Law Enforcement Technology

APR 2014

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37 www.officer.com April 2014 Law Enforcement Technology F I R E A R M S TA C T I C S It does not check compatibility, how- ever. For example, one can match a .308 receiver with a 5.56 upper on the site. They are incompatible, but it is assumed that the user has some working knowl- edge first. For an armorer working up a proposal for their agency, the proposed build can be saved and printed. Midway USA is my other resource; I have been a customer of Midway for over 30 years. There are plenty of experts on the topic, but I always turn to Midway's founder and CEO Larry Potterfield. The company has a series of videos hosted by Potterfield, and its site has separate links for building and upper and lower. My method of building an AR-15 lower is similar to Larry's, but I have a few pointers of my own. There are several pins which require tapping in using a brass hammer and a soft punch. The bottom of the receiver has two wings that form the hinged portion of the trigger guard. Some users tap this in without supporting these wings. They break off easily, turning the receiver into metal sculpture. I use an inexpensive arbor press, pur- chased at a discount tool place. I place a thin piece of wood between the wings and ease in the pin. A step up from that is the Little Crow Gunworks AR-15 Trigger Guard Roll Pin Pusher which can be purchased at Midway USA. This pusher keeps everything aligned as one slowly inserts the pin. Most first-timers tend to scratch their lower receiver a bit during assembly. I take a trip down to the local hardware store for ScotchBlue Masking Tape, the same stuff you use to protect sur- faces when painting houses. When one removes it, the sticky stuff stays on the tape, not the protected surface. Before assembly, I treat every piece of metal with a generous amount of FrogLube. This ensures things fit together smoothly. Before I apply the tape outside, I dry the surface and test all of the pins to see if there are burrs in the channels in which they will eventually reside. There are a few other tools that make AR-15 assembly easier. I recommend a detent pin installation tool; this is a steel rod the same diameter as the front take- Circle 51 on Reader Service Card Under General Curtis LaMay, the AR-15 was adopted by the Air Force as the M-16, which eventually led to it becoming the most recognized rife profle in history. LET_34-38_FirearmsTactics0414.indd 37 3/20/14 11:14 AM

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