Helpful hint / AUG design strength:

The buttplate retaining pin fits perfectly in the slot for the gas regulator, making it super easy to remove when fouled or blazing hot.

I thought I had a picture of the manual demonstrating how to do it... See last sentence here instead.

This makes it way easier!   Cleaned the AUG today.

Thanks!

lazy engineer, I bought a crimson trace green laser after reading that you were trying out a green laser then I felt like a dumbass when I saw what you bought but now I don't feel so bad.

I haven't set mine up yet due to flu, kids home from college, general Christmas(both setup and take down)and now I have tax time but I will try to make time and let you know how it goes.

Thank you for all you do for us AUG folk

That should work much better than my selection.  Crimson trace has two mounting screws, not just one.  Even better, you can reverse them (I think), which will make attaching it much easier.  I am eager to hear your results once you get well (hopefully soon!), as I may well go that route.

I'm very curious as well!

I'm well now. I made it to work, such as it is and even out to the range. I had to let 66bronco try out my m17s even though it's a measly .223! Ken should be hearing from him soon.

I unpackaged/assembled my laser in green. The sheet said something about 50 feet so I guess my plan of sighting in on steel at 200 won't be coming to pass but I will get busy "aiming" around the neighborhood tomorrow and post up.

lazyengineer, where did you mount your laser? I have a PupLight on my a3 already(and a bushnell AR scope)so I'm a little busy on the rifle but I'll work at it.

On the little rail above the trigger.  I don't want to screw with wires and pressure switches, so i mount it right above the trigger so i can use my trigger finger.  Also, that position is closer to the bore axis.

Hot dog(said in my best Lou Ann Barton voice, cause I sound like a girl when I talk)! I was hoping for that. I'm not a wiring kind of guy myself.

A less than thrilling report: on a cloudy afternoon my daughter's BF estimated just under 100 yds. This wasn't dialed in, just aimed for distance and it was pretty weak at that. I remember I had a Crimson trace on a 1911 and on a sunny day, early morning, I was disappointed it wasn't visible at 25 yds. Now all my 1911s have checkered front straps so I have no way to compare it to this one except the new one is green. Possibly due to a less than fresh battery; the battery was in the ziplock bag with everything else from Optics Planet.

Questions or tricks to try are welcome.

7:05. I got the pistol Crimson trace(red) mounted and shined around the 'hood. Damn! At dark it rocks! So I got the AUG out, all kitted up. I didn't want to wait for the garage light to shut off so I could have been made but fuck it! I shined the green all the down the block. I'll have to check it at a known 200 to be sure but now I'm Range Officer has a CT as does my AUG. I still have to zero the AUG but my 45 should be close; I got it on a 1911 purchase used.

Best day I've had in a good little bit!

Glad to hear it.  When it comes to lasers, there's really two application windows of relevance to me:
1) Nighttime/residential indoors.  
2) Daytime outdoor.

#1 is the standard and more common application of a laser system, and almost all of them will work very well visually.  At nighttime, even a cheap red laser will be good for a couple hundred yards even.  Indoors the lighting can be more variable, but most of the time red will work, and almost all the time, green will work.  The ultra-cheap $8 red laser I tried, I actually loved, as it weighed nothing, and had a very easy to engage light weight button, right in the rotation radius of my trigger finger.  But, was all but useless in objective #2

#2 is where it gets more tricky.  Here's the deal, I want a CQB sighting system, that I can use in outdoor daytime 3-gun type systems at those 5-25 yard targets.  Beyond that, the optic system becomes acceptable (well, the cutoff is actually better a little further out, but 25 yards is a start).  Ideally, this means a red-dot system sighted in for something like 25 yards, giving me a closer POI to that sighting system, than my 200 yard zero'd optic system.  Of relevance to this posting -  I need to reliably be able to see this CQB system.  50 yards is my ideal spec, but 25 yards is on the table, if it's reliably visible at 25 yards on a bright day.

