Big bore AR Calibers

I really want a 30.06 AR, but don't want to go through one particular company for it.

@Tarowah I think Black Hole Weaponry makes barrels for 243, 270, and a few others that sound really badass in an AR!
 
I really want a 30.06 AR, but don't want to go through one particular company for it.

@Tarowah I think Black Hole Weaponry makes nly for 243, 270, and a few others that sound really badass in an AR!

The problem with a 30-06 AR is there is only 2-3 companies that are making the stuff for them. From what I can tell only Noreen is producing them in any quantity.

NEMO makes a 300 WM so not sure why they don’t have an -06 in their line up.. maybe bolt issues? Idk.

McGowen, and X Caliber will chamber you a barrel in anything you want. If they don’t have it, send them the reamer and they’ll cut it for you lol. Just have to source everything else

Edit- my projectiles and dies came yesterday. Woot
 
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I too would like a 30-06 AR but Noreen is the only one I’ve seen and a bit steep for a “just because” buy. There is a used one for sale still around here I think but I don’t want a camo rifle.
 
I too would like a 30-06 AR but Noreen is the only one I’ve seen and a bit steep for a “just because” buy. There is a used one for sale still around here I think but I don’t want a camo rifle.

You right about that. Their -06 is in the same price range as a 338 LP bolt gun. So I figure imma throw a dart at a board and see where it lands lol
 
I've got an AR15 in 450B and really like it. It is a real thumper. I have shot it to 300 yards, which is farther than it is considered to be effective. With the scope zeroed at around 40 yards, it will hit about 3" high at 100 and about 4" low at 200.

The attraction for me was that I could share bullets with other cartridges that I load for, like 45 and 460. Pretty much any bullet that will work for 460 or 454 will work in the 450, but not necessarily the other way round (the 450 does not require a cannelure, and does not require bullets rated for as high a pressure).

So far, I've only shot about 100 rounds of factory ammo in my 450, as I am saving the brass to reload. I have found the factory Hornady ammo on sale a couple of times for about $1.25 a round, which is not bad. Starline is making 450B brass now.
 
Here is the 458 Socom so far, I am having some fitment issues that I need to work out but its coming along pretty good.

I'll be putting the pics up in the AR picture thread with the specs, but the camo is a woodland BDU pattern in Graphite Black, Mil-Spec OD Green, Burnt Bronze and Tungsten.

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Just a quick update, I have managed to get a few of the kinks worked out with the fitment issues, I am still working out the take down pins being WAY too tight to the point you need a hammer and a punch to get the rear pin out, its my first 80% lower so I expected a few quirks.

I have my .458 Socom dies and now I just need to get back up sights & optic, I am leaning towards a Primary Arms 1-4 scope since this will be limited to 300 yards (if that) and the LaRue trigger. once I have all those things buttoned up I'll hit the range and pray it doesn't grenade in my face!!
 
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I finally made it to the range to put some rounds through the .458 and I have a few thoughts on the Bear Creek Arsenal upper (formerly More's Machine Company)

My overall impressions on the build quality of the complete upper are positive, everything was assembled properly, the gas key is properly staked and they used Loctite on screws that you would assume need it, they also used it a few places that you wouldn't normally expect it..... More on that in a bit.

When I tore the upper down to prep it for cerakote I found that everything was tight and well torqued, the barrel nut was impossible for me to remove and I ended up having to take it to a friend that has a massive vice and reaction rod to attempt to get the barrel nut off, we ended up having to heat the barrel nut with a torch and used a 5 ft long breaker bar to get the damn thing to budge, once heat was applied we found that there was some sort of fluid melting from under the barrel nut and I can only assume it was Loctite or some other sort of thread locker, I normally tear down every assembled upper I get (or a friend has me look at) and add anti seize/assembly grease to the barrel nut so removing the barrel nut in the future for whatever reason is easier, I've made the mistake of putting 2k-3k rounds through a factory AR and then attempted to get the thing apart and it took WAY too much effort so from that point forward I've always added anti-seize/assembly grease and torqued it back to spec with good results.

The upper itself is definitely way down on the lower end of metals used to build ARs, it was extremely light and it felt cheap, the handguard is "okay" but again cheap, the way it attaches to the barrel nut is just about as bad as you would ever want to mess with because you have to make sure you index the screw holes to a certain position when you torque it down or your rail wont line up with the upper, the only solution is to torque the ever loving piss out of the barrel nut to get the screws indexed (see above) or use shims, when I reassembled the upper I used shims and it was easy enough to get everything lined up.

