Sam Lothbrok from United States, CA Public Profile

I have good experience with the Gamma 556 so for my large frame AR project in 308, I picked the Gamma 762. Lots of great reviews on this hunk of metal. I specially like that it is nitride finished. The pre-drilled pin hole is also a nice touch. I bought a second one for a 14.5" 300 BLK because of that. (Why 14.5"? Because Kalifornia)

For the new rifle I'm putting together, I wanted something other than FDE. After looking at pics here and there, I decided to try Coyote Brown and I'm not disappointed. Form wise, I wish it were a Magpul MOE SL, but it's close enough. It went on easily on an Aero Precision Enhanced receiver extension. It's a little loose on the receiver extension, but not so much that it rattles. There is a little trick using a piece of the loop side of a velcro strip that I can try to tighten it up a bit. The cheek piece is about as wide as the Magpul, maybe a hair wider. The buttpad, not as aggressive the Magpul's, but no problem so far. Now I just need to get my handguard Cerakoted it A.I. Dark Earth (H-250). That was the closest I found to B5 Coyote Brown.

My first choice was the PA 6x, mainly because of the price. Also the flip mount of the PA is supposedly more solid compared to the Vortex 6X. But as luck would have it, the Vortex 6X went on sale for the same price as the PA 6X, even cheaper after using a coupon. And, the shipping was also free. So I took a chance. I figured that Vortex should have fixed the flip mount issue by now, if not, I can use the money I saved towards a better mount. So now that I have this, I can say that the mount issue seems to have been fixed. I can take it off and put it back on and the alignment with the dot will remain centered. As this is my first magnifier, I have nothing to compare it to in terms of glass quality. By itself, the magnifiers glass seem pretty clear to me. Any clarity issues I have is not with the magnifier but with the optic I have in front of it. With a Sig Sauer Romeo5 XDR, the clarity drops by a tiny bit. With a Meprolight I can't notice a drop in Quality. With an older Sightmark, noticeably more blurry. I want to see how well this magnifier will work with a PA 1x micro prism. Anyway, the eye relief is pretty much as Vortex says, 2.5". Even with the magnifier mounted as far back as it can go with the buis occupying the last slot, I had to lean forward or collapse the buttstock to bring my eye within range. Neither way is desirable to me. I might just remove the buis and mount the magnifier in the last slot. This looks like it would bring the magnifier within eye relief rang

I have a vertical foregrip on my "fixed mag" AR. I found that I'm not using so much as a foregrip but more like handstop to keep my hand from grabbing the mag well. So when it came time to put together my CA "featureless" rifle, I looked for something that would function the same but one that cannot be considered a "vertical foregrip", which is one of the "evil" features according to CA gun laws. There was a number of fancier pieces but I like the nondescript appearance of this piece. It's simple looking, you can't mistake it for a foregrip. It goes on solid on the rail and once the m-lok screws and t-nuts are tightened down, it's not going anywhere. Now with the Indexer in place, I can be sure that my support hand is always at the same spot whenever I grab the handguard. Incidentally, after finger tightening the m-lok, I decided to torque it down to 20 in/lbs. Guess what I found out, fingertight > 20 in/lbs, it's more than 30 in/lbs. But I digress. Anyway, it's a bit pricey for how small it is, and also considering that it did not come with the necessary torx wrench. I still buy it again though.

I opted for a fixed Carbine stock when I first put together my CA featureless rifle but I found the pull was too short for me. Even with an extended buttpad it was still to short. First I thought about going the full rifle buffer extension and A1/A2 stock, but that's too much work and more expense. Then I thought about pinning the stock to position, that's too much work as well. Luckily I came across this. This is so much easier, cheaper and not as permanent. Just cut up where indicated, pop it in the hole row, pop your stock back in and you're done. Also lucky for me, the default cuts for a 6 position buffer tube lines up with the 5th hole, which is where I normally have stock pulled (one hole up from fully extended).

I'm not going into all the tech details & specs for this unit. You can get that info here or on the MI website. I will mention that at 12.5" it is 1.5oz lighter than the Magpul MOE-SL carbine length handguard I have on another AR. It is hard coat anodized FDE, not Cerakote finished, in case that matters to anyone. This handguards shade of FDE is not a 100% with the receiver set that I am using this with, Aero Precision. However, the receiver set itself is not a 100% with the FDE Magpul stock I am using. All in all it's not bad. The additional rail real estate at only a 1.5oz increase in weight makes up for the minutely different shade of FDE. If I wanted the whole rifle to be one shade of FDE, I'd send it out to be Cerakoted. I am considering the 15" for my next AR.

I should have read the description a bit more thoroughly. It is thinner than I expected, maybe a hair or two thicker than 1/6". I was expecting a neoprene or similar backing but it's just a non-slip coating. Again, I should have read the description. The surface is similar to felt and if you accidentally snag the surface with your wire brush, you'd pull tiny strands of the material out of place. The color and simple design of the surface is probably the best feature of this mat.

For some reason it was a little hard to find stripper clips. When I saw these here, I jumped on them. They're alright, a little disappointing. The clip part aren't brass as in the picture. They're a touch loose. The rounds would wobble side to side a bit. My suggestion, get a 420 round can of Federal 5.56 on stripper clips and re-use those clips.

My Tavor X95 came with a pair of QD sling swivels and I thought, "Jackpot!" However, one would only fit in the Tavor. It would not in in the Magpul QD attachments in my AR. Not so jackpot after all. So I decided to try these instead of the push-button type of QD. Gotta say I like these better. Grab the ridged sides between the thumb & index finger, push into the QD. To disconnect, Grab the ridged sides between the thumb & index finger off. Simple.

Good to have in your cleaning kit. A little short to reach all the way in from the rear of an AR15 upper receiver, have to be a little creative. So far I've only used the nylon brush but the bronze & stainless steel brushes look like they'd fit the bill for tougher crud removal.