Tampa Bay Area Tacomas BS Thread

Heh, interesting. I would not have thought a flash hider would make a difference on way or t'other. Suppressors are supposed to add FPS and accurate range which I'd have not expected either. I wonder what my muzzle brake is doing. I haven't compared the book load FPS to what I chrono'd my loads at since they were just plinking loads with bullets and powder I wanted to get rid of but maybe I should look it up.

I do know with my 6.5 CM with an extra 4' of barrel and a 3 chamber muzzle brake I'm getting ~200 FPS over the book says the load should get, even using primers that were blowing out. I would imagine it would be a solid 200+ FPS over with primers that don't bleed chamber pressure back into the bolt.

On the 6.5 CM project...I now have the pistol grip, A2 buffer tube, and the Magpul PRS butt stock for the chassis conversion. All that's left is to order the chassis and a mag. I might get a Harris bipod for it later on, but for now my BR front rest will work better shooting off a bench for now.

 

Ayup. Looks like a three chamber muzzle brake to me, not a flash hider.

You're not kidding about being a wallet killer. Midway sent me an Email that the Harris bipod I wanted was on sale for 10% off. I didn't even try to resist that much before I said eff it and bought the thing. At the very least I can replace the cheap arse one I have on the AR with it. If I get the chance to shoot prone with the 6.5 CM once it's in the chassis, I'll just swap the bipod on to it. Not like it's permanently attached or anything.

I think if I ever build another bolt rifle, it's going to be based on a Howa action. You can buy a whole Howa rifle, lock stock and barrel, for cheaper than you can get an accuracy tuned R700 action, which mainly consists of machining the bolt to use a Sako-type extractor which comes from the factory on the Howa bolt. I honestly don't know what I'd build though. Maybe a .458 SOCOM. From what I understand it's basically the modern version of the .45-70 Govt considering it was made to run on smokeless powder and you have a lot of wasted capacity in the .45-70 because it was designed for a black powder charge that would blow most guns to shrapnel if you filled it with modern smokeless powder. Of course, a .338 Lapua Mag or a .375 Cheytac would be interesting, but I'm getting too old to play with those monsters even if they did have an amazing muzzle brake (that pissed off every body 10 benches on either side of me, lol). That and they'd be just too expensive to shoot. Maybe a .416 Thumper would be fun--.375 CheyTac case, shortened and necked to .416 with a COL shorter than a .300 WSM and fits in a magazine that will hold 2.995". That would put a smack down on a hog at long range. Probably make a bear think twice (or maybe stop in its tracks) at short range.



I definitely want an AR 15 in .458 SOCOM with a 16" barrel ideally including a non-removable suppressor and still be 16" though for home defense. And a 6.5 Grendel upper with a 24" barrel for a target rifle.

 

Well, the 5.56 NATO round was designed primarily to wound. The idea being one wounded soldier takes three out of the battle to take the wounded one back to an aid station. As far as I can tell, we haven't fought a war since the 5.56 NATO round was introduced in Vietnam where the enemy next to the wounded man has any problems letting his comrade lay there and bleed out as long as he could keep killing Americans, so there in lies the flaw in that philosophy. That's not to say the 5.56 can't be lethal, but compared to a 7.62 NATO, a .338 Lapua Mag, or a .50 BMG...well, it's a bit weak. Which Is why they are adopting the 6.5 CM I believe. Of course they may be adopting it to replace the 7.62 NATO for sniper rifles and medium machine guns like the M240, but it wouldn't surprise me if the roll out for the FN SCARs happened to be chambered for 6.5 CM. The M4s would probably stick around in the role filled by the .30 Carbine in WW2 and Korea.

All that said, I don't consider my .223 AR a home defense weapon. I have a 12ga and a couple pistols for that. A short, suppressed AR chambered for .458 SOCOM with light loads and hollow points to prevent over penetration, would definitely be the got to even before the shotgun. What my .223 AR is, is primarily a target rifle, but in the event of a disaster or something where I'm on my own to protect me and mine from looters or other low lifes, the .223 would transition to a property defense weapon. In which case I hope I have a weapon to put in each of my neighbor's hands if they don't have their own already, or if they just have a pistol. That's how many home defense weapons I need.

I was pretty much right, BTW, the .458 SOCOM is pretty much dead on if not better than the .45-70 Govt can do with modern powder. Short of a 12ga slug, if you get hit with a 300 gr .458 caliber bullet, you're gonna know you are in a world of hurt.

 

Nice lookin' brush gun. Definitely an ass-kicker on range day though, lol. I'd fire just enough rounds out of it at the range to confirm my zero and save the rest of the ammo for the hogs.

