D9Firearms

We’ve been very busy building DPMS rifles since Christmas and again had a great time doing it and built out some really cool rifles. Additionally we also developed some new friends out of the deal and plan to expand on one of those friendships in about two weeks when we take a trip down to Texas for a little hog hunting.

Shown above DPMS “Pigs-in-a-blanket” LR-308 TAC20.

The first is the TAC20, which we setup for our new friend Sterling, who has a menacing feral hog problem and has invited D9 down to help communicate his dissatisfaction with their behavior. The TAC20 comes standard with a 20” heavy barrel, extended 4 rail hand guard, flash hider, and carry handle. We the upgraded the flash hider to a Miculek and replaced the A2 stock with a Command Arms (CAA) 6 position collapsible stock, added a Hogue rubberized grip, and installed the bipod adapter and Harris Bipod. This seems like it will be a very versatile rifle for eliminating confrontational feral hogs and for deer and coyote hunting as well. I think this will be an excellent gun shot off of a bipod or rest for medium and long range, but will still serve well in quick free hand shot. (We plan to have some photo’s from this little exercise and are ready for action.)

DPMS LR-308 SASS w/JP Miculek topped off with an IOR Valdada 3×18x42. (You won’t need Cialas with this.)

After working with Sterling he told one of his friends who just bought a DPMS LR-308 SASS, (before he knew about D9Firearms) and asked us to help him out with some optics. He was looking for something commensurate to top off this long ranger and naturally we recommended IOR. Johnny was familiar with IOR and was able to get to a store and look through some of their glass. He decided to go with the 3×18x42 w/a 35mm tube. What a smoker optic. Johnny sent his upper here to us and we mounted, aligned, and bore sighted it for him and shipped it back down. We also installed a JP Rifles Miculek style compensator. He will also be joining us for a little pig roast down in Austin.

Another rifle we built was for a coyote hunter up in Michigan near Detroit where we setup a LR-260H. One of the concerns was the weight because he will be packing it but once on site will be shooting from a bipod. The LR-260H (hunter) model fit the bill perfectly for the weight requirements and shooting conditions combined with the .260 bullet it will be an excellent long range coyote hammering machine. This rifle was outfitted with a OD Hogue rubberized grip, JP trigger and speed hammer, Harris bipod, Burris XTR 2×12x50 (30mm tube) with Warne rings, and a Bulldog rifle case. Plans for this rifle include camo paint job to go with the OD optics and grip.

Another really neat rifle we enjoyed building was for a work colleague of mine Ray, who’s also going down to Texas with me to send a clear message to these loud-mouthed hogs who are molesting Sterling’s deer population. However, Ray cooked up this idea after checking out a couple of different rifles we had on hand and decided on a real unique configuration.

Ray liked the look, feel, and operation of the standard slick side upper receiver (without forward assist & dust cover) but wanted it in the 16” AP4 carbine barrel. Since the barrels and bolts are gauged and head spaced by DPMS changing out the receiver doesn’t cause any loss of accuracy or feeding so we changed it out the A3 receiver. We then added a carbine length 4 rail and replaced the A2 post site/gas block with a standard Koelbl gas block to eliminate any interference with his optic. We upgraded the standard CAR stock with a CAA collapsible, added a Hogue rubberized grip, installed a JP adjustable w/speed hammer, and added the tactical bolt and carrier release. To crown this little swineinator Ray chose our favorite optic manufacture IOR and put a 1.5×8x32 w/illuminated MP-8 reticule, and 35mm tube. He chose this for the larger field of view. I can say as I was bore sighting it for him I found this to be a perfect match for the rifle, his targets, and the distances he would be operating at.

DPMS LR-308B w/A3 receiver/fluted/threaded/Extended 4 rail/CMMG micro gas block/Miculek, Panther grip, Harris bipod & adpater, IOR Valdada 10×42, JARD 2 stage trigger.

