If you like working on AR-type rifles and plan to replace a muzzle device or change a barrel nut to install a free-floating handguard or to swap barrels, you are going to need to apply a lot of torque. Torque and aluminum are not friends and this is certainly the case with the upper receiver for AR rifles and pistols.
What not to do?
I actually want to take a minute and tell you two things not to do. First, do not simply clamp your lower in a vise and go cranking on whatever on the upper. Remember that the upper is connected to the lower by two steel pins going through relatively soft aluminim. Not a good combination.
Number two, there are work fixtures that look like a rectangle that allow you to remove the upper from the lower and then pin the upper to this block that is then held by a vise. I’m not fond of this either because then your two aluminum connection points on the receiver take up all the stress and they weren’t designed to do so.
Please do not do either of those or you may regret it. The odds are that you will regret it. I word it this way because you may get by once or twice but these methods are risky so don’t do them.
So what do I recommend?
I use a Magpul Barrel Extension Vise (BEV) block. It’s a very well designed block that engages via the barrel extension with its own steel lugs that are designed for strength but also to not harm the extension.
This is the top of the BEV block. You can see the front engagement lugs, the rear protrusion is for the bolt carrier and I would recommend keeping that O-ring oiled. The hole just under the front lugs is for a cross pin to secure it to the upper.
The BEV block uses a bolt carrier with the bolt removed to further secure it in the upper. You could remove the bolt from the bolt you normally use. I have a bolt carrier body that I keep in my toolbox for just this purpose.
The following photo shows it partially inserted in the upper.
This next photo shows it fully forward with the bolt carrier assembly installed. It does not have a cross pin installed at that point. Even without the pin it can handle the rotation stress. The pin just keeps it all in position and is not load bearing.
At this point you are good to go to change muzzle devices, barrel nuts or whatever else you may need to do without risking damage caused by torque. It’s a solid tool and I highly recommend it.
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It’s very common to have pistols and rifles with threaded muzzles. A very common thread pattern for .22, .204, .223/5.56 and even some 9mms is 1/2×28. This means the thread is 1/2″ wide and has 28 threads per inch (TPI). This is the most common pattern for AR rifles for example as .223/5.56 rifles tend to follow the original military specification thread pattern. There are many patterns out there so you always want to confirm.
For a variety of reasons, you may not want to install a muzzle device. If this is the case, I would recommend installing a thread protector, sometimes called a “muzzle nut” to protect the threads.
For example, here is a 10.5″ AR pistol upper receiver assembly. You can see the 1/2×28 thread and I did not plan on installing a muzzle device.
Thread protectors simply screw onto the end of the barrel. The only thing I do is to apply some Blue-Loctite to reduce the odds of the nut rattling off. Yes, the heat of the barrel will soften the Loctite but the “gummy” nature of it will do the job. If you plan on taking the thread protector off and putting it back on a lot, then don’t use a thread locker.
I hope this helps you out. The Amazon listing is the product I used on the above build and really like.
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If you are new to building AR lowers, there is one step that is, in my opionion, the most risky in terms of making a mistake and scratching the finish if not even gouging the aluminum. That’s when you go to install the bolt catch. You must juggle the receiver, spring, detent, catch, punch and hammer all at the same time while being right against the nicely finished receiver!
The two ears that hold the cross pin of the bolt catch are just above the magazine catch. In the small hole will sit the spring and the detent pin.
Historically, you had to get ready for battle and would tape your receiver to protect it from slipping punches or glancing blows by a hammer.
I would apply duct tape, Gorilla tape or something thick to protect the finish. Note, if you are starting out, taping is always a good idea no matter what.
Installing the slide catch is way easier now with the right tools. I have really come to rely on three punches to get the job done. The first is a purpose specific punch set from Wheeler this is flat on one side and has a protective rubber coating.
The Wheeler set has two punches. The starter punch has a hollow end that the pin sits in. This allows you to focus on the hole and hitting the punch with the hammer. The other is a roll pin punch that you can use to align the catch at the start and also drive the pin the final distance.Here the pin is being started.See, I use the roll pin punch on the left to align the bolt catch and also to capture the detent pin and spring. Once that punch is in, you can let go! Whew. You can then focus on tapping the starter punch on and making sure everything is aligned.