The Barrel is a run of the mill non chrome lined extra heavy AR barrel with a massive gas port, it is huge but it works. The upper came with a standard style bird cage flash hider so there is nothing good or bad about that, the gas block is a massive hunk of steel with 9 hex screws that hold it in place, 8 of them are fairly small and did not have dimples cut into the barrel for those, the 9th one is roughly a 1/4" pattern and the barrel was dimpled for that one so installation was straight forward.

I was shooting hand loaded 350 grain FTX projectiles with Starline brass, no clue on the powder or primers since I just paid a buddy for the reloading components and cranked out the rounds on his Dillon 650, I loaded 40 cartridges away we went.

Once at the range I gave everything a once over, added a bit more lube for good measure and shoved a loaded mag into the rifle and dropped the bolt, well the bolt wouldn't go into battery and the forward assist didn't help so I figured the OAL was out of spec on that round so I ejected it and soon found out the next 2 rounds did the same thing..... After going through various checks and everything else short of beating it with a hammer I dropped a round into the chamber and dropped the bolt onto the round and that seemed to work out the battery issue, the round fired fine and ejected normally but the rest of the magazine required me to put the rounds in one at a time and dropping the bolt onto the round, I switched to a P-Mag and it did the same thing so I put another 5 rounds through the gun one at a time, I loaded another surplus AR mag and 3 of the 5 functioned normally and 2 did not, well to make along story short after a 25 round break in period the rifle started working pretty much normally, I shot another 10 rounds from my stash and on one magazine I had one failure to go into battery but a couple of whacks on the forward assist did the trick and the last 5 went through with no issues.

I was offered more ammo but I can honestly say that 35 rounds of .458 Socom was more than enough in one range session and I still had 5 rounds of my own left, I was getting rounds on a 6" target at 50 yards with iron sights and the gun was in my opinion about 90% working properly so I called it a day, my plan is to add an optic and mount and continue the break in process, once my shoulder heals and I gather my own reloading supplies I'll continue the abuse of my shoulder and get this thing sorted out the rest of the way, all in all I am extremely please with the results, for the amount of money I have spent I think I've done very, very well.

So my opinion of the BCA upper is this, yes it is a cheaply made upper, yes they cut about every corner they could think of during the manufacturing process and yes I took a huge gamble and was flirting with "buy once, cry once" but in the end if someone is looking to build a 450 Bushmaster, .458 Socom or 12.7x42 AR on the cheap, I honestly believe that a BCA upper is worth the money, I have $299 in a .458 Socom upper so by saving $600 and not buying a quality high end upper I was fully expecting gremlins of one sort or another and I honestly am pleasantly surprised that everything has panned out as well as it has, if you're willing to "tinker" and have the knowledge to work out issues with the platform then the BCA uppers are well worth the money, as of now I think I have roughly $550-$575 in this build (not including the camo job) and in another session or two I expect to have a fully functioning big bore AR, that's not too shabby imo!

As an aside, the Kaw Valley Precision Linear Comp does a super job of keeping the concussion and muzzle blast from the .458 Socom down range, my friend has a 4 chamber muzzle brake on his .458 Socom and he cleared people out of the shooting benches 2 deep on his left and right, the people around me said the VG6 EPSILON on my 5.56 AR was WAY worse than the .458 was.

FYI, I am enjoying an adult beverage or 12 as I type this, so please excuse any misspellings or grammatical errors (yes I googled "grammatical errors") lmao!!
 
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Just purchased a BC 458 upper from Midsouth when they went on sale for $399. Thanks for your review. Thought I would buy a variety of factory ammo first, save the brass and load for it later.
 
Just purchased a BC 458 upper from Midsouth when they went on sale for $399. Thanks for your review. Thought I would buy a variety of factory ammo first, save the brass and load for it later.


Let us know how yours pans out once you get a chance to put rounds through it.
 
Has anyone had a chance to run these uppers any more. I was looking at their offerings and like what I see. I have a lower from the old gun shop in Siler City and was hoping to get an upper from another local company to go with it if they are working out ok.
 
I built a .458 pistol recently. It was the Pro2A tactical upper with 12" GM barrel blank machined by KAW. Toolcraft makes the BCG. Anderson big bore cut upper. Steel adj. gas block.
http://pro2a-tactical.com/12-5-inch-458-socom-m-lok-melonite-upper.html

Put that on my Spike's Tactical lower setup with an SBA3 brace. Hopefully it won't be too painful with 325gr ammo :D

It's good stuff for cheap. Too bad the ammo isn't....even the reloading components will bust my budget :D
 
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PSA is supposed to release their own 458 stuff in January.
 