 

Hope you wear a shoulder protector when shooting that! Do you hand load in that caliber?

 

FS; OEM 2010 led taillights $100 if we meet up

 

This is fuddlore. Don't believe it and don't repeat it.

 

Call it what you want and believe what you will. Sure there where plenty of other factors that played a part in the cartridge development (smaller, lighter, so more ammo can be carried and more rounds would fit in a magazine, less recoil so it's easier to manage when spraying and praying on full auto--all that is just as valid), but there's a reason that taking even Florida's small deer with a .223 caliber cartridge is verbotten; it just doesn't do enough damage to reliably produce a clean, humane kill, and that's with using soft or hollow point expanding bullets, not FMJs. Last I checked you had to use a minimum of a .243 Win to take deer in FL. Of course that was decades ago so there might be some others like the 6.5 Grendel that are approved for use now. Not a hunter so I don't keep up with it. The point being, if you can't reliably kill a small deer with a .223 Rem with expanding bullets, then it supports what expert contemporaries with actual insight into the design from the designers have said...it was selected in part because it was less lethal than a larger bullet thereby tying up other enemies to administer first aid or to pull the wounded back to an aid station. At least that was the thought.

That said, I'm in no way saying a .223 rem/5.56 NATO round isn't lethal. There's obvious empirical evidence to the contrary. It just wouldn't be my first choice for a home defense round. On the other hand, as a property defense weapon where you might have to engage multiple targets at longer distances, then yeah, I load 55gr Sierra BlitzKings in the event TSHTF or something. Sierra 60gr TMKs are my preferred target bullets.

 

It is a myth and it is a disservice to echo it. You nailed the other design considerations of the cartridge but there's a big difference between saying "smaller calibers by their nature make smaller holes" and "US Continental Army Command explicitly wanted a combat rifle/cartridge to wound enemy combatants instead of killing them".

Unrelated but worth noting, it is both legal and ethical to harvest deer in FL with .223/5.56. I won't say it's the best cartridge for this application but it more than meets lethality minimums for a clean and moral kill.

What're you using to suppress your 458? That cartridge is a blast to shoot.

 

I'm not as yet. That's the rifle I want to build, but I'm pretty broke and there are other things higher on the list of priorities, like the MDT LSS Chassis stock for my 6.5 CM. It's looking like I might need to upgrade my 6.5 CM's scope as well. Right now it has a fairly expensive high quality Leupold LCS 40x45mm on it with a target dot reticle, but it doesn't have much elevation adjustment and the reticle is going to such for long range hold offs. I'm probably going to have to go with a VX-5HD with a TMOA Plus reticle. I wanna be popping soda cans at 1200 yrds with this thing and hitting 3'x3' steel plates at a mile. That's my ambition anyway. I've seen it done with a 2'x2' plate at a mile with a 6.5 CM so that's my ambition. I just have to find some place that I can shoot over 600 yrds and a buddy that's a good spotter.

After that, I'll probably start collecting parts for the .458 SOCOM. One of the things I've found already is that the dang suppressors are 11 inches long which completely screws up my plan for a 16" over all barrel length. I may end up just saying to hell with my hearing and get a 16" barrel with a brake on it.

They must have changed that since I was a kid hunting with my old man (haven't done it since after I decided I liked shooting better than sitting around waiting for something to shoot at and I liked wheeling better than hiking around the woods, lol).

 

Damn, that's ambitious but if there was ever a cartridge to take you there it's that 6.5CM. We're hard-pressed for long ranges in South Florida. The longest I have locally doesn't even reach 500. I suppose that justifies road trips in our rigs to the north and west!

458's are chunkybois, I can see where suppressing it would be a headache. I can in no way vouch for its quality since I only googled for it, but have you checked out the Rex Silentium MG7 K? 5.6" OAL may fit the bill if you want to suppress your 11" bbl and keep it under ~16" all said.

 

The Manatee Gun Club down near Myakka goes to 600 yards. That'll do me for a while once I work up a good load. I need to hone my long range skills a bit and learn wind doping, so once I've mastered 600 yards, I'll be ready for 1k yards. Manatee used to have a 1k range but they closed it for some reason. I think there's another 600 yard, or maybe it was 600 meter range up around Daytona somewhere as well, but that's a long haul. However, I also heard about one of those tactical training companies that will teach you to shoot long range based somewhere in FL and I think they have 1000 yard plus ranges.

That's still a while off though. I've shot a hundred rounds of test loads out of it so far in the HS Precision stock, using a three round modified Slattery method, but thanks to the weak match grade primers blowing out, pretty much all that data I gathered is compromised. I am getting some promising velocities out of the 28" barrel though, about 200-250 FPS over what the book data lists with a 24" barrel.