Now plenty of guys can get their build done with the above. Because of my tremor, I like to drive the pin in the rest of the way by using a really long roll pin punch that safely clears the receiver. I have a Tekton gunsmith punch set and the 1/8″ roll pin punch works great for me.
This is the nice Tekton gunsmith punch set that I really like. This is me with the 1/8″ roll pin punch.
I hope this helps you out. This is what I do every time now. It’s also what I use if I need to remove and replace an existing catch.
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One of the challenges when starting out working on guns is building your tool collection. It’s hard to find cost effective tools so you wind up making do with stuff, creating tools ad hoc, etc. Interestingly enough, this is where eBay just might help. While I’m not happy with their anti-gun position, there are a lot of tools that pop up there – ranging from low-end Chinese stuff all the way to some beautiful vintage tools.
So, I want to show some example searches with 20 live feeds from each section:
Gunsmith and Gunsmithing Tools
The trick is in the searching. For example, here are the top 20 matches for gunsmith tools or gunsmithing tools and you will probably see a mix:
Of course there are brands I will steer away from such as NCStar and others that I will look closer at such as Brownells, Lyman, Tipton, Weaver, etc. I also read the ratings of the seller. If a seller has a good rating and more than 30 sales, that’s a good sign. Less than that and you are taking a gamble.
Vintage Gunsmith Tools
“Vintage” seems to be a popular term for “used”. You tend to find a lot of unique stuff that was made by a gunsmith to fit a special need as well as high-quality tools that were made with care vs. mass produced. Be careful though. I’ll zoom into the photos as much as I can plus look at the seller’s description and the rating of the seller to try and decide if the tools are in good shape or beat to death.
Brownells has been around a long time — they were founded in 1939 and have always been known for their quality tools, parts and supplies to gunsmiths. Because they have been around for so long, you tend to see a fair amount of Brownells stuff hit eBay by name so that is worth searching. Still look at the photos closely and the seller’s rating to play it safe. By the way, if you have never read their Gunsmith Kinks books – be sure to pick them up.
I hope this helps you out! There is a ton of stuff out there if you experiment with the search terms some.
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I like weapons based on the Armalite Rifle (AR) design and have owned a variety of them over the years including a variety of AR-15s from Colt, Rock River, Palmetto State Armory and others plus a whole slew of pistols.
I also like having cool T-shirts and hoodies that reflect my interests and opinions about firearms and the Second Amendment. So, I did some searching and found there are some great designs on eBay that you just might find of interest:
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I’m always searching for better lubricants. Many of the so-called specialty weapons lubes are just marketing hype with some bulk lubricant poured into their container. In terms of greases, I’ve used quite a few over the years including wheel bearing grease and Tetra Gun Grease. I wanted to find something effective, non-toxic and less expensive.
A name popped up when surfing – Super Lube. To be honest, the first few times I totally dismissed the name because it sounds like some overly-hyped wonder lube that is sold in infomercials. However, the name did keep popping up so I actually started reading up on it.
Super Lube products are made by Synco Chemical Corporation of Bohemia, NU, that was founded in 1980. Their specialization is in the space of synthetic food grade lubricants and hold a number of patents.
There are a number of interesting characteristics about their grease that should be noted:
To apply it, I use either a chip brush that I store in a zip loc bag to keep from getting dirty (as shown in the featured photo above) or a small flux / resin brush that I also keep in a baggy.
So, for the last few months I have been testing it. When I cleaned one of my rifles or pistols, I would replace whatever I had been using as grease with the Super Lube Multi-Purpose grease.
I go by the old saying that if it rotates, oil it. If it slides, grease it. That is my rule of thumb so it goes on AK rails, bolt carriers, where the trigger hook grabs the hammer, etc.
It works great! The weapons feel well lubricated after cleaning and they function great. When I take them apart again for cleaning, the Super Lube shows no sign of breaking down, drying out, becoming gummy, etc.
If you are looking for an excellent affordable grease, check out Super Lube. I’m definitely very happy with it.
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When I first heard of the .50 Beowulf cartridge, it got added to my bucket list immediately. What’s not to like – the ballistics of the .45-70 cartridge in an AR platform that hits like a freight train. Somewhat humorously, I’d also point out that it drops noticeably at 150 yards and like a pumpkin after 200 yards but boy, does it hit hard when it does.