We also cooked up a couple of LR-308B’s A3 w/fluted/threaded rifles we had special ordered. This is an excellent platform and modified this with several configurations. Within about 1 week we received orders for three of these rifles all with varying configurations. We outfitted one for a local paramedic, which in his line of work he needs a couple of them, and another for a fellow down in Huntsville who replied that even his wife was impressed. The final one we will be hand carrying down to a fellow in Austin (transferring it through a local dealer) and he went with an extended 4 rail, JARD two stage, and Hogue grip.

DPMS LR-308 w/A3/fluted/threaded/Miculek/Burris 4.5 -14×44.

DPMS LR-308 w/A3/fluted/threaded/4 rail carbine length/ACE Ltd collapsible/JP adjustable w/speed hammer/CAA G27 grip/Harris Bipod & adapter/IOR Valdada.

DPMS LR-308B w/A3/fluted/threaded/Miculek/JP w/Speed hammer/Harris bipod. Brandon outfitted this when he received it with a Magpul and Bushnell 3200 Elite. Very nice.

We received this follow up comment from Brandon:

Darrel,

Wow, thats awesome, he’s going to certainly enjoy it.  Feels like a solid piece of chisselled art… its just solid as can be.  I did some more shooting w/ it, I don’t have the pics, but I decided to do a 40 round group at 125 yards.  One bad shot ruined it, but all the rest made a nasty little group of about 1′’-1.25′’.  Not bad at all considering I couldn’t find the center of the target after the first clip!  Thanks again,

Brandon

DPMS LR-308 24″ SS fluted bull w/steel receiver. We sold this at the gun show to a local fellow and we are in the process of loading some David Tubb Final Finish bore preserving bullets. Rifle shown with D9’s Night Force.

The DPMS LR-308B shown above and below. D9 dreaming up idea’s. Lower rifle shown with SASS 4 rail. I thought it was pretty cool.

Our next project which we are in the process of organizing and laying out is a customized DPMS AR-15 lower. We ordered only the springs & pins, but can provide all the standard DPMS parts, and combined it with CAA, Badger, JP, JARD, Jewell parts without buying all the entire kit.

If you’re interested in a DPMS LR-308, LR-260, LR-243 or AR-15 customized lower please contact us here at D9Firearms. Thanks again.

Authors Glock shown above with Glock Tac Lite, Sand Paper grips, Tactical Slide Release, Tactical Carrier Release, Trijicon Nite Sights, and Ontario Knife.

Glock:

Our favorite double action (DA) pistol here at D9 is the Glock. We’ve written about it before and since we’ve sold a couple in the last few weeks it’s worth discussing some of the highlights and why our clients are choosing Glock over other double action pistols.

Glock’s are not necessarily the lowest price handgun but seem to fall about in the middle of similar styles and at the lower end of your more premium handguns such as the HK or Sig, which are SA/DA types. For instance, Taurus makes some very reliable and quality semi-auto pistols and is priced in the $300 - $500 range. Springfield Armory XDs run in the $400 - $550 range. The Glocks run in the $450 - $570 range. All of the manufactures also offer extra standard features like night sights, adjustable sights, or tac lights to entice the shooter into purchasing their firearm, which is what competition is all about.

We’ve had experience with all three of these handguns and are not disparaging the Taurus or the XDs. However, if it comes down to a client of ours trying to make a decision or asking for guidance, and not having a specific brand loyalty, we would recommend a Glock especially for the DA only type pistol. (We have some other favorites in SA/DA.) (Of course, I know some very adamant XD owners who wouldn’t own a Glock.)

Our experience with a Glock started with a personal purchase of the 23 which is a 40SW compact about four years ago. One of the first things we did was drop in a 3.5lb disconnector, which reduced the trigger pull from about 5.5lb to 3.5lb. The pistol makes a very good conceal carry and range gun with the 4″ barrel. With it being double DA only, it was very easy to pick up and maintain a reasonable group, since the trigger pull is identical from the first to the last shot and it didn’t take as much practice to adjust like with a SA/DA type of pistol.

Since then we have done multiple upgrades on our Glock as well as others, which is another reason we like Glock. The amount of after market products for Glock is unlimited. Again, being the fact you can get into a base model, that is a performer, and later on compliment it with a variety of options to enhance shooting enjoyment and accuracy.

