2013 PDN Training Tour: Update #7

All right, just coming off of a long holiday weekend. Memorial day weekend and we are now up in Central Iowa. Obviously the headquarters of Brownells. And we're gonna go inside cause we're working on an Armorer's course to get a great week of training started. All right, Tony, this place is amazing.

The work you're doing here with Ken and what we're about to do with my Daniel Defense guns. These are my demo guns. You've seen them? Yeah. kind of see the...

the crud that I've allowed to build up in there. This idea of running an Armorer's course the day... Whether you're building or repairing or you're just cleaning your gun the day before rifle course. I really appreciate you guys getting on board with this. What are your thoughts?

I think it's great. I wish more people would do it because everything goes hand in hand. And you're taking a two-day rifle course, and you're going to put a lot rounds through the guns and you're gonna put a lot of abuse to the guns and you're gonna find out what works and what doesn't work and what better time to maintain your gun or armor your gun and before a class to make sure your guns good to go. It just... It's hand in hand.

And I just can't believe more people don't do it. Well, you know and that's the thing is I know how many guys a reason, these kinds are kind of beat up. And the reason these guns are so dirty is because so many people come to class, find out their gun doesn't work, wasn't tuned up. It wasn't ready to go. They didn't work with the ammunition and whatever their problem was.

99% of it would get identified and I know Ken's not gonna have that problem. None of the guys that are going through their guns today, you're going to have those problems on the range tomorrow. Exactly. And if they do have problems, they're probably going to be a lot more educated into how to help fix them. Absolutely.

You run into that situation a lot where you get minor malfunctions during the class and now they know what to look at. Yeah. They can figure out a cause right then instead of shrugging their shoulders going "Ah, my gun just doesn't work now" and not knowing why. And they're much more educated about what's going on in the gun and how the gun actually operates. You can feel it.

You can hear it too. So then at that point, you go ahead with your Q-tip again and clean the inside out. All right, one of the big advantages of taking the Armorer's class here before any rifle training is you do get the ability to go shop at a Brownells. And throughout the day, we've kind of come up with some new things that we want to change on the rifle. Some add on some upgrades.

One of the big things we're going to do is we're going to change the factory stock out to a Magpul CTR stock. And in order to do that, we're going to change everything over to mil-spec configuration. So what we're going to end up doing is we're going to change the standard commercial stock extension to a mil-spec spec stock extension. And then we're going to add onto that. We're going to add the Magpul CTR mil-spec buttstock.

And we're going to also add Magpul Sling plate which is going to allow us to run a Magpul sling which is a single point convertible to a two point sling. You told me what the reason for changing to the stock, it was tighter adjustment. Yeah, just a better fit than what a factory stock is or your standard mil-spec style stock. So it's going to be a better fit. You have the ability to change butt pads on it.

So it's got a nice rubber pad on it now, so the slick plastic pad has got a... pretty aggressive diamond pattern in it which some people don't like you can put up to I believe about a half inch pad on the back of this. So if you wanted to get a little extra length out of it you could do that also too. So it's a pretty nice stock setup. It really truly doesn't matter, but it's a benefit to you to kind of have an idea of which way when it comes to reassembling.

So you're not fighting past two details, so there's no reason to. All right, well, the guns are tuned up and the students and I are ready to go hit the range tomorrow. Tony, I really appreciate you taking the time, bringing the students and I back here into you know, really for a lot of people is a Mecca of gunsmith and, you know putting your expertise and putting your time and effort into helping make sure people understand their gun is really important. What do you think are the top two or three things that somebody, whether it's a the factory Daniel Defense gun they just got or it's a parts gun that they bought from you guys and put together, what are the top two or three things you want to make sure everybody remembers when it comes to their, their AR gunsmithing? Oh, really.

I think it's just understanding how the gun works is the big one, understanding how the gun works, routine maintenance and really using good quality parts. Because you know, a lot of times when you try to do a cheap, it ends up biting you in the end. Mm-hmm. Good quality parts will last as long as they gonna last. So understanding the gun, knowing how it works will help you alleviate any problems that you do get when you do have problems and help you fix them.

So that's the three big things that I can think of off the top of my head. All right. Well, I certainly can't argue with any of that advice. The first thing is you need to have a good quality gun and you need to make sure that it runs. You need to know how to make it run and then you need to get the training.

Of course, without the training, the device may or may not be able to help you. Once you continue that training, you get your practice done. That's really when the maintenance and taking care of your guns comes in. Now, everybody's been through one of my classes knows that I pretty much have used some of these training guns and the loaner guns. And I want to see what they'll take.

Well, this one starting over again. We went through it today. We had some students mess with it. I mess with it and we're starting this one over, but don't worry. I still have one.

That's been completely abused and ignored it for the Rangers. Tony really appreciate it. Absolutely, thanks