Check your equipment, and other gunnish things

I"ve temporarily postponed the Savage 7 WSM build in favor of another 16" AR build; my reasoning is that my current little AR is a diamond in the rough, its barrel is far too accurate to use as a carbine, so I'm going to build another carbine and save this one for more prestigious, accurate fire.  I'm going in the opposite direction of Andy's former AR dilema: since I have a 1/9" twist barrel already that shoots bugholes, I bought a 1/7" twist barrel from Daniel Defense to take advantage of heavier bullets that are all the rage these days, with a chrome lined bore and chamber.  My plan to build the entire gun, and then continue on with the Savage 7 WSM build changed last night:

I was researching all the parts I needed for the AR build and suddenly got the hankerin' to fondle an AR, so I start cleaning the little-AR-from-DPMS and noticed this:



One of the gas rings is ate up.  There's no visible damage to the inside of the bolt carrier, and I can replace the rings, but I'm glad I found that before hitting the range again.  Now my home defense gun for the zombie invasion is red-lined, so I pressed the MK12 Mod 0 into service until I can stuff the new DD barrel and bolt into the little-AR-from-DPMS:



The MK12 is much lighter without the scope attached, but the loaded magazines feel way heavier than 5.56 mags.  These hold 25, but I wasn't able to seat the mag unless I downloaded 2 rounds.  If ninjas attack, I don't know what I'll do with such a huge handicap in firepower. . . . hopefully the extra millimeter of bullet size will even the odds!  It's actually the first time I've loaded those mags, having kept them in plastic for the end times in the back of the safe.  For bench work or hunting, the 10 rounders work better and are less cumbersome, and they don't scare the natives as much.

My strategy now is to buy all the parts to assemble an upper with the DD barrel, and I'll re-assemble the little-AR-from-DPMS as it was before with the Burris 2x7 for close to mid range coyote work.  The DD will get either an Aimpoint, or more likely a Burris MTAC 1x4, and will be used for less elegant close range and high volume "marksmanship."  And after that the Savage 7 will get my attention once again.

Sorry about the light posting as of late; I have a whole barrel of monkeys on my back, but I have faith that it will all let up real soon.