After two years of the gun sitting around, I finally got to start loading ammo for the gun a while back and start shooting it. It took a little work to get it to function correctly, but not much. I bought a $119 Radical 16" barrel, I already had a stock, grip, forearm, billet side charge upper, lower and side charge bolt. I needed a trigger and a barrel. So I picked up the Radical barrel and then a Hyperfire trigger, Brownell's had them on sale, when I was looking for a trigger. I wanted something with a fairly light trigger pull, but did not want to spend the money I did on the Geissele triggers I bought for the other guns. The Hyperfire trigger seems to be a single stage, if it's a two stage, the first stage is very short. It's a little heavier than my Geissele triggers. I think it's a pretty good choice for this build. I wanted to keep this gun on the cheaper side. The stock, grip, forearm were all pieces I took off of other guns, same with the scope mount. I have concluded that for a AR used for hunting purposes, a side charge upper is definitely the way to go. I have a rear charging AR, have had others, hunted with all of them, then got a side charge upper, found very quickly I prefer it over the conventional rear charge upper. So I bought a second side charge upper.
Since the gun sat around for a while before I was able to do anything with it, I read a lot of posts about the Radical barrels and other brands of 458 SOCOM barrels. A lot of guys seem to have problems with feeding, either rounds not feeding correctly and jamming up or the chambers having something on the inside of them, causing the cases to stick in the chambers. So when I finally got around to loading ammo for mine, I took a bore scope and looked in the chamber. It looked like the inside of the chamber had the same finish as the outside of the barrel. I have a feeling that's what some of the problems guys are having, is whatever the outside of the barrel is coated with, the overspray, is winding up lightly coating the inside of the chamber. Whether that is the case or if it is something else, I don't know for sure. But I took a brush to the chamber for a while, then checked it, saw it was cleaning up. I brushed the chamber a few more times, till it was nice and shiny. Then started working on loading ammo. I made up a dummy round, figured up the optimum overall length, then tried to get that round to feed. I did not realize that I had so many different style mags. I have seen posts about notching the top front of a AR mag, so the 458s will slide forward, so the round hits the feed ramp. If not the rounds get angled upwards before the feed ramp, because bullet hits the top front of the mag and angles the round upwards, before it hits the feed ramp. So having a mag with the top front of the mag cut out, is supposed to help a lot with feeding. I was trying to pick a mag to notch and found I already had mags that were notched. So I started with one of them, they are actually for a 6.8 SPC.
Well that mag allowed the first round to feed very cleanly. I only had that one dummy round, it fed great every time. So I started loading ammo, I tried two different powders. H110 and Reloader number 7. I quickly decided I liked the Reloader number 7 better. Once I got some ammo loaded, I first shot the gun one round at a time. It fed every round without any problems and ejected all of them without any problems. Then I tried loading four rounds in the mag, turns out it would feed the first round and sometimes the second round but that was it, after that, it would jam up. I figured out the rounds were a bit over 1/4" shorter than the inside of the mag. What was happening was as the first round was getting pushed forward by the bolt, the rounds below it were also getting pushed forwards. Which would cause them to tilt upwards at the front, so naturally they did not feed worth a crap like that. Also I left out a part, I also bent the tangs that hold the rounds in the mag, apart some since the 458 rounds are much larger in diameter. I read that needed to be done to allow the rounds to move up high enough for the bolt to properly pick up the round at the top of the mag.
Well my cure for the mag being too long, was to take it apart and find a piece of 1/4"X1/4" square steel bar, cut it, so it had the same length as the height of the front of the mag and then bend it, so it had the same curvature as the front of the mag. Then I welded that piece to the inside of the front of the mag. Then I used my mill to notch a 1/4"X 1/4" notch in the front center of the magazine shelf, so it would clear the piece of steel welded in the mag. So then back to the house to make sure it worked. The mag is supposed to be a 10 round 6.8 mag if I remember correctly. I can only get 5 458s in it. So once back at the house, I found it would feed four rounds fine, but not the last round, actually it did not matter how many rounds were in the mag, it would not feed the last round. Turns out the staggered magazine shelf, was holding the lowest round to the right, not allowing it top pop up, where the bolt could pick it up. So I cut the top of the shelf flat. That got it to feeding all five rounds perfectly.