As far as the silencer, I'll have to check it out. I asked Bowers about their .45 pistol silencer which was about 6" or so, but they told me they couldn't really say if it would hold up to the .458 SOCOM. I guess I will need to compromise somewhere and I keep eyeing my 3 d-cell Mag Light with the dim ass old skool incandescent bulb. It looks about the right size, hahaha. Only thing is how to affix it permanently to the barrel so I only have to get one NFA stamp. Again, that's a long way down the road though.

 

Happily! Here you are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56×45mm_NATO#History
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56×45mm_NATO#Performance

Those are the relevant sections. I found the rest of the article very interesting as well.

 

I was just saying what I heard in various documentaries over the years. But then history does tend to rewrite itself from time to time. Who was Robert E. Lee again, that orange car from the 70s/80s tv show?

Doesn't really matter though. My point about using a .223/5.56 for home defense is still relevant. I want something that's going to deliver a crap ton of energy to the intruder without over-penetrating. The .458 SOCOM seems to fit the bill. I wanna hit'em with a railroad spike not a pencil, lol.

Don't get me wrong, I love the .223 Rem cartridge. It's like a .22LR that you can shoot cheaply all day but still play around with the load to get the most out of your barrel.

Plus, I did see a video where they were shooting various rounds into ballistic gel and one of them was a factory Federal load with a Hornaday 55gr V-Max (they called it a V-Shok on the box) which is the Hornaday version of my Sierra 55gr BlitzKings and did some impressive damage to the ballistics gel.

 

This was one of my funnier gun-related revelations. "Wait a second... .22 and .223 are really close. There's no way." Cue me pulling one of each from their storage cans. What a brain blast that was.

 

Here's one:

https://tradecraftrange.com/

And I am not sure that this one has been set up yet ...

https://huntinginflorida.com/hunting-in-florida/custom-long-range-shooting/

And this one might be finished

https://www.okshooting.com/

And I forgot this one:

https://southerntacticalrange.com/about/

 

If I'm reading your implication right...get your mind out of the gutter, lol. If I missed the mark then I guess I should follow my own advice.

I was thinking about what I enjoy about target shooting. I've been through two stages so far. One was just having a factory rifle or pistol and going to the range once in a while to plink. Then came the stage where I got serious about accuracy--precision reloading, custom barrels, high quality optics, but really I just hit a plateau. I'm in an endless cycle of tweaking my loads to get that 100 yrd group just a little tighter. I could probably shoot a barrel out just trying different stuff with my ammo. Originally there was a goal since when I got serious I was shooting BR for Score matches, but after a long hiatus from going the range, they don't even hold those matches anymore, so it just came down to me enjoying seeing how good I could make a rifle perform.

I think now I'm entering a third phase. It's sort of the same as the current phase, but I have goals now that I previously stated, coke cans at 1000 plus yards, ringing 3'x3' steel plates at 1 mile, etc... Actually shooting at something that I have a good chance of missing would make the eventual hit that much more thrilling. It's going to take some work on my part and I'll probably have to invest $2k+ on some new glass, but having a goal like that puts a bit of excitement back into game.

 

Copy that. Getting my own mind out of the gutter. I was trying to figure out how my .22LR/.223 Rem comparison was hilarious and realized there was a lot of naughty innuendo packed in there, which was in fact pretty hilarious given the fact that it was completely unintentional on my own part--would have been even more so if I had added something about the increased range and accuracy of the load.

The second paragraph was just me rambling about the excitement of getting into a new discipline I've never tried before. Thanks for the well wishing.

 

I think he also said it was nothing more than a modern sporting rifle in there somewhere. The 9th Circuit will probably overturn it though. But then it goes to the SCOTUS where the odds should be heavily stacked on our favor. If that happens, that's going to be a huge blow to the gun grabbers and Biden's anti-gun agenda. [Was gonna make a political comment here, but I don't think it would have slipped by the "no politics on the forum" rule.]

BTW, I pulled the trigger on that chassis for the 6.5 CM. Should be here early this week. Gonna have to check into some Cerakoting for it. I either want the thing to be two toned, gray in the back and bottom lines of the chassis, around the trigger and mag well, leaving the fore end black with my raw stainless barrel, or have the whole thing done in Mag Pul Stealth Gray and have my barrel cerakoted black. I also want to have my bolt body done in the Cerakote Micro Slick gray.

 

This could be the very case for SCOTUS to take up and settle the issue just like District of Columbia v. Heller and United States v. Miller. I won't hold my breath...