And that's where it gets tricky.  To be honest, in some ways I would prefer a red-dot holo-sight over a laser, one of those mini-pistol versions, as that is visible at all ranges.  But holo-sights don't work on a AUG with integrated optics (it's either mounted too high, or you rotate and are eating brass).  Leaving: lasers.  At 25 yards in the sun, a red laser is completely useless.  A green laser is better, and I've seen a quality green laser light up a target pretty well at 15 yards, putting green laser on the table for me.    But the challenge with even green lasers is: do they reliably light up a target at 25 yards (50 yards?) The answer with my cheap green test-laser was no.  But I'm damned curious about yours!

So yes, while I'm pleased to see yours works so well at night time, that part is pretty much taken for granted - the real test (for my spec's at least), is how does it work on a black target 25 yards away during the daytime?

Can you pm me an email address or phone number for text pics? Thanks.

Sadly, nothing to send to lazyengineer!

Apparently I'm the only one who didn't know lasers wash out in daylight. My daughter's BF said "yeah, I expected that" when I told him about my wasted range trip. I was told that using an RMR from inside aiming outside it would washout as well but I didn't have that experience.

I will try early morning/rain on Tuesday and report back. No hero status today. Dammitt.

Depends on the models of rmr. The battery ones no the fiber optic / tritium ones yes. It’s the same problem the meprolight m21s have. Reason being if you are inside in a darkened environment aiming out into a brighter environment the fiber optic is only drawing light to illuminate the reticle from that darker environment so it washes out quite a bit. The tritium doesn’t help at all in those situations because it’s so low output it only helps in low light anyways.

What about those lasers morons shine at airplanes; would those shine 200 yds in daylight?

There are some huge problems with that 1 I don’t think battery life is very good on those, and 2 I doubt they are rated for recoil or have appropriate mounts/the ability to zero. Also I think most of those incidents are at night.

Also I think the other problem you have to think of with daytime lasers at distance is scaling. Let’s say it’s powerful enough that it is overcoming the light of the sun you are still talking about a reflection that would be what the equivalent of a single Christmas tree light at 200 yards. Can you honestly expect to see that reliably? I mean shine your crimson trace laser at something indoors with decent lighting at say 5 or 10 yards then imagine that same amount of light and size of object scaled for how it would appear at 200 yards away that’s beyond the scope of the ole mk1 eyeball to pick up. If you have to use a optic at that range to even see your laser what is the point of the laser?

I don’t think the laser thing will work past very short distances in daylight eyes are designed to pick up photons focus them and your brain interprets it to make an image. They aren’t discretionary on which photons they pick up and which they ignore. Think of it like sound. If you are at a heavy metal concert where it’s so loud you can feel it you aren’t going to hear someone talking at a modest volume more than a few feet from you since the music utterly drowns it out. The sun during the day is like that rock band with all the light it’s putting out dwarfing the tiny light source you are wanting to pick up.

I think it’s a interesting idea and I like reading both of your ideas and testing of it but I don’t think it’s feasible.

I know a couple guys with real live cameras which is what I'd need to show the green dot on the steel at 200 and it would have to be at night. If the BF comes over after work tonight I'll dismount the laser and see if I have 200 yds down my street I could at least check for visual confirmation(a garage door, not near a window!)and I don't want to be spotted aiming my AUG at a neighbor's house at night. Daughter's BF is a hunter and has good estimation skills I would think. He picked up my AUG with a can and hit at 200 and the scope isn't set for that.

Picked up a new case for the AUG this weekend.  Unbelievably, Sam's is dumping these wheeled cases for all of $19.93.

Is that the 18 or 20 inch barrel?

18

............................

18".  You could probably make a 20" work, but will need to be a little creative.

02/09/2018 Update - Fired 166 rounds of cheap light reloads.  1 failure to close into battery

Tested out the new gun case-system.  I quite like it, but for two items:  
1) Don't use JB Weld to weld-together foam pieces.  Works great, but that bond hardness so hard, that it will scratch things.  (Probably will grab another case for another $19.93, and try again with Elmers Glue)
2) Just popping off that BBL and putting everything back, can be HOT.  But is doable bare handed, if you have a wood table to work on.  It's still hot going back into the case though.  In this case, I burned through 166 rounds in about 20 minutes, so yea, it warmed up pretty good.  The foam handled it fine, no melting or other issues.

