So I got out to the range yesterday to work on two pet projects of mine, the suppressed .300 Blackout short-barreled AR and the Reising SMG.
I'm now handloading rounds for the shorty AR, using Nosler 220 grain open tip bullets and 9.9 grains of Winchester 296 (Hodgdon 110). I took the first test rounds out to the range with my newish chronograph to see how they were running and also to compare them to some factory Remington ammo with a similar bullet.
My rounds all stayed nicely subsonic so I could shoot the rifle with no hearing protection. They chrono'd between 998feet per second and 1050fps, with one round out of the twenty test rounds hitting 1076, so I excluded that one from the eval. (It was still quiet though.) excluding the flier, my rounds showed a roughly fifty fps variation across the test group, which I wasn't really happy with until I tested the Remington rounds (R300AAC8) and found a 30fps variation between the ten test rounds I shot. The Remington ammo was advertised as having a velocity of 1050fps, but I noticed that it was shooting 960-990fps. The discrepancy can be explained by the fact that Remington uses a 16" barrel in their tests and my rifle sports a 9" barrel. The Remington hit precisely point of aim with my Mag-pul sights (I'd previously zeroed this rifle using that ammo) and my rounds all stuck just a bit high at 50 yards, confirming that mine are traveling a bit faster. I'll probably step the next batch of test rounds dow a tenth of a grain or two, just to get them mirroring the Remington, which I have a fair stockpile of. All in all, I'm happy with the results thus far.
And if you'll notice in the picture above, the magazines for this rifle are all marked for the .300 round. Hopefully, designating specific magazines exclusively for the .300 BLK round will act as a check to keep one of those rounds from being accidentally introduced into a 5.56mm AR and prevent the catastrophe which would surely follow. I also keep this rifle segregated from the others in 5.56 and stored seperately, again to minimize the possibility of an ammo exchange between the two types. It's been shown a few times now that a
.300 round WILL chamber in a 5.56mm rifle and fire...once.
Then it was time to try the Reising out once again, because I haven't quite burned up my entire stock of .45 ammo trying to get this gun to run right.
For today's test, I'd tweaked the aftermarket Christie magazine's feed lips with ye olde trusty needlenose pliers and I'd replaced the magazine well housing with a new one ordered from Numerich Arms. Admittedly, in light of this gun's lack of performance on subsequent outings, I wasn't expecting a lot, so I was happily shocked to have it burn through the entire magazine in three bursts without a single hiccup or stoppage. Fantastic! The next two magazines also fired well, although I had the second round of each misfeed. I have a couple of thoughts on tweaking the magazine a bit more, and if it works the way that I think it will, I expect to finally have a light, accurate and reliable .45ACP submachine gun.
It was a great day out, and as an added bonus, I came home with 20 rounds of spent Norma 6.5 Carcano brass that some other shooter didn't bother to pick up. Since I have two Carcanos, that was a nice gift to me from whoever left it behind as well.
You're the only person I know who has a Reising. There's plenty of uncomplimentary information about the Reising in Guadalcanal Diary. I gather a lot of them were just thrown in the weeds as people were able to trade up. I'm glad you got yours going, its a rare piece of history.
ReplyDeleteThey didn't work well for the Marines because the Marines tended to strip the guns down and clean them as a group, then reassembling them with whichever parts came to hand. Reisings are hand-fitted guns (As one Reising expert recently told me, "they are like snowflakes in that no two Reisings are exactly alike.")
DeleteWhen kept together with their properly fitted parts, they served numerous police departments faithfully well up into the 1970's.
Mine came in pristine condition, leading me to conclude that it was parkerized just before I got it. Further experimentation now suggests that it was just slapped together from whichever parts someone had handy and given a nice finish, but I've been working on it for a few months now and I've almost got it running as it should. Of course part of the problem is the after-market magazines, which are all you can get these days. The mag is a bit out of spec from the 70-yr old USGI 12-round mag that came with the gun and if I can correct that...
Very nice indeed. Need to meet up with you and try those out sometime.
ReplyDeleteHey Murph, I would like to shoot them sometime =)
ReplyDeleteAny time you're free, just come be my guest.
DeleteNice! And it's nice when things work!!!
ReplyDeleteHave a friend whose .300 upper is coyote brown,and he only uses coyote brown ags with it.....all his other ar uppers are black.
ReplyDeleteHe keeps the .300 upper in a different room, along with .300 ammo. Never even co-located with 5.56. He won't even take both calibers to the range at the same time.
Yet, oddly, he has both .45 ACP and .45 Super ammo and guns in the same safe.
It is good to hear you are getting the bugs out of the Reising.
ReplyDeleteMight consider a color racing stripe around the magwell and matching stripe(s) on the mags. Or slash stripes that go from mag to magwell and line up when seated?
ReplyDeletePerhaps a separate color of follower to help ensure you don't load them wrong.
Redundancy in this area might be a good thing!
It's not that I worry about getting 5.56 rounds into the Blackout because the bolt just won't close. It's more about keeping the .300 Blackout rounds away from my other 5.56mm ARs because that round will chamber...and blow the hell out of the rifle.
DeleteAwesome!
ReplyDelete