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SAR-80 Kit Build – Finished?

The SAR-80 kit build is alive and well.

Installing the rear sight was really straight forward. Eyeball it in the center then weld it from the inside through previously drilled holes. I tried measuring it to center it but my less than ideal bends made that pretty much useless.

A shot of primer on the bare metal parts and she is ready for a trip to the range.

As you can see in the video it is pretty ugly. I cleaned some of that up with a belt sander then tried my hand at the crinkle paint to duplicate the original finish.

I have since added a binary trigger to it and I hope to have some fun video of the next range trip.

Everyone who uses this gun at the range just falls in love with it including my self.

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SAR-80 Kit Build – Receiver

My first foray into building my SAR-80 receiver was to reweld the upper back together. Using a gas torch and being completely out of practice led to less than stellar results.

I know it’s possible as Henderson Defense built one as a post sample and got it running well. Although they mentioned having to take the BFH to it to straighten out the warping.

I decided to start from sratch and ordered some 18ga 1008 sheet steel off of Amazon.

I tried to bend it in a cheap harbor freight brake and it flexed too much. I resorted to milling a piece of 6061 aluminum to fit inside then beat the corners into a more square-ish shape. Felt like Boris building an AK from a Shovel.

I cut up some pieces to weld inside to guide the cam pin and to retain the charging handle. The combination of my crappy AC flux core welder and the this sheet steel led to me needing to reweld these multiple times. I now call this one my “Ugly Build”.

At this point it still needs the rear sight welded on and the charging handle spacer piece rewelded.

More on that next time.

 

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New Record Auction for an AR-180?

Possibly. It’s the highest I’ve seen and I follow them pretty closely. $4026.01 Wow!

See It For Yourself

It is about as close to new as you are likely to see. A true safe queen. Early gun, Three digit serial number. Obviously highly desirable, especially by the two that went at it at the end. What a fight.

Imagine what it would have brought if it had the original box!

I hope one of my readers got it.

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AR-18S Auction Results

Well it looks like the gun brought more than the auction estimate and certainly more than I could have gone. $22,500. With buyer’s premium that would be $26,437.50 but hey, they got a scope with it right?

I feel like I am not quite ready to play with the big boys.

Hope one of you got it. Just invite me for a range session.

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Backing Out of the Upcoming AR-18S Auction

RIA Auction

Just wanted to thank all those that contacted me with well wishes and to buy a few things but I am announcing that I no longer plan to go after this gun. I have learned a lot about this gun including the fact that it is somewhat famous and several people with deep pockets will be pursuing it.

I want to let my readers know first so that they may put their hat in the ring if they so wish.

Here is what I know about the gun in question.

It was sold from Armalite in 1985 as an “S” model and was either a mule or part of the companies collection.

It was became somewhat famous when it appeared in the Small Arms Review article “The Lost Armalites”

The black and white photos make it hard to tell if the upper on the gun is the same as when it was sold in 1998 but I think it is. Is the upper the same as when it was sold in 1985 is the real question. One can never be sure.

While this gun surely belongs in my reference collection I can not justify the expense at this time and I intend to pursue a “Normal” AR-18 as my first machine gun.