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Does my Robinson Arms Expeditionary M96 rifle fit into this category? Had this rifle for about 3 years and not much interest out there for it. I think it's a very cool modular design of Stoner's. I had a little trouble getting proper sight alignment with the straight comb of the stock. I fashioned a FAL to fit the receiver and life was much better. If I remember "correctly" I have two stocks that came with it in black and green.
I don't know why, but my M96 came with a M16 style stock. Most all fixed stock rifles, that I see pics of, don't have that style but have a club style (like RPK) stock. Must have been a aftermarket accessory . I'd like to find a club style stock for mine.
I doubt anyone will care much...but it's for ease of finding it later during one of our all encompassing discussions...perhaps it should have been in other US service rifles. https://www.milsurps.com/forumdisplay.php?f=117Quote:
Originally Posted by LX Kid
If there's an issue, the mods would move it...
Robinsons are in demand for folks wanting to clone Stoner 63s. One of my friends has one, too. Go to the retro forum on AR15.com, and there are a couple Robinson/Stoner threads.
Is that Leader T2 yours, also? IT was a disappointing clone of the AR180, done on the cheap.
The Leader T-2 was not a bad design from someone who was starting from scratch here in Oz.
A lot of the problems with them resulted from a couple of things.
They were essentially made by contractors who seemed not to grasp certain essential metallurgical principles and was not a fully 'mature" design before it went on the market. It was not the first, nor the last product to suffer from this deficiency.
A later incarnation was the AAA SAR which also suffered from manufacturing "issues" including a very odd gas problem. Rifles firing bog-standard M-193 ball were breaking or distorting extractors, and having weird feeding and ejection faults. They were also prone to primer rupture and bolt-face "burning".
After a bit of careful observation and rudimentary workshop procedures, I solved these matters on mine, and on quite a few others.
These problems were all inter-related.
1. The primers were rupturing because the striker tip was too big for small-rifle primers AND often had excessive protrusion.
2. To make matters worse, the striker hole on the bolt-head was often OVERSIZED, for those strikers.
3. The "general consensus" was that the problem with the poor ejection and feed problems resulted from insufficient gas driving the piston.
HOWEVER.
It was obvious the something (the bolt carrier) was also chewing up the neoprene buffer at the rear of the action; not something one would normally associate with "insufficient gas".
Upon close examination of a couple of these rifles firing a range of incremental handloads, several big, bright lights came on.
It was not insufficient gas but grossly EXCESSIVE gas that was the gremlin.
The action was opening very early and VERY fast. This caused the damage to the fired cases AND the extractor. The excessive thrust on the bolt carrier was smashing the carrier into the buffer with considerable violence.
The carrier then rebounded so fast that it would often catch the fired case, just as it had left the bolt-face, and mash it sideways into the forward end of the body, sometimes also entangling a fresh round from the mag in the untidiness.
The solution was to strip the gas-block / front sight base off the barrel, bore out the bleed hole in the gas block and insert a "plug' of high-grade steel. This would then be bored out for a considerably smaller hole and thus reduce the amount of gas that could impinge on the piston "cup".
The bolt-face damage resulted from the dimensional "issues" of the striker and bolt-face. The excessive diameter of the striker tip over-stressed the primer cups.
The ludicrously oversized striker hole in the bolt-head guaranteed that there would be a LOT of primer "blowouts", results of which rapidly burned both the bolt face AND the tip of the striker. The "ragged" end of the striker accelerated the rupture rate in subsequent firings.
Solution?
Reshape a NEW striker so that the tip closely matched that of an AR-15 (MUCH smaller and carefully radiused).
The "fun" part? Repair the pits etc. with TIG weld, including filling in the striker hole.
Machine the face of the bolt-head smooth, ensuring no change in headspace.
Using an array of specialist small drill bits, bore out the striker hole to dimensions similar to the AR-15, and thus match the remodeled striker tip with minimal radial clearances.
A lot of fiddling, but it WORKED a treat. No more ejection failures, smashed buffers, misfeeds, burned bolt-faces, strikers, etc..
The designer of the Leader, SAR and the later "Bushmaster" 17S was last encountered in the US, where he had fled with his family after Oz became VERY "gun-unfriendly".
Nice Bloke.
Yes it's mine and as usual I have not shot it either. Most all my rifles have not been to the range with me. I guess I'm just an "aquirer" of rifles instead of a shooter! LoL The former owner had added a pictiney rail on the carry handle.Quote:
Originally Posted by imarangemaster
Thank you for a "very interesting" and informative post! I had noticed on mine just how far out the firing pin had protruded beyond the bolt face. Having not shot my rifle I had not noticed the other problems with gas and extraction problems. When I get some ink for my printer I'll print out your post and have a talk with my gunsmith friend and see if I can have these issues resolved. Thanks again!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz
Ooooops! My post #2 above has errors in it. The pic is wrong and I mixed up in which thread I was in. Instead of M96 it should read Leaded T2 MK5, which isn't being discussed in this forum! Don't get old cause you might get confused like I did! LoL