Has anyone had a chance to run these uppers any more. I was looking at their offerings and like what I see. I have a lower from the old gun shop in Siler City and was hoping to get an upper from another local company to go with it if they are working out ok.

I’ve got around 50 rounds through mine now, the first 25 or so rounds started off rough, I had to load rounds one at a time by dropping the round into the chamber and then dropping the bolt onto the cartridge to get it to go into battery, by the last magazine on my first range trip the gun was running much better with just a couple of rounds not going fully into battery but a quick bang on the forward assist got everything squared away.

On my second range trip the first couple of mags ran well but again a couple of rounds didn’t go fully into battery, I re-lubed the BCG and the last 10-15 rounds ran normally with no issues, when I got home and checked the BCG I found a good bit of brass shavings and other metal flakes all over the BCG but I am confident that the gun will continue to improve as I put rounds through the gun.

I caught a Primary Arms 1-4x24 optic on sale for $119.99 this weekend so I ordered one and once I get it installed and sighted in I’ll see how she groups, and if the PA will hold up on a 458 Socom lol.
 
I got the PA 1-4x24 and the PA deluxe mount installed, I’m hoping the etched Crosshair will help it handle the recoil, I’ve read about a few guys that have it mounted on slug guns, 45-70, 444 Marlins etc for several years and the scope is holding up just fine for them, but for $119 I figured it is worth giving it a shot to keep this build super low budget, PA says if it fails due to recoil they’ll still replace it under warranty and I’ll stick it on an AR and go another direction.
 
I've had one of their Aimpoint clones on my .45-70 Guide Gun for quite a while. If that beast can't kill it, you should be GTG with the AR.
 
My 450 killed two scopes. One was a cheap gun-show special, the other was a Bushnell 1-4x. The vendor at the gun show gave me a refund, and Bushnell replaced theirs. I have a Vortex 1-4x on it now and it has held up fine.
 
I finally had a chance to sight in the .458 today, I’m still having issues with the gun not going fully into battery which is annoying as hell but I’ve got a few things I’m going to try to resolve that issue.

These are two 100 yard groups, I am not a great “bullseye” shooter but so far I am very happy with the results.

(If the pics don’t show properly I’ll fix them once I get to my computer, trying this on my phone)

https://flic.kr/p/2dhW5g2

https://flic.kr/p/2bUpHdK
 
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Hey all here is another update for those following the thread.

I believe I found the cause of the failure to go into battery issues and the bulk of it stems from a garbage 80% lower that I milled out and a couple of other issues that were not helping.

I found that the lower was horribly out of spec at the take down pins and the safety cutout, once I reamed the take down pin holes the upper and lower started to mate properly without having to apply pressure to the upper to get the pins in, the safety holes were also undersized which caused the safety to be horrendous and the “detent” channel where you drop the safety spring & detent into was not drilled large enough, apparently I stuck a takedown detent into the safety instead of a safety detent because the proper safety detent wouldn’t seat at all and would hang about half way down the channel, I honestly don’t remember sticking the wrong detent in there but I built the lower and seeing how the smaller detent “worked” for the most part I left it in there and forgot about it.

I will NEVER buy another no name lower again, doesn’t matter if it’s complete or an 80% either, I’ll spend the extra money on a quality part from now on and save myself the headache.

I also got a shotgun mop and polishing compound and polished the chamber, I got a couple of nasty “booger’s” to polish out and you could hand feed the rounds into the chamber much easier after the polish job.

I also added a Sprinco “Red” Extra Power buffer spring which applies way more force on the BCG when going into battery, the standard PSA carbine spring is much shorter and doesn’t apply nearly enough force to overcome the weight of the .458 Socom round, I read a few forum threads where this spring resolved similar issues that other people were having with “big bore” ARs so I gave it a shot and after hand cycling a couple of full magazines through the rifle it definitely goes into battery every time now, I just hope it doesn’t cause “short stroking” but I was given three different Sprinco springs (White = normal power, Blue = medium power & Red = extra power) so I can swap to a lighter spring if needed.
 
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you could also throw a couple quarters between the end of your buffer tube and the end of the spring to increase spring tension....that's an old trick
 
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