Just a worthless shit of a dude

So I'm building an M4gery, since somehow in all my years of owning and building ARs I've never had one (well I did briefly, but then I gave it to my mom for her birthday), and when I saw a site selling surplus KAC RAS rails for not too bad a price I thought fuck it, why not. So I ordered one, it arrived yesterday, and man...

This thing is gloriously beat to shit.

As gnarly as this thing looks in these photos, they're not even doing full justice to how chewed up parts of this thing are. It's beautiful.

It was manufactured in 2006, making it older than some of my coworkers. Also, look at that dust. Where did it pick that up, I wonder.

So yeah, this thing's really cool. It has loads of character, and somehow despite looking like it's had a building fall on it it still feels shockingly good to hold for a quad rail.

Good purchase, do not regret.

Because I only make good financial decisions, I built another AR. And I have two more in the pipeline, so you're gonna have to deal with that at some point.

Anyway I just think ARs with the extended rails and front sight posts look cool, so I made a left handed one.

Also she wasn't on the bed this time so here's Kitty.

Okay, I just installed an adjustable gas piston and a peep sight, plus swapped out the stock, optic, and muzzle device since the last time I posted this AK, so I'm done fucking with it for the time being. I still want to try out that new B5 AK grip and handguard, but the latter is out of stock so that'll have to wait.

I'm a bit iffy on the look of that clamp-on rail section for the front sling mount, but sometimes you just don't have a lot of alternatives when you're left handed. I also keep wanting to mount a light somewhere, but the finish is shiny enough that and light mounted to the handguard reflects obnoxiously off the back of the front sight post.

Then again, I do have a can of matte black spray paint...

I knew there was a good chance the next handgun I bought was gonna be another Beretta, but I figured it would be an 80X, or an M9A4, or a 92X. I wasn't really looking to get into polymer striker-fired pistols any time soon, but when I saw a site selling never-issued Brazilian police trade-in APXs for $299 a pop I thought fuck it and snatched one up.

So far, I like it. It feels nice in my hand, the mag release is easier to reach with my thumb than on my 92FS, and I really like that the slide release is ambidextrous. The all black is a little boring, but you can order grip frames in other colors. Which I may have already done. In OD green, because it's my favorite color.

I'm gonna have to swap the mag release over to the other side and I want to try out the other backstraps, but luckily it came with the owner's manual.

So let's just crack that bad boy open, and...

...wait.

Oh, right. Brazilian police gun.

YouTube tutorial videos it is!

I finally got sick of trying to trick out my nicest AK in a way that I felt comfortable with as a lefty, so I went back to the basics. (Also included in this picture: Kitty.)

I'm not super fond of how that handguard feels, but it'll do for the time being. Also I do still want to upgrade the rear sight and put an adjustable piston in there.

I might check out the new AK grip and handguard from B5 Systems, I do like their AR furniture that I've tried out.

...I'm not gonna bother with their AK stock though, that thing looks awful.

After changing my mind and flip-flopping on what I wanted on it like thirty-five goddamn times, I've finally finished this build. I may swap out the rear backup sight later, and I'm still a little undecided on that LS2 grip, but overall I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Obligatory slanted evening lighting photo:

Dremel and Rust-oleum.

Sure hope I don't decide I want to attach a sling there in the future.

On the one hand, I kinda wanna put put a free-float rail on my dissipator upper (seen here on my KP-15 lower), while keeping the front sight post.

On the other hand, it's an Anderson barrel, so I feel like going through the hassle of removing the delta ring and handguard cap and then spending hundreds of dollars on the new rail might be polishing a turd a little bit.

I've heard mixed reviews of Lancer mags, but when I saw a pack of ten on sale for ten bucks each I thought why not.

They're even the OD green ones, my favorite color!

...I strongly suspect that these are on sale to cash in on the recent Magpul Tmag release, which are also transparent and OD green. (And more expensive, and they went out of stock within like fifteen minutes of being released.)

I don't know how reliable or shitty these things will turn out to be, but they look neat and they should at least serve while I wait for the Tmag frenzy to die down and they become easier to get.

I felt like posting a progress shot of my current AR building project. It's a good bit of the way finished, but there's still some steps I have to do:

I also keep waffling back and forth on whether or not I want to get the rail, upper and lower receivers, and buffer tube all cerakoted OD green, but that's hardly something I need to make up my mind on quickly. (On the one hand OD green is my favorite color; on the other hand I don't really want to strip down that ambi lower for fear of not being able to easily get it back together again.)

So I'd built this dissipator AR that I have a detachable carry handle on, for that retro aesthetic. Problem is I'm left handed and stubbornly insist on building my ARs with left-ejecting uppers, and the obnoxiously gigantic knobs on the carry handle don't play well with the flip-up ejection port cover:

WHAT'S A GUY TO DO?!

Get creative, that's what. Some Googling told me the size and thread pitch of the screws, so I bought some nuts to fit and then busted out the Dremel.

I marked how much excess screw I needed to cut off, and then got to work.

So far so good, but that shiny bare metal is gonna get me KILLED IN THE STREETS when I'm OPERATING in a NON-PERMISSIVE ENVIRONMENT. And it would look bad.

Fortunately, I had a can of Rust-oleum ultra-flat black spray paint.

Aw yeah, that's better. Now I'm a big strong tactical boy.

Now to reattach this bad boy and see if it works:

Hmm, looks like I cut the screws a bit too short to engage with the nylon locking bit, but it still looks pretty decent. Now to open the dust cover...

Much better, now I don't have to worry about the dust cover interfering with ejecting brass.

Now you may be wondering, "But that-dinopunk-guy, why don't you just get a left-handed carry handle from Stag Arms?"

Well for one thing, idiot, I did order one, but it's going to another build, and it wasn't cheap so I don't want to buy more than one if I don't have to.

And for another thing, this is an Anderson barrel on a Moriarti upper, I am not spending any more money on this upper receiver assembly than I absolutely have to.

Anyway that's what I did with my evening.