Author’s Glock 23 shown above completely stripped.

We are currently upgrading a Glock for a new client/friend and after showing him our Glock, he decided to go with a couple of the same options. The first being the tactical slide release, which is slightly larger then the standard release, and has a more ergonomic feel to it. The bolt release is definitely a low cost option ($20) and if you plan on shooting several clips in one setting, you will not have that raw feeling from releasing the slide.

Shown above is a close up of the tactical bolt release. Notice that it extends slightly further then the original and has more rounded features. Additionally it does not extend out where it would catch on your holster or clothing. Very nice comfort feature.

The next was the Lone Wolf trigger assembly. This required us to remove the entire trigger assembly and replace it with the new one. This assembly has an adjustable set screw that allows you to adjust the over travel to allow for a quicker reset and is combined with a 3.5lb disconnector. Additionally the hammer spring is also replaced. This offers the shooter a reduced trigger pull and quicker reset on the trigger for faster follow up shooting. (We went back and re-adjusted ours after setting this one. I have been very pleased with this option by Lone Wolf.) (The cost is $40 installed.)

Trigger housings and disconnector. Lone wolf trigger housing shown on left and 3.5lb disconnector shown on top. Other two are original Glock.

Observe the left trigger housing. In the very top left corner is the overtravel adjustment setscrew.

Originally when were purchase ours it only had the standard sights on it. We recently purchased the tools to install new sights on our Glock and went with the Trijicon nite sites.

The Trijicon nite sights run about $100 depending on the type and we charge $15 for installation.)

If you are interested in a Glock and would like us to customize it for you please contact us here at D9Firearms.

The DPMS LR-260 is becoming a highly sought after rifle. DPMS has three versions of this rifle:

Ø LR-260 24” SS bull barrel which is identical to its big brother the LR-308 and is an awesome bench gun designed for the ultimate long range bench shooter.

(Rifle shown above is:DPMS LR-260 24″ SS fluted & threaded bull barrel with a Miculek, JP adjustable speed hammer, Panther Tactical grip, Burris 4×16x50 scope, tactical carrier release, Harris Bipod,, Bulldog double rifle aluminum case.)

Ø LR-260H 20” heavy barrel w/flash hider and is designed as the hunter model which is rifle designed for the getting out in the weeds making free hand shots and good for a deer stand or laying out in the field shooting off of a rest.

(Rifle shown above is:DPMS LR-260H with JP adjustable & speed hammer, OD green Hogue rubberized grip, Burris 3×12x50 (30mm) XTR OD green scope, tactical carrier release, Harris Bipod, D9Firearms sight-in target, Bulldog double rifle aluminum case.)

Ø LR-260L 18” heavy barrel w/integrated Miculek compensator, JP adjustable trigger (speed hammer not included), A27 grip, carbon fiber hand guard, and skeleton A2 skeleton stock, which is perfect for free hand, moving targets, and carrying in the field.

(Rifle shown above is a DPMS LR-260L with tactical carrier release, Bushnell 6×24, Harris bipod.)

All three are excellent rifles the problem is there is not much proven load data available for hand loaders and factory ammunition is fairly expensive. Fortunately D9 keeps good company with shooters who are very devout and hell bent on accuracy.

Recently two of our shooters purchased the DPMS LR-260 who were working on finding that sweet load that would consistently deliver the sub MOA results we’ve come to expect from DPMS rifles. They stated that they were getting about 1.5” off the bench using a couple of different loads. Another friend of D9, Earl, also purchased a LR-260 (As a side note this is the infamous Earl from Reno. Earl also has some neat shirts listed on Café Press that tout his personal hand gun favorites and even did one for us here at D9Firearms. So buy one of each.)

http://www.cafepress.com/glock_dude

www.cafepress.com/d9firearms

www.cafepress.com/fightingzombies

I decided to link Earl in with Jason & SafeAction to trade load data to get the load that will deliver the consistent sub MOA shooting. Below are excerpts from the emails that were traded back and forth. It was really neat to read what each one had tried and the process each went through trying to develop the load.