I have fun assembling AR lowers the way I want them and figured I would save time and get an assembled upper. In early 2016, I looked at two different vendors of assembled uppers – Alexander Arms (AA), who was the originator of the cartridge, and Radical Firearms, a discount AR rifle and assembler of uppers and lowers in Texas. A basic AA upper was around $719 that did not have a brake (or threading) and basic handguards. A decent looking Radical unit in the generic 12.7×42 chamber was only $598. It seemed like a no brainer and I went with the Radical unit.
To jump ahead just a bit — I wish I had bought a better AA upper for $923-1190. The Radical upper caused me quite a bit of grief and I am going to chronicle my adventure here because I did get it to work out in the end and was very happy with the results but I had to work for it.
Radical Arms Challenges
When I first ran across Radical, I had high hopes. In an impulse buy, I purchased two 5.56 uppers and the 12.7×42 upper. In case you are wondering why I am listing 12.7×42, that is the generic designation for the .50 Beowulf cartridge that AA owns the intellectual property for. By using the metric designation, Radical could build an upper without paying anything to AA.
When I bought my uppers, Radical was undergoing a huge growth spurt and I had to wait some period of time (4-8 weeks maybe) for the uppers. That was not a big deal to me. The AR uppers arrived and while gritty and needing polishing, they worked. Basically, what you’d expect with relatively low cost mass assembled products.
The 12.7×42 upper was a different story. Sometimes it would cycle and sometimes it would not. Radical took forever to respond to emails and what not so I figured screw it, I’ll just treat the assembled upper as a collection of parts and move ahead. To be perfectly clear, I parted ways with Radical and did not give them a chance to fix it after I got frustrated by how everything was going.
So, I started researching on the web and found that Beowulfs use a bolt head that is slightly different than a 7.62×39 AR bolt. After cycling my rifle by hand over and over, I concluded the cartridge was not seating properly in the bolt face and ordered a true .50 Beowulf bolt directly from Alexander Arms (not Radical). Problem solved. It’s run perfectly ever since. Whether Radical installed the wrong bolt or an out of spec bolt, I don’t know. I threw the offending bolt in the trash and called it even,
Another irritation Radical caused me was when the handguard loosened up because they hadn’t used Loc-tite on the screws. My recommendation is to just use Blue Loc-Tite if you run into this – it worked fine for me. I like the handguard otherwise.
The one thing they got right was the barrel. I heard Satern made the barrel but don’t know for sure. It is wonderfully accurate with the big 350gr XTP hollow point cartridges that AA makes. I am very pleased with that combination.
Yes, I eventually got it to work. No, will not buy from Radical again but I definitely would buy more stuff from Alexander Arms. I dealt with them on the phone a few times for ammo as well as the website. The staff were pleasant to deal with and shipping was always prompt.
Addressing Recoil
I was not impressed by the muzzle brake that Radical supplied and started researching the best brake for the Beowulf. Bear in mind the muzzle has a pretty unique thread at 49/64″-20 threads per inch (TPI). In addition, I knew I would need a jam nut to address the timing so the brake could be level on the barrel and it needed to be steel and not aluminum.
The Timber Creek Beowulf Brake Rocks!
To make a long story short, Timber Creek makes a Beowulf brake that does a great job. It seriously cut the recoil back and made the biggest difference of all my modifications. They make them with two different threads so make sure the one you order matches your rifle.
Here it is on my rifle – notice the big ports that redirect some of the gasses backwards:
Added a Limbsaver Recoil Pad to the Magpul ACS Stock
The next important element I did to reduce recoil was to add a mixture of bird shot and epoxy into the compartments of the MagPul ACS stock. I just stirred up a mixture of #7 lead bird shot with epoxy, filled all the voids I could and wiped off the excess liquid epoxy checking all the seams until it gelled enough. Here, you can see a hint of it sticking out.
The last thing I did was to try different buffers. Bill Alexander designed the cartridge to work with a normal AR buffer. I went from a normal/H1 buffer to an H2 and finally to an Enedine Hydraulic buffer, which is in it right now. With each step, the recoil seemed to go down a tad but did not make a huge difference.
