Sprog #4's Birthday Pink Rifle Build - Stage #1

My youngest daughter turns 19 this year on Veteran's Day.  November 11th.  For her birthday present I decided to give her a rifle.  However.  I want her to KNOW that rifle, so I'm giving it to her a piece at a time.

Her first piece,

From GWACS Armory, a Pink, CAV Arms-CAV 15 MKII  AR-15 Lower receiver.  Shel at GWACS sold me this lower for $50.00 off because it is a "Blem".  Honestly, Barb and Tony at the Sooper Sekrit Gunstore, where I do all of my transfers, and I searched for over 20 minutes while waiting for Megan to get there, and the ONLY blemish we could find was a small nick between the magwell and the trigger guard.  If GWACS considers this a "Blem", I need to buy more of their "Blems".

She'll be putting a PSA LPK in it because I already have two of them in the parts box for spares.

I will be getting parts for her rifle as I can afford them.  What I would LIKE to get her is really out of my price range.  I was thinking a pink cerakoted  A4 upper, with a custom Hello Kitty Dust cover also in pink, a boron nickle bolt carrier, and if I could afford it, I'd love to get her a Huntertown Arms DOLOS with a pink Yankee Hill Machinery free float smooth forend, with a 18" 1:7 .223 Wylde chambered Green Mountain Rifle barrel and an A2 flash hider.  Add on a decent optic and MagPul BUIS, and find some pink 30 round magazines.

Now, Megan will be "Building" this rifle herself.  I'll be helping her, but the vast majority of the labor, will be HER labor.  So she KNOWS, how to repair her rifle.  she's already said, that she plans of turning her rifle from "Pink" to "Pink Camo" once it's built.  And she has torn down my AR's to help me clean them several times, so this project is not beyond her skill level.

But you've seen what I would "Like" to get her.  What I will probably wind up doing is stripping the anodizing off one of the A4 uppers I already have and having it cerakoted to match her lower, then getting a standard carbine barrel and MagPul furniture and then add a PSA BCG which I already have in the parts box.

::sigh::

My wishes are larger than my pocket book.  Plus, I still need to look in the parts box to see what other parts I already have, and what parts I need to get for her.

However, I WILL be documenting her putting her rifle together.  I hope, I will have all the parts so she can build it before her birthday, so on her birthday, she can take it the range and test it out.

Once she finishes her lower though, I'll take an upper off of one of my AR's so she can test it and see that everything functions right.  Which will probably be this Wednesday/tomorrow, which is her day off from work.

So keep an eye out for posts tagged ""Sprog #4" to keep updated on her progress.

New Frontier Armory customer service - 2nd Broken Hammer

I am rather disappointed in New Frontier Armory.  I purchased one of their complete polymer lowers several years ago, and less than 4 months after I got it, I broke the hammer while using my Tactical Industries .22 conversion.  According to their site, when using a .22 conversion you need to use a different hammer.  so I bought 2 of those hammers.  And put one of them in my lower.  Now after less than 300 rounds IT broke as well.

Please excuse the cruddy cell phone pictures.

The first hammer.  You can see where a chip came out of the side of the hammer.

you can see the missing chip from the hammer better in this pic.

The replacement hammer, where the whole face of the hammer broker off. Less than 300 rounds fired.  I actually think it was 6, 20 round mags, then 3, 30 round mags, and I was about 4 rounds into the 4th, 30 round mag when the hammer broke.  And I wasn't even shooting fast.  I was verifying my zero with different types of ammo.  I had been shooting 62 gr, 69 gr, and 3 different types of 55 gr ammo with a no name Holo Sight, and I just wanted to see the difference in zero between them when the hammer broke.  The ammo in the mag when the hammer broke was Academy brand Monarch made by Barnaul.  The other ammo was 62 gr Federal M855, 69 gr CBC OTM, 55 gr FMJ Wolf, 55 gr FMJ Tula, and then the 55 gr JHP Monarch.

It's GONE!!!

The rifle would fire, but I would have to run the bolt as there would be a light strike on the following round, and the hammer wasn't resetting all the way.

I put in my last spare New Frontier Hammer, then I e-mailed New Frontier Armory to ask them if I could just replace the FCG with a standard FCG.

At least they answer their mail on the weekends., but they did reply.

Note however, they didn't offer to send me replacement parts.  They didn't ask any questions about what caused the failure.  They just said that YES, I could replace the FCG, just be sure to replace ALL of the parts of it.

I understand that these may be low tier firearms meant for the occasional shooter on a budget.

But I've shot less than 600 rounds of ammo on this lower, and to have TWO hammers break, means the the manufacturer either is making the parts wrong or they designed the parts wrong.

I went back to Palmetto State Armory and just ordered a complete LPK.  That way I get the parts I need and I have some extras for the parts can. 

So I guess I'll be adding some more FCG parts to my spare parts kits for both of my rifles.

Lesson Learned - New Frontier Armory doesn't seem to be concerned with satisfying their customers.

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