Overall, love the new case-system.  It's one hardcase with everything in it.  And it's a non-obvious hard-case with rollers and a handle; that can take a beating, but doesn't look like a gun-case.

Regarding the jam, the gun fired and cycled fine, but when stripping in the new round, stopped about 1/2" or so before fully closing.  Pretty classic stoppage for a broken shell actually; and that was my suspect (Old random pick-up brass that's seen a hard life, in an oversized AUG chamber).  I looked around and never saw any evidence of a broken shell anywhere, so don't know.  Pulled the barrel and looked - everything looked fine, popped it back on, picked up the round in question, dropped it back in the gun, and it shot fine.  I will say I'm not judging the AUG too hard on this - it's reloads, and for the most part the reason I set this particular ammo batch aside for the AUG, is because they're not so well resized, and I'm using the huge AUG chamber to reliably cycle them (most of my other guns will not).  So it's probably an ammo issue, more than the gun.

Total round count: 3657

So how many total stoppages/failures have you had w/ this rifle?

Like... heck I don't know, probably can count on 1 hand?  I had one failure at a 3-gun match with it, that was similar to that described above.  Was it the gun, or was it the reloads?  Probably the reloads, since it was  End-of-Life brass that I was getting rid of.  I suspect it was a case that cracked in half from overstretched brass that should have been already retired, but never found any evidence (it's a 3-gun match, you don't have a lot of time for failure analysis)  Failures that were more likely the guns fault and not related to questionable ammo?... really the only system failure for sure that I can think of, is when I jacked in a loaded 42 round mag on a locked-back AUG, and the top round popped out of the mag and up and out the ejection port.  Everything worked fine actually, just became a 41 round loading.  Maybe a couple failure to slide-lock early on - maybe.    When I messed with the trigger innards, I sometimes got a delayed trigger reset; so I de-messed with the trigger, and that went away.

In terms of WTF - MY GUN JUST JAMMED DAMNIT! that wasn't probably ammo reloated.  Really... none that I can think of.  I bitch a lot about the sloppy chamber, but the trade of is the things is pretty darned reliable with sloppy resized reloads.  I have other guns that will lock up on a batch of insufficiently resized brass I ended up with, and the AUG will happily feed and munch it.  One time I blew a primer, and unlike an AR, the AUG had no problems with a loose primer trying to get into the trigger group.  It ultimately just fell out when I took off the buttstock for cleaning, and few hundred rounds later.

Of all the guns I own, the AUG may well be my most reliable.  I suppose the whole point of the LOG is to track all that, and earlier versions are all linked in Post #1, so you could go check them all and see.

Sounds pretty good overall. I've been following your log since the beginning. And I couldn't remember too many reliability issues. Honestly, I just didn't wanna go back and read everything and try and count up all the failures you've had.

Of course, the condition of your barrel and cam pin is disappointing.

That and they deemed your scope bad enough to replace. Though you didn't seem to have any issues.

Ha!  Oh yea, that!  OK, that was very very much a "my gun just jammed and".... actually.... now that I think about it, no it didn't.  Even though the bottom half of that cam-pin broke, the gun actually cycled and fired just fine the whole time - it wasn't until I was cleaning it, that I noticed that.  So... yea, I suppose I still haven't had hardly any real gun-failure induced jams that I can think of.  On the positive side, they did replace it, for free.

I think that's steyr's m.o. when it comes to trouble-shooting issues.

I sent back an A3 stock that had some pretty bad play with the receiver to stock fit (to which I thought it was because of a slightly out of spec housing latch).

I expected them to remove the latch and install a new one or at least one with a tighter tolerance.

In the end they just gave me a brand new stock. So I guess I cant complain.

