What did you buy yourself today - PART 2

[jcrowell72]

I redeemed some Sig Reward points on a Sig XTen. Ran 50 rounds without issues. Surprisingly light recoil for a 10mm.

[cruzans]

Purchased another pair of grips from my Thai friend for my Taurus 817 UL. Only $ 1,644.96 Thai dollars They must have Biden's relative running the show down there! That's $50 total in US dollars.....................

[ROCK-IT3]

Purchased another pair of grips from my Thai friend for my Taurus 817 UL. Only $ 1,644.96 Thai dollars They must have Biden's relative running the show down there! That's $50 total in US dollars.....................

Nice looking grips.

[JoshIronshaft]

Yesterday a friend contacted me. He said someone he knows found some guns while demolishing a house, maybe I would be interested. He said one is a "weird AR15". I get a picture texted to me and I was there with some money as fast as possible. That weird AR-15 turned out to be a very rusty Armalite AR-180, one of the first ones of the first batch made at Costa Mesa, probably around 1970.



It was rusted up, couldn't move anything, so I soaked it in penetrating oil and started to carefully get things moving.

Of course, it was loaded.



Luckily the bore and chamber cleaned up nicely. The internals and gas piston parts looked great compared to the outside.

After a couple hours of cleaning and tinkering I had it ready to fire. Might as well use the TW 1969 headstamp ammo that came with it. The ammo worked fine! First few rounds failed to eject though. Either the ejector was stuck or the gas port was clogged. After a few more rounds I was able to dump a mag out of it. I machined an AR15 surplus mag on the mill to convert it to work with the AR180. Couple quick machining operations were needed.

What a score! I'm so happy it works fine, despite the outside appearance. I plan to tear it completely down and refinish it, but for now it is preserved and appreciated.

[JaySmith]

That is purdy. Nice job, and super nice find.

[bogey1]

Was it originally blued? If so, get it blued again.

[Walleye Hunter]

Does it brrrrrrp? I don't know if I'd clean it up too much. Sometimes that can actually diminish the value.

[John_Wick]

Yesterday a friend contacted me. He said someone he knows found some guns while demolishing a house, maybe I would be interested. He said one is a "weird AR15". I get a picture texted to me and I was there with some money as fast as possible. That weird AR-15 turned out to be a very rusty Armalite AR-180, one of the first ones of the first batch made at Costa Mesa, probably around 1970.

Cool find. Congrats.

[JoshIronshaft]

Was it originally blued? If so, get it blued again.

Originally, guns in this early serial number range had a dull gray phosphate finish (at least from my initial research), and I think my zinc parkerizing I do at home might match it, if not I can send it for a Cerakote job that looks good.

[ShadeRabbit]

Yesterday a friend contacted me. He said someone he knows found some guns while demolishing a house, maybe I would be interested. He said one is a "weird AR15". I get a picture texted to me and I was there with some money as fast as possible. That weird AR-15 turned out to be a very rusty Armalite AR-180, one of the first ones of the first batch made at Costa Mesa, probably around 1970.

Some guys have all the luck

Congrats, that's pretty damn cool.

I'm not big on the BFPU look, at least with AKs, but the way you have it right now looks pretty cool to me.