New AR-15 owner

[michael_aos]

One of my camping buddies decided his girlfriend needed her own AR-15. She's really enjoyed shooting mine over the past few years.

She'd decided she wanted a 16" bbl and a collapsible stock. He decided he wanted to purchase from-stock, "today".

So they hauled me over to Specialty Sports and Supply. Jeff showed us an Armalite, a couple Bushmasters and a Rock River.

Personally, I really liked the Armalite. I think it's their SOF model, with the mid-length gas system, A4, and comes with a detachable scope-mount for $889.

She (along with most new shooters I've encountered) seems to have an extremely difficult time looking through a scope, so that rifle was ruled out.

Given the choice between Bushmaster and Rock River, I'd pick Rock River. That's just me.

The particular model he was showing us had the quad-rail. Jeff stuck a VFG on it and she fell in love with that. Also slapped on a Bushnell Holosight, co-witnessed with iron sights. Tipped the scale at 8.5lbs, empty.

The only "issue" remaining in my mind, was the carbine-length gas system -vs- a mid-length gas system. Honestly, I don't know how much "better" is really is, but it's supposed to be a theoretical improvement with no down-side.

They happened to have a mid-length upper behind the counter and swapped it for the carbine length.

Next steps are teaching them how to clean it; how to operate; breaking in the barrel, and getting it sighted in.

[Marlin]

Bring 'em along to the next south shoot. [dance1]

[michael_aos]

Any thoughts on barrel break-in?

She's set up with a Bushnell Holosight, co-witnessed with iron sights. I suspect it's the Rock River "Dominator" EOTech mount, but I'm honestly not sure now. My point being that she's not initially concerned about "across the course" type of accuracy.

I'm leaning toward just giving it a good initial cleaning and then shooting it...

They picked up 200rds of Federal PowerShok 50gr at WalMart to get started. I'm trying to convince them to buy a case of Black Hills remanufactured 55gr while it's on-sale at MidwayUSA.

Mike

[Marlin]

That what I do, plus I don't even worry about sighting in for about 500 rnds.