So I went back to working on the loads for the gun, at first I decided on 37 gr. of Reloader number 7, I thought that I was getting signs of high pressure above that. But later looked at those fired cases again and realized I was wrong. So I stepped my loads up to 37.5 gr. Then lastly 38 gr., that seems to be where I am going to stop. I could step up to 38.5, but I like the looks of the primers in the rounds that got 38 gr. better than the rounds that got 38.5 gr. With 38 gr. the primer is still very rounded, at 38.5 the primer is flattened out noticeably more, but still rounded towards the edge of the primer.
So I have been enjoying shooting the gun, really wished I could have gotten to it sooner, but it was just not possible. My last batch of ammo, I started having problems with some of the rounds, the bolt would not fully close, easily, like the previous loads. Those same loads took a lot of effort to get the bolt open, once it was fully closed. I spent some time working on that problem and found the bases of the cases that had the problem, were larger in diameter. So I pulled the bullets out of those rounds, lowered the sizing die in my press, then resized them. I thought I had the sizing die as low as it would go in the press, but it turns out it was not quite as low as it needed to be. It turns out some of the brand new Starline brass was slightly larger in diameter at the base. Since readjusting the sizing die, all of the rounds allow the bolt to fully close very easily and all can be very easily manually ejected.
So at this point, the cheap barrel has not been much of a problem, it just needed some cleaning which should be done with any new barrel before use. The mag is what took the most work to get the gun functioning properly. I have been told I should just order this or that brand of mag, but I have a bunch of mags sitting around, I modified one that I had at no cost. I am not sure those other brands would have worked without any mods either. I don't know of any brand of mag that has a 1/4" shorter inside length. The gun is grouping very well. I was really hoping to get a deer with it this year, but that did not happen, the deer did not cooperate and or the neighbors killed all of the legal bucks early in the season. Later in the season when I started hunting, I never saw a legal buck in person or on camera, the we can't shoot doe, except for Thanksgiving day to the following Sunday, but I did not know about that till too late. There are pigs all around where we are, but so far, we have never seen any on our place. Man it sure would be nice if the pigs showed up sometime after deer season. Maybe everyone else shuts their feeders off and I leave mine running. Most likely not going to happen, but I still have the cameras on, hoping that they might show up.
So today, I was really wanting to shoot something other than paper, looked around found a 4" diameter cedar log, set it up at 50 yards, shot it. It blew right through the cedar, splintered the back side, from one end of the log to the other. I shot it a second time got the same result. Does a good job of killing cedar. So I decided to try a larger log, the only thing I could find was hickory, so I picked out a piece about 9" in diameter. Set it up at 50 yards, shot it twice, had to stand it back up after the first shot. It knocked the log over with a lot of force. But neither shot completely penetrated the log. So I split the log and found the bullets. They both went about half way through the log. I recovered both bullets, then measured both. They are 350 gr. Hornady soft points, one weighed 339 gr. after I pulled it from the log, the other weighed 311 gr., I would think that is pretty good after hitting a hard piece of wood like hickory. I concluded the 350 gr. bullets probably won't expand for crap in a whitetail, probably a good thing I did not shoot any this year. I am going to be looking for some lighter faster expanding bullets for the gun, but plan on keeping the 350 gr. loads, incase I ever get to shoot something big.
Also today, I shot the gun without a brass catcher on it. I was previously worried about where the brass would go when ejected. I figured out quickly, that I had too light of a recoil spring in the gun when I first got it going, I could hear the bolt slam fully open on every shot. I stepped up the recoil spring to a stiffer spring, that stopped the bolt from slamming all the way rearwards on every shot. This morning I fired off a couple of test shots to try out the 38 gr. charge again, I forgot to put the brass catcher on the gun. It worked great, it dropped every case in about a 10 diameter area, about 3 ft. from the gun. So finding my brass should not be hard. I would say the gun is ready for some pigs or something bigger.
At this point the gun is working great, did not cost a lot and it's a lot of fun to shoot. Before next season, I plan on finding some lighter bullets for deer, then I want to try out some 405 gr. cast bullets. Been kind of impressed with the numbers they get from those cast bullets. So far the Sig Saur Whiskey 3 scope seems to be holding up, I got that on sale cheaply a couple years ago also. This AR is by far the hardest recoiling AR I have, I like the recoil, I like having a gun with some thump to it. I plan on getting the app for my chronograph loaded on my current phone, then shoot the gun through the chronograph, to see what the velocities look like. I planned on doing that today, but then realized I have the app on my last phone and don't know where that phone is. That was the only reason I kept that phone, was that app. I have a bunch of shots recorded on that phone, from some of my other guns. So I need to down load the app on my current phone, then see what the 458 is doing with the current load, then probably spend some more time loading some H110, but pretty sure I will stick with the Reloader number 7.
