros and cons as any other gas op system. As for running dirty in the receiver, the AR has nothing on any delayed blowback rifle. Anyone who complains about how dirty the AR-15 is hasn't had to clean an HK93.

 

The one remaining, wide-spread problem is that most carbines (any example with a telescopic stock) are over-gassed, in the sense that the mechanical load isn't heavy enough for the amount of power put out by the gas system, regardless of what gas system length you have. Shorter tube = shorter buffer = lighter buffer. The easy fix for that is to swap the steel core buffer out for a tungsten core one. If you're running a rifle stock and buffer (which you are) then it's a non-issue.

 

FWIW, I only oiled mine (16" M4 with M16 carrier group and H3 buffer) when I first built it and haven't cleaned it at all yet, and haven't had any hiccups. Granted, I'm still in the hundreds-of-rounds range (I'm poor and ammo is expensive) so we'll see what happens, but I don't anticipate any problems. If you really want to see what kind of abuse a well-made AR can take, look up Pat Rogers' Filthy 14 carbine.

[shades_of_grey 1,092]

Nice lookin build, csspecs!

 

If I were to buy/build an AR it'd be 'A2 style, like yours, (20" barrel, carry handle, long buffer).

[csspecs 1,987]

Well I'm still in Northern MI so the weather is iffy at best. Wind has been about 20mph and gusting higher at times. It was raining lightly when I got to the range, about the time I got the scope on paper it was raining pretty hard. So the groups suffered a little. Another 120 rounds fired without a misfeed or problem of any kind (despite having sand in everything when I got home).

 

The range set up.

 

Me shooting in the rain

 

group one

 

 

Group two

 

If you notice the groups spread sideways mostly, I'm assuming this is due to strong cross winds. Listed wind drift in a 10mph wind is 1.3 inches, and I would say there was that kind of variation between first and last rounds.

[elia.jon1 1]

i have a egr middy from delton, actually it was 2 but only 1 now....

 

 

both of them group great, have no ammo problems and seem to work fine with about any mag i've tried, mainly some leo marked mags i picked up at a flea market, and 4 colt 20's from the late 60's - early 70's