For the AR shooters;
The question regarding 308 target vs. 308 standard loads got me to thinking about a few tricks that were learned years ago that may not be common knowledge today out side of the target shooting world.
Sealing the charging handle: One problem discovered early on was that blow back through the charging handle. Even with glasses, this cause some irritation to the eyes and was more likely to happen in the sitting or prone shooting positions because the eyes are right up on the rear sights in these positions. There is a cheap and easy fix for this problem.
1. Break the receivers apart at the rear pin.
2. Thoroughly, clean the charging handle and the receiver in the vicinity of the charging handle.
3. Using RTV (I used clear) dab some in the U shaped area of the charging handle.
4. Insert the bolt carrier and charging handle to where it is almost home (in battery).
5. Let RTV cure (as it cures, clean up the excess (just like a bedding job)).
6. After curing is complete, push bolt and carrier all the way home and re-latch the upper and lower receivers together.
Here is a link complete with pictures;
http://www.coloradoshooting.org/gas%20buster.htm
Reducing/eliminating play between receivers: Another issue was the play between the two receivers. For the rear pins there was the accu-wedge but a used pair of foamy earplugs worked just as good. The front pins were a different story. One day on the ship I was discarding some surplus small o-rings that couldn’t be identified when the idea struck home. Sure enough, I found one that worked and it tighten mine right up. It’s out there on the web now, complete with size.
This link tells how and provides the correct size;
http://home.comcast.net/~jesse99/AR_Wiggle.html
This link shows a better picture of it when installed:
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b ... 435&page=1
Hopefully, some may find this beneficial,
Jim