Eventually I want to piece together a AR 45 in 10mm, then a 224 Valkyrie, possibly still a 6.5 Grendel, possibly a 45 Raptor. There are a bunch of modern rounds I would like to try out. I have wanted a semi auto 10mm carbine for a long time, long before I knew they made 10mm ARs. At this point, this 458 is my favorite AR. If I could have had one of these 30 years ago, I would have killed a lot of deer and pigs with it.
Since the gun sat around for a while before I was able to do anything with it, I read a lot of posts about the Radical barrels and other brands of 458 SOCOM barrels. A lot of guys seem to have problems with feeding, either rounds not feeding correctly and jamming up or the chambers having something on the inside of them, causing the cases to stick in the chambers. So when I finally got around to loading ammo for mine, I took a bore scope and looked in the chamber. It looked like the inside of the chamber had the same finish as the outside of the barrel. I have a feeling that's what some of the problems guys are having, is whatever the outside of the barrel is coated with, the overspray, is winding up lightly coating the inside of the chamber. Whether that is the case or if it is something else, I don't know for sure. But I took a brush to the chamber for a while, then checked it, saw it was cleaning up. I brushed the chamber a few more times, till it was nice and shiny. Then started working on loading ammo. I made up a dummy round, figured up the optimum overall length, then tried to get that round to feed. I did not realize that I had so many different style mags. I have seen posts about notching the top front of a AR mag, so the 458s will slide forward, so the round hits the feed ramp. If not the rounds get angled upwards before the feed ramp, because bullet hits the top front of the mag and angles the round upwards, before it hits the feed ramp. So having a mag with the top front of the mag cut out, is supposed to help a lot with feeding. I was trying to pick a mag to notch and found I already had mags that were notched. So I started with one of them, they are actually for a 6.8 SPC.
Well that mag allowed the first round to feed very cleanly. I only had that one dummy round, it fed great every time. So I started loading ammo, I tried two different powders. H110 and Reloader number 7. I quickly decided I liked the Reloader number 7 better. Once I got some ammo loaded, I first shot the gun one round at a time. It fed every round without any problems and ejected all of them without any problems. Then I tried loading four rounds in the mag, turns out it would feed the first round and sometimes the second round but that was it, after that, it would jam up. I figured out the rounds were a bit over 1/4" shorter than the inside of the mag. What was happening was as the first round was getting pushed forward by the bolt, the rounds below it were also getting pushed forwards. Which would cause them to tilt upwards at the front, so naturally they did not feed worth a crap like that. Also I left out a part, I also bent the tangs that hold the rounds in the mag, apart some since the 458 rounds are much larger in diameter. I read that needed to be done to allow the rounds to move up high enough for the bolt to properly pick up the round at the top of the mag.
Well my cure for the mag being too long, was to take it apart and find a piece of 1/4"X1/4" square steel bar, cut it, so it had the same length as the height of the front of the mag and then bend it, so it had the same curvature as the front of the mag. Then I welded that piece to the inside of the front of the mag. Then I used my mill to notch a 1/4"X 1/4" notch in the front center of the magazine shelf, so it would clear the piece of steel welded in the mag. So then back to the house to make sure it worked. The mag is supposed to be a 10 round 6.8 mag if I remember correctly. I can only get 5 458s in it. So once back at the house, I found it would feed four rounds fine, but not the last round, actually it did not matter how many rounds were in the mag, it would not feed the last round. Turns out the staggered magazine shelf, was holding the lowest round to the right, not allowing it top pop up, where the bolt could pick it up. So I cut the top of the shelf flat. That got it to feeding all five rounds perfectly.
So I went back to working on the loads for the gun, at first I decided on 37 gr. of Reloader number 7, I thought that I was getting signs of high pressure above that. But later looked at those fired cases again and realized I was wrong. So I stepped my loads up to 37.5 gr. Then lastly 38 gr., that seems to be where I am going to stop. I could step up to 38.5, but I like the looks of the primers in the rounds that got 38 gr. better than the rounds that got 38.5 gr. With 38 gr. the primer is still very rounded, at 38.5 the primer is flattened out noticeably more, but still rounded towards the edge of the primer.
