I finally got around to testing out the AR-15 yesterday. The good news is that even though I built the gun itself, it didn't blow up in my face. I put 60 rounds through it, and they all fed flawlessly. Unfortunately, we had gale force winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour yesterday. Since I was at an outdoor range, I wasn't really able to test the accuracy of the rifle.

I set up the target stand with my paper target securely stapled to the cardboard. Unfortunately, by the time I got done testing my BLR .308 (which was deadly accurate in spite of the wind) the paper target had blown away. As I was putting the BLR away and loading up the AR-15, my paper target caught a gust of wind. I never really even saw it go, I just noticed I was aiming at the used target that was left underneath. Since the range was still hot, I figured I'd make the best of it and shoot at the used target, even though it was already full of holes.

During the next mag change, that one blew away revealing what was left of a third target underneath. The range safety officer still wasn't calling cease fire, so I spent another mag full at the this one. I was better off than the guy next to me, that lost his whole stand half way through. The wind was really bad, but I was determined to test out the AR and make sure it was functioning properly.

About when I finished, the range officer called cease fire. I was ready to call it a day any way, so I headed down range to collect the target stand. As I neared the stand, I noticed that about 4 of my 60 rounds had dropped severely and impacted the target stand directly. I say 'noticed' in that I was shooting steel core ammo that I had picked up at a gun show, and there were four very noticeable holes in the 1/4" steel frame of the target stand. They don't have a rule against using steel core ammo, and ordinarily it isn't a problem. But I still felt really bad about damaging the target stand.