Noveske Leonidas

[Asmodeus]

First let me say thanks to my C7/SOT friend who provided the lower for this assembly. My F1 isn't back yet, but I wanted to make sure that the equipment worked, so he came by with one of his Title II guns and we reassembled it with my parts.

Anyway, when I decided to build a SBR AR10 I didn't realize that the F1 would be the easy part. Finding short AR10 uppers is a bit of a magic act, and folks that sell them are out of stock or just tell me "they can build it" with few details or just want to cut down a longer skinny carbine barrel and play with the gas port until they can make it work. Neither of these options really appealed to me.

I came across an NFA dealer advertising a complete Noveske Leonidas 12.5". Only problem was that it was a post-sample machine gun. The dealer was willing to part it out, selling it to me as a complete kit, minus the stripped receiver, for a reasonable price. I had some concerns about the finish (appearance and durability) but the dealer assured me that it was high-end paint over a baked-on Duracoat finish, and after a lot of mental tennis I decided that I could have my receiver blended to match the finish on the Leonidas. The price was attractive (about the same cost as a Leonidas upper new, plus it had ~ $1000 worth of accessories (as pictured, plus Geissele trigger and seven 25/20 round current generation magazines)) as was the dealers assurance that it had only seen 200 rounds.

The parts were received and were in excellent internal shape; the trigger group has almost no wear, bore, chamber, interior of upper, etc., showed minimal if any use. But the finish looked far better in the pictures I was sent than it did in person. Aside from showing wear on edges, it's soft. There are places where a fingernail can mar it. I have a bunch of guns with Duracoat refinishing; this one just doesn't live up to the standard. And it's really pretty ugly (which I could probably deal with if it was in better shape). I'm not unhappy with the deal, but the gun is going to need a complete refinish, not just getting the receiver blended to match the existing finish.

[d90king]

Excellent! Very nice, I agree about bringing it back to black! Looks like a very nice rifle with some nice kit. Congrats...

[mojo]

Very nice. Glad to see that you finally got it. I agree that it would look much better black. I'm sure that's not going to be that easy but it should be worth it.

[Magnum Banana]

I'm gonna break the mold and say it would look better white.

<3 Arctic Camo

[Asmodeus]

I'm gonna break the mold and say it would look better white.

<3 Arctic Camo

I've tried white guns in the past; they tend to look like crap much faster than darker colors.

[Warpt762x39]

Very cool. I think you should go with black.


As for the artic camo motif, I thought about doing it as a second stock for a bolt gun. Not all white but a black stock with a white topcoat. So when scratches and such happen it looks a bit more like this:

[XD45]

Very badass

A gun like that deserves nothing short of a black-t refinish by birdsong, he will do mags too.

http://www.snipercentral.com/birdsong.htm

[Shawn.L]

fricken sweet