So I have been enjoying shooting the gun, really wished I could have gotten to it sooner, but it was just not possible. My last batch of ammo, I started having problems with some of the rounds, the bolt would not fully close, easily, like the previous loads. Those same loads took a lot of effort to get the bolt open, once it was fully closed. I spent some time working on that problem and found the bases of the cases that had the problem, were larger in diameter. So I pulled the bullets out of those rounds, lowered the sizing die in my press, then resized them. I thought I had the sizing die as low as it would go in the press, but it turns out it was not quite as low as it needed to be. It turns out some of the brand new Starline brass was slightly larger in diameter at the base. Since readjusting the sizing die, all of the rounds allow the bolt to fully close very easily and all can be very easily manually ejected.
So at this point, the cheap barrel has not been much of a problem, it just needed some cleaning which should be done with any new barrel before use. The mag is what took the most work to get the gun functioning properly. I have been told I should just order this or that brand of mag, but I have a bunch of mags sitting around, I modified one that I had at no cost. I am not sure those other brands would have worked without any mods either. I don't know of any brand of mag that has a 1/4" shorter inside length. The gun is grouping very well. I was really hoping to get a deer with it this year, but that did not happen, the deer did not cooperate and or the neighbors killed all of the legal bucks early in the season. Later in the season when I started hunting, I never saw a legal buck in person or on camera, the we can't shoot doe, except for Thanksgiving day to the following Sunday, but I did not know about that till too late. There are pigs all around where we are, but so far, we have never seen any on our place. Man it sure would be nice if the pigs showed up sometime after deer season. Maybe everyone else shuts their feeders off and I leave mine running. Most likely not going to happen, but I still have the cameras on, hoping that they might show up.
So today, I was really wanting to shoot something other than paper, looked around found a 4" diameter cedar log, set it up at 50 yards, shot it. It blew right through the cedar, splintered the back side, from one end of the log to the other. I shot it a second time got the same result. Does a good job of killing cedar. So I decided to try a larger log, the only thing I could find was hickory, so I picked out a piece about 9" in diameter. Set it up at 50 yards, shot it twice, had to stand it back up after the first shot. It knocked the log over with a lot of force. But neither shot completely penetrated the log. So I split the log and found the bullets. They both went about half way through the log. I recovered both bullets, then measured both. They are 350 gr. Hornady soft points, one weighed 339 gr. after I pulled it from the log, the other weighed 311 gr., I would think that is pretty good after hitting a hard piece of wood like hickory. I concluded the 350 gr. bullets probably won't expand for crap in a whitetail, probably a good thing I did not shoot any this year. I am going to be looking for some lighter faster expanding bullets for the gun, but plan on keeping the 350 gr. loads, incase I ever get to shoot something big.
Also today, I shot the gun without a brass catcher on it. I was previously worried about where the brass would go when ejected. I figured out quickly, that I had too light of a recoil spring in the gun when I first got it going, I could hear the bolt slam fully open on every shot. I stepped up the recoil spring to a stiffer spring, that stopped the bolt from slamming all the way rearwards on every shot. This morning I fired off a couple of test shots to try out the 38 gr. charge again, I forgot to put the brass catcher on the gun. It worked great, it dropped every case in about a 10 diameter area, about 3 ft. from the gun. So finding my brass should not be hard. I would say the gun is ready for some pigs or something bigger.
At this point the gun is working great, did not cost a lot and it's a lot of fun to shoot. Before next season, I plan on finding some lighter bullets for deer, then I want to try out some 405 gr. cast bullets. Been kind of impressed with the numbers they get from those cast bullets. So far the Sig Saur Whiskey 3 scope seems to be holding up, I got that on sale cheaply a couple years ago also. This AR is by far the hardest recoiling AR I have, I like the recoil, I like having a gun with some thump to it. I plan on getting the app for my chronograph loaded on my current phone, then shoot the gun through the chronograph, to see what the velocities look like. I planned on doing that today, but then realized I have the app on my last phone and don't know where that phone is. That was the only reason I kept that phone, was that app. I have a bunch of shots recorded on that phone, from some of my other guns. So I need to down load the app on my current phone, then see what the 458 is doing with the current load, then probably spend some more time loading some H110, but pretty sure I will stick with the Reloader number 7.
Eventually I want to piece together a AR 45 in 10mm, then a 224 Valkyrie, possibly still a 6.5 Grendel, possibly a 45 Raptor. There are a bunch of modern rounds I would like to try out. I have wanted a semi auto 10mm carbine for a long time, long before I knew they made 10mm ARs. At this point, this 458 is my favorite AR. If I could have had one of these 30 years ago, I would have killed a lot of deer and pigs with it.
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