Vortex Scope
I was thinking about using the rifle either for hogs or deer so I wanted a scope that could go from a fairly wide field of vision at 2.5x all the way up to a decent zoom at 10x. Vortex is always my first choice in scopes so I bought a Viper PST 2.5-10×44 scope and Vortex rings.
This is a wicked combination. I have thoroughly enjoyed this scope on the Beowulf. It holds zero and is nice and bright. You can’t go wrong with Vortex scopes in my honest opinion. Because of the Beowulf’s recoil, use quality rings and be very sure to torque all the screws down to spec so the optic stays put.
By the way, you may scoff at the notion of buying quality rings. A lot of the cheap imported rings are just aluminum. You’ll notice they don’t list a torque spec. Quality rings such as the ones fro Vortex will tell you a torque spec to hit and they often have steel inserts for the threads. You get what you pay for.
Note, in mid-2018 Vortex came out with what they call the “PST Gen 2” series of scopes and this first generation model has been discontinued. The closest scopes now are 3-15×44 and 2-10×32 -I don’t think you can go wrong one way or the other. I’d probably opt for a 2-10×32 MRAD scope to have the widest field of view at a low power.
I use the D&H 5.56 30 round magazines at PSA. They are often on sale for only $9.99 and list is $12.99.
End Result
The rifle turned out great. The final “felt” recoil was about that of a 20 gauge slug gun, if that. I could shoot round after round without regretting the kick 🙂
I had fun building and shooting it. As I get older the more I realize I enjoy learning about the engineering and history of arms. The “Wulf” has a new owner now and I hope it serves him well.
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My apologies but I have no way to filter out items that the vendors have sold out such as ammo. For example, most places sell out of the ammo fast but you should keep an eye on both Midway USA and going to Underwood Ammo directly – Underwood makes very good ammo by the way. I usually run Alexander Arms ammo but they are sold out most places and while you can place an order directly, you will need to wait quite a while for it to be made and shipped.
When Bill Alexander decided to make the .50 Beowulf round, he really got me excited 🙂 The idea of a heavy thumper round in an AR platform really appealed to me so I bought one and one issue that popped up was where to find magazines that were not really expensive.
D&H 5.56 30 RD Aluminum Magazines are perfect for this.
Once in a while the answer is really straight forward and this is one of those times. You do not need to change the feed lips or the follower on a standard 5.56/.223 magazine, you just need to bevel the front lip at about 45 degrees (the exact angle doesn’t seem to be a big deal) so the giant .50 Beowulf bullet goes up and, this is the key part, the leading lip of the brass case hits the little ramp and goes up it vs. hanging. In this next photo – see how the lip of the case will catch? It may catch sometimes or all the time – for me it was practically all the time.
The magazines I convert are D&H 5.56/.223 magazines that Palmetto State Armory sells. They are reliable and well made plus they are very affordable with sales prices starting around $8.99 and normal price around $12.99 for buyers in a rush. They also have regular combo deals such as a case and seven mags for $89.99. You have to love PSA’s deals. Click here to see what they have.
All I did was use a medium grit little sanding drum in my Dremel to bevel the magazine’s front lip – you are basically making an ad hoc feed ramp so the case doesn’t catch. The round you see has the big 350 grain XTP bullet – they hit like a freight train.
Note this is just to show the drum. The magazine is empty when I do the sanding.
This is a really quick operation and you don’t need to take a ton off. I do it with the magazine empty of course, insert a round into the magazine and test then do a bit more. I’d repeat the removal and testing until the round went right up into the chamber. After the first few magazines, I had it down pat.
In this next photo, see the shiny little ramp?
That’s all there is to it. I just used quality aluminum magazines and did the tweaking. Polymer mags, such as MagPul take more work and I simply didn’t feel like bothering with them. I did use quality magazines and avoided cheap stuff and I also used the anti-tilt followers – just regular 5.56 followers – nothing special.
In a standard 20 round aluminum 5.56/.223 magazine, you can fit up to seven Beowulf rounds. In a 30 round magazines, you can fit up to 10. I never tried any of the higher capacity magazines so I can’t speak to them at all.
This approach worked great for me and I hope it helps you as well.
I came up with an even faster way to convert the magazines that I wrote about in December of 2019 – click here to read it.
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