Great posts and logs and I look forward to each one of your updates - keep up the good work. I got an email from Styer last week announcing some training courses and was hoping that they would put on a 3-5 AUG carbine course. Maybe someth8ng like a basic operators course followed by an advanced course with a section on maintenance and shooting TTPs. I’d pay good money for that.

02/16/2018 Update - No firing
Removed the green laser.  I like green lasers, but that one wouldn't hold a zero, and the buttons took a little effort to use (two fingers in some ways).  If you can believe it, I reinstalled my cheap $10 red laser, because... I kind of love it.  It's smaller, the button is much more easily used when mounted right above the trigger, and the sight actually does hold zero.  It's only any good for indoors, night, etc; but OK, it doesn't weight anything either.  For daytime CQB options, I'm still interested in a reliable shell deflector, which will also allow me to side-mount and use via rotation a HUD red-dot sight.  The sticker-shock on the Corvo Defense version shell deflector is still slowing me down.

As to the deployment case, I discovered that the "scratches" from JB Weld used to glue the case foam together, were just JB weld markings and rubbed off.  I also was able to easily remove most of the offending chunks, so the case is good-to-go as is.   On another project with another one of these cases, I found Elmers Glue works remarkably well, and would recommend that approach.

Total round count: still 3657

02/17/2018 Update - No firing - and regretted it!
I've always heard and read the AUG's are more reliable than AR's, but mostly considered that more academic than real.  Not anymore.  Today I took about 300 rounds to the range with two AR's, to practice a few AR related things, and pound through some ammo while I have the chance.  Half of that ammo was basic M193, and half was 40 gr reloads that I don't even want to talk about it - other than to say; big mistake.  I ended up with 4000 of these reloads, at about 10 cents a shot - what a deal!  Meanwhile, the brass is insufficiently resized, the load excessively mild, and the bullets horribly inaccurate.  So, I've been using this ammo in my AUG all the time for CQB stages.  Have been burning through it for years, to get rid of it.  No problem.

How about today in the AR15's?  That ammo took out both AR's today.  I have 1 AR with a stuck casing with its rim ripped off, in the chamber and 1 AR with a broken forward assist.  And by the way, if you break an AR forward assist, it completely locks up the gun, and you're down for quite some time.   Both AR's are filthy beyond compare, because light charge means incomplete burn (low pressure rifle ammo doesn't consume the powder as fully, and leaves a mess).

Meanwhile, I've probably shot 2000 rounds of this crap through my AUG, which just runs like a Swiss watch with this shit; and the chamber doesn't even get that dirty, due to the AUG's gas-system design.  Today - I watched two good AR's go down hard, with ammo that my AUG eats for breakfast and never hicks-up on.

AUG's really do rock.

Total round count: still 3657

Good to hear.  I don't have but a couple of hundred rounds through my A3M1 but your experience boots my confidence in the rifle.

Thanks for all the data and analysis.

That's the first cam pin (or whatever term they use) failure I've heard of.

Also, disappointed on the chrome lining. It would be great if you could examine a Steyr manufactured barrel with the same scope.

I purchased and sold an AUG during this thread. I ended up parting ways due to the weight and trigger. IIRC, both measurements were 8ish pounds. (My AR is 5.3# with rail and ACOG and has a 4# trigger). I also worried about the three screws holding on the sight. Even if you use witness marks they are concealed. Also IIRC, if a screw did back out or shear it's into the action. Gross. It does allow modularity, however. They should offer an original cast in fixed sight or cast in rails.

Loved the compactness, lack of fouling, novelty. Heck--I'm back here....

Not that you can get one easily, but my 2020 full hammer pack weighs in at just over 4# on my AUG.
The 'three screws' concern is IMHO, misguided - how many run optic mounts with 2 screws?  Loc-tite and proper torque is an easy solution, and I've had numerous rails on and off my AUG at this point, with some 5K+ rounds (stopped trying to bother to count).  Only failure was first days with the 9mm kit on it, which was likely user-induced as the mag insertion/'feel' is a LOT different vs the 5.56 config.  Oh, and one random range guy wanting to shoot it, as a lefty so told him to cup the ejection port.  Ge covered it firmly and surprise, blocked the round from ejecting.