Results by Jason in Utah:

I’ve tried about 6 different loads. The only consistent thing so far is that I can get about 3 shots touching (or within .5) and two fly completely out of the group…and it’s never the same shots in the same sequence. You’d normally expect shots 3 & 4 to fly out, but it’s completely random. Honestly, I’ve not gotten super serious about it yet because I’m using resized NATO .308 brass, which is generally a little erratic in performance, but I thought I could expect better groups than I’m getting. The .243 I bought from Darrel at the same time did much better with the same brass.

Surprisingly, the 123g HPBTMK and Varget have performed the best. The heavier bullets, which should do best, have been terrible. I tried 140g HPBTMK’s and AMax bullets with 4831SC, H1000 and RL19 and there was no obvious difference in the performance of those powders - about 2-3 MOA.

I’m going back out in tomorrow to try some new things. I’ve resized some .243 Lapua Brass and prepped things a little better, so maybe that’ll be the ticket. I also put a better scope on it: I was using a VXI 4-12, now it’s got a VXIII 4.5-14. I’ve got the same scope on my 308 police rifle and it shoots .5 MOA all day, so the scope should not be a limiting factor at this point.

Earl I’ll try your 35g RL15/140g HPBTMK load and see how it works in my rifle.

Results by Earl P (Glockdude):

I have the 24” bull barreled DPMS 260 and I did my load development with Alliant RL-15 Powder and Sierra 140 Grain MatchKings. I started at 35 Grains and worked my way up in .3 grain increments to 37.7 Grains. I had sub half moa groups (4 shots) on three of the loads. The most noticeable was the 35.0 grains, which proved a .15” three shot and .25” four shot (I did it on another target so I wouldn’t screw up my group).

I still have to load 15 of each of the half MOA group loads to ensure that I have the best load selected and not a fluke group, so these results are not final.

For my reloading process, I used RCBS .260 Remington dies and Hornandy lube (comes in a little tub) to resize Winchester .308 brass to .260 – I like Winchester brass better than Remington and it is much easier & cheaper to find in .308 . The case length was actually less than the 2.025” trim length (closer to 2.013). I used Federal Gold Medal 210 Match primers. The OAL cartridge length was 2.785” as per the Sierra loading manual.

I hand weighed each powder charge to ensure consistency. I also reamed the flash hole of the primer pocket and used a chamfer & deburring tool on the case mouth (this was the tool I couldn’t remember the name of Darrel).

I didn’t have any major pressure signs or failure to extract and it functioned flawlessly in the 25 degree temperature with a stiff headwind (made shooting less than comfortable).

My scope is a $100 Whitetail Classic by Simmons, which goes 6.5-20 power (not a bad cheap scope for target shooting). I also used a Lead-Sled by Caldwell and a bubble level by B-Square that attaches to a Weaver or Picatinny rail.

I think after I figure out the RL15 load, I will try to find a faster load with Hogden H4831SC. The loads according to the manual are under 2600 fps, which is slower than I really want to be for long range ballistics. I will keep toying around and see what works the best in my rifle.

More results by Jason:

GREAT NEWS! I think I’ve found the “sweet spot”…or at least the sweet powder/bullet combination.

Earl, I tried your load recommendation (35g RL 15 and 140g HPBTMK) and all of the groups I shot were .8 MOA. All groups are at 100 yards, the dots are 3″ with a two inch inner circle and .75″ square. I think once I tweak the powder a little I should have a .5 MOA rifle - and that is really exciting! Pretty much everything I’ve tried with RL15 has done well, which re-enforces the conversation I had with Darrell when I bought the rifle; RL15 is possibly the best .308 case powder in existence!

I also tried some other bullets with 4064, RL19 and they all performed poorly. They are the groups at the bottom of the email. Thanks again everyone! I’m going back out tomorrow and will send more pics and range data.

Below: .89 MOA, 140g HPBTMK, 34.5g RL15

Below: .80 MOA, 140g HPBTMK, 35g RL15

Below: .83 MOA, 140g HPBTMK, 35.5g RL15

Below: .89 MOA, 120g Nosler Ballistic Tip, 45g RL15

Below: “Minute of Acre” loads with RL19

Results by SafeAction:

Hi folks,

it’s great to have the opportunity to share experience and loading data.

