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Posted: 11/22/2015 1:06:59 AM EDT
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I took the plunge and bought a new Rock River LAR-47 CAR A-4 rifle - the reviews for the latest offering were all good. I love my AK's, mainly for the 7.62-39mm round, and I love my AR's for their ergonomics. I was down to choosing this LAR-47 or the CMMG Mutant. I handled both and chose the LAR-47.
Here's the rifle from Rock River's website: 
Here's my rifle the day I brought it home: 
I decided to go with a free float rail, so I chose the ALG EMR in the 12" variety. That also required a low-profile gas block. While I was at it, I also got a VG6 Precision Gamma muzzle brake and one of the sweet Holosun 503C circle-dot sights. The rail was not easy to install because the LAR-47's upper receiver was a bit wider than a normal AR's uppers where the rail's anti-rotation tabs install alongside the upper. I ended up filing about 2mm's of material off the insides of each tab to eventually make it fit. Here's some photos of the problem: 
With the new rail and muzzle device installed, next up is to Duracoat the entire firearm in Magpul FDE. Here it is drying in the oven: 
And that's the current status. I'll update the thread once the Duracoat has cured and I've reassembled the rifle. I'm also waiting for a couple Magpul M-Lok accessories to be delivered from Aim Surplus for this rifle. |
Parts are done oven curing. Apologies for the crappy photos - I was lazy and took them with my phone rather than with my DSLR. As such, the color in the photos is not even close to accurate
Beginning reassembly: 
ETA: When I continued the reassembly I had an issue getting the MOE-SL stock on. It turns out Rock River uses a commercial buffer tube on this rifle. I have over a dozen AR's and this is the only one that does not have a mil-spec tube. Well, I guess I was dumb for ordering the wrong size, but I didn't even think it would use anything other than mil-spec. Now I've ordered a Commercial version stock online and will have to wait for it to arrive. |
I took my LAR-47 to my local indoor shooting range/club this afternoon for the first time. Overall, I'm pretty pleased. It's much lighter and more ergonomic than my Arsenal, Century C39, or Romanian WASR AK's. I did have one Failure to Feed - the bolt went over the round pushing it into the chamber:
The above FTF was with a Yugo 30 round steel commie mag. I didn't experience the failure again, even after shooting several more mags worth with the same mag. I was using a mixture of Wolf and Tula steel cased ammo for everything today. Here is my best 75 meter 3-round group today. This was with the Holosun 503C red dot and shooting off a sandbag. Again, with Tula/Wolf: 
And here is 30 rounds dumped in semi-fast fashion at 75 meters: 
Overall, I'm quite pleased. I'm going to keep my eye out for any more FTFs, especially with that mag. But the rifle had no other hiccups, so my fingers are crossed that it's just 'breaking in'. |
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Update - I took this rifle to the range today to run more rounds through it in hopes to become more comfortable with its reliability. I wanted to try some new magazines in it - new Magpul PMAG Gen M3 mags with the metal reinforcements, and some new steel commie (Korean) 20 rd 'tanker' mags.
Ultimately, I had a lot of problems with the Magpul Gen M3 PMAGS. Lots of failures to strip a round from the mag and insert it into the barrel. The bolt would reciprocate and correctly eject the spent round, but would not load a round from the mag. The only indication of this would be when I would squeeze the trigger and I'd just hear a 'click'. Other than these failures, I also had the following failure twice with the Magpul M3 PMAG - it looks as though the carrier was actually stripping the new round out of the mag, but the bolt itself was catching the cartridge case. These failures happened with all 3 PMAGs that I brought, and not one particular one. 
The good news was the the rifle was flawless with the 20rd steel commie pattern tanker mags. I intermixed these mags during the course of shooting to ensure that as the rifle and BCG got dirty that my testing was not biased. So far, this rifle has been perfect with all steel commie pattern (20 rd and 30 rd varieties - Romanian, Korean, and Chinese) that I've tried. 
I'm not happy this the rifle doesn't like PMAGs. But I guess I'm just going to have to stick with steel mags to ensure reliability. |
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Just curious if you've tried any of the gen 2 Magpuls?
I recently read a thread in another forum about whether the reinforced gen 3s have the same specs/geometry as the gen2s. I only have gen 2s so can't say for sure. My PTR-32 has the opposite problem, loves magpuls (gen 2) & tapcos but not all surplus steel mags. Romys are good, Hungarians aren't. That at least tells me there's some kind of difference/variation in feeding geometry. As much as I like Magpul AR & AK mags I'll take a steel mag over a poly mag for the same price, glad to hear yours is running fine with surplus mags. |
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