Update: Mystery Bolt: Reader Needs Your Help

Some of you may recall a post some time back with a mystery bolt that a reader was trying to identify.

Mystery Bolt

He just sent me an email and said he found out what it was.

Bushmaster Bolt Carrier Group

A Bushmaster Assault Rifle.

A very interesting rifle with concepts taken from the AR-180 and the long stroke piston design most commonly seen in the Kalashnikov rifles. I particularly like the captured recoil spring. It looks like something I could build in my shop at home.

A fantastic dis-assembly post over on AR15.com can be found here.

For anyone who might be interested, there is a new in box one for sale on gunbroker for a very reasonable price. Click Here

These rifles never caught on and like the AR-18/AR-180, they never got the years of refinement needed to make them truly great rifles. They both however, show many of the design elements found in modern rifles like the SCAR 16, the HK G36/SL8-6, and the Magpaul Masada/Bushmaster ACR.

16-HK-SL-6

Photo above showing the SCAR 16 and SL8-6 was found in an excellent article on The Truth About Guns.

1ACRCompleteboltandcarrier

Photo above showing the Bushmaster ACR bolt carrier group. Credit unknown.

 

 

What’s Been Happening at AR180S.com

What’s been happening at AR180S.com?

Just busy as all get out.

Shipped out the first batch of AR180 Lower Parts Kits. I hope that leads to more AR-180 enthusiasm as more NoDak lowers get sold and more Stormwerkz adapters get sold, and finally uppers begin to come out of the GunLab. I’m sure that there will be a time soon that you will be able to build your own AR-180 from scratch.

Chuck has a few extra Bolt Hold Opens and I will be posting those up for sale individually after I get them in my hands.

Work has me traveling all over since one of our trainers left to teach at a community college and I am filling in for him in the Pacific Northwest. Hopefully we will get a new person to take over that territory and I can stay closer to home.

New AR-180S

I am looking to build a second shorty upper and I hope to bring you details as the build continues.

I have a 180B stripped upper and found an HBAR AR15 barrel as a starting point. This will allow me to turn the profile to exactly what I want and not have to sleeve the barrel under the gas block like my first one. I will also be extending the hand guards a fraction of an inch to match the original AR-18S lower hand guard that I have. This will become the standard length an will allow me to design an endcap and they won’t have to be custom made for each gun.

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You can see in this picture how the hand guard is long enough to retain the reinforcing rib.

I am also toying with the idea on an even shorter version with hand guards cut off at the first rib.

This matches the description of the AR-18K but I have never seen a picture of said weapon.

If anyone has any info about these short versions, please drop me a line. I would love to chat about it.

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