This morning I stole a few hours and went to the shooting range. It’s an outdoors range with IPSC bays and a 300yd rifle facility. www.tdsa.net

Once in a while a grackle or a crow lands on the 200 yd post. When I see them through my scope I remember that these guys are listed as pest-birds. Then I squeeze the trigger and – pop – another one goes to bird-heaven.

I have a DPMS 260L with a JP trigger. During the last few weeks I’ve been feeding the rifle 140gr SMK loads with slow to very slow burning powders:

IMR 7828, R22, R19, WXR. None of these results have turned out to be significant in the accuracy arena.

I’m aware that the 260L does not come with a match grade bull barrel so I have to give the gun some slack. (Although my Steyr rifle doesn’t have a match barrel either and it shoots stunning 0.63 MOA with the ammo Darrel provided.)

There is no doubt that R15 rocks.

Here is what I got today with Sierra 120gr MK (best result so far, hands down):

From the bench rest-

OAL 2.785

SMK 120gr

New Remington case

Federal Gold Medal 210 Match primers

R19: 47gr

Best group 0.82 MOA

Average: 1.35 moa

When loading for my Sako 6PPC I am into the super mumbo jumbo case preparation. I admit that I skipped that for all 260 loads.

The best powders in my 308 experience are Viht N140 and Hodgdon 380. I guess these powders along with N540 and H414 might also score in the 260 rem.

By the way, due to the shape the Norma 6.5mm Golden Target 130gr bullets don’t feed in the semi auto.

-Bernhard

Cedar Hill, Texas

PS: pic - In the field with low recoil guns such as the 260rem I prefer squatting to kneeling or sitting.

If you are interested in a DPMS LR-260 please contact us here at D9Firearms. Within the next few months when more load data becomes available D9Firearms will load for the .260.

Thanks and be safe. All load data provided above falls within manufacturer’s guidelines. Regardless verify any load data prior to loading and shooting it out of your rifle.

We just received a new HK USP LEM Compact 40SW and decided with the break in the cold weather it was time for a little range activity. Needless to say you can never just bring one so I loaded up another recent purchase the FNH – 9, HK USP Tactical, and my stalwart Glock 23 which has been completely overhauled with upgrades.

The HK USP LEM Compact 40SW is a double action only pistol with a 3.58” barrel, 12 round capacity, fixed 3 dot sights, bobbed hammer and no de-cocking lever. The pistol was originally designed for airline pilots to carry while on duty. The unique operation of the pistol centers on the trigger operation which is similar to a two stage on your AR or to the Para Ordnance LDA (Light Double Action).

HK USP LEM Compact 40SW ($700)

When charging the pistol, the hammer will return to a first stage set position, which is slightly past the slide. When engaging the trigger, the hammer will travel simultaneously, and requires about 1 - 2lbs of trigger pull. At about 3/8” pull the tension on the trigger stiffens but still engages the hammer. At the end of travel the trigger breaks at 7 – 8lb. If the shooter decides not to fire the hammer travels back to the set position simultaneous with the trigger release. Additionally the trigger reset is about 1/8” forward which is very nice. The pistol seems well suited for conceal carry for multiple reasons. It is very safe to carry loaded, the final 8lb pull, it’s compact, and it’s an ultra reliable hand gun.

Pistol shown charged.  Notice the bobbed hammer sets back about 1/8″

Pistol shown charged.  Hammer is set at 1st stage.

Pistol shown not charged and the trigger has been pulled.  Notice the hammer is completely reset in the frame.  Also notice no de-cocker or safety.

There is a reason no targets are shown with this review because the author would prefer not to embarrass himself. Although, a bad guy would not have survived an encounter but it would not have been the traditional 1 shot 1 kill. My opinion is that this gun will take some practice to master trigger action, but probably no more so than a single/double action. Currently we are offering this pistol for $700 while supply last and is only available in the 40SW for this price.

If you’re interested in a HK USP LEM 40SW please contact us here at D9Firearms. Thanks.