TTAG commentator Brian G writes:
“So I left my woman behind in Indiana (and she is very unhappy with the fact, but had some family plans of her own) to visit my brother who is an active duty captain in the Army in TN. For months before this, I had been building up an Armalite AR10A4 from factory OD Green furniture. I put about a grand into the rifle, a Daniel Defense 7.62 Lite Rail, AR single base piece scope mount, scope, furniture, ammo, etc… I put about $120 into reloading supplies as he reloads .308, and needless to say was very very ready to head on down to Clarksville and sight in my scope, shoot about 200 rounds of 7.62×51 and just have a great time! That didnt happen, and here is why . . .
The bad luck started coming back from a gunsmith I got very good knowledge on the Colorado School of Trades (CST) from, as I have been very interested in going to CST for a year and that hunger really flared when building my AR with my own hands. On the way home from the gunsmith my brother and I got pulled over, with him driving, having not realized his paper copy proof of insurance had expired, he was handed a ticket for $535. Wowee!
Okay, so it has begun, we decide to split a six of Shock Top and call it a night at home. We then began the long process of reloading, nothing went wrong during reloading, I was new to it, but we cranked out about 50 rounds for the next day (he doesnt have a progressive loader and firmly believes he is more precise going one shell at a time).
Alright so we headed on down to the Montgomery County Shooting Complex, which was very very impressive. I was ready to sight in my AR, my brother had all of his range gear set up, nice Leopold spotting scope and his M4 all nice and laid out. I grabbed some sandbags and rested my rifle on it, ready for the fun in the sun.
My rifle failed to cycle every round, shooting Winchester white box 7.62 and Radway green milsurp, my action would only move about 1/8th of an inch.
The Radway actually locked up my rifle so tight I had to pop pins and physically take my bolt carrier group to the rear because my charging handle wouldnt cut it. So realizing something was wrong with my gas block, I unloaded, and hastily tried to remove my flash suppressor, marring the crap out of my flash suppressor with the only thing I had at my disposal, a Leatherman.
I didn’t get the F/S off, I did try though, because I had the hex wrench in my range box for my gas block, I knew I just needed to reseat the dang thing. But alas, I failed, and we packed up from the 100m range and headed to the handgun range.
Shooting at the handgun range, I had a brass casing from my Sig 229 bounce off the range stall-wall and get stuck between my eye protecting and my FOREHEAD. So then I had a melting hot brass casing fusing to my head, well I thought it was a bee stinging me and was swatting at it driving it harder into my face until I realized what I had just done and took my glasses off.
So now I have a wonderful 2nd degree burn and everyone around me since has been calling me Frankenburn because well, its gross.
Anyways, I decided to head home Memorial Day Monday after fixing my gas block troubleshooting it with a little aquarium tubing (my brother’s idea, muchos gracias mi amigo). Top that.”