The weight?  I'd be happy if it lost a pound, but I have no use for ARs when I have my AUG.
You can take a look to see if the Atrax ever comes out - supposedly lighter although TBD on how much.

The three bolts that hold the rail or optic to the receiver are isolated from the action. They are located forward of the chamber along the axis of the exposed barrel. In fact due to how the barrel interfaces with the receiver, if a bolt did loosen, which probably would never happen, but if it did, the bolt would not fall out of the gun as the barrel keeps it in place.

Just my .02

Yea I don't know anything about scope mount bolts coming loose.  I guess it could happen, but the ones on mine haven't exactly been babied, and they aren't moving any that I know of.  As Maleante stated, if they did come loose - they aren't over the action, so would just touch the top of the barrel if so.  My suspicion is they come factory-tight-for-life.  But once you loosen them yourself for something or other, then yea, I guess you could have problems if you don't de-grease them (and the cavity), loctite, and torque correctly.

03/02/2018 Update - Fired 84 rounds with no failures of any kind.
Today was accuracy and zero checking, at 50, 100, 200 yards.

Accuracy was pretty meh - in my opinion.  I had reloads of known-disappointing 68 gr Hornady's, known good 69 gr Sierra Match Kings, and known decent 55 FMJ.  Performance results:

55 gr Hornady FMJ:

-MOA: Avg = 3   (3.1, 4.5, 2.0, 2.2)

-Mean Radius (MOA): Avg = 0.9  (1.25, 1.4, 0.3, 0.6)

68 gr Hornady:

-MOA: Avg = 4.9   (10, 3.3, 3.6, 3.4, 4.2)

-Mean Radius (MOA): Avg = 2    (4.3, 1.0, 1.5, 1.2, 1.7)

69 gr Sierra Match King:

-MOA: Avg = 2.8   (2.8, 3.1, 3.9, 3.6, 2.1, 2.6, 1.7)

-Mean Radius (MOA): Avg = 1.2  (1.2, 2.2, 1.8, 1.0, 0.8, 1.0, 0.7)

So my best shooting ammo was the 69 SMK's, at almost 3 MOA accuracy.  Nothing to write home about there.  I guess that's serviceable.  So what the heck, let's take it to 500 yard 3-gun match tomorrow, and see how it goes?

While at it, I was curious about the scope adjustment settings.  It's difficult to do a lot of good click-testing and really know what is changing, because it's difficult to measure the movement vs noise.  i.e., I thought 2 clicks equals 1 MOA (but I don't actually know that.).  And if so, that's only 1/3 the movement within the 3 MOA inherent accuracy - it gets tough to conclude a lot.  I really should do 20 clicks, and see what happens, but that wasn't today.   Here is what I did see.

Reference zero'd condition for 200 yards for 69 SMK:
Group's average point of impact @ that condition with that ammo (group numbers here are NOT in order of actual firing)

Group 1: 0.4 MOA high, windage centered (so basically, well zeroed here)

Group 2: 0.5 MOA high, 0.1 MOA left (still pretty well zeroed)

Group 3: 0.5 MOA high, 1.1 MOA right (a slight right BIAS, but not terrible)

Group 4: 0.05 MOA high, 0.5 MOA left (well zeroed)

So all those groups held pretty good zero, of group.

Now test that same ammo at same distance, but with

Group 5 (1 click right): center of group impacts is 2.2 MOA right, 0.5 MOA low
(So.. that doesn't make any sense, 1 click moved a lot further than I would think right)

Group 6 (2 total clicks right): center of group impacts is 2.0 MOA right, 0.5 MOA high
(OK, so no change vs 1 click right)

Group 7 (1 total click left): center of group of impacts is 1.6 MOA left, and 0.4 MOA high
(so... 1 click right moved impacts 2 MOA right, 1 click left moved impacts 2 MOA left...; but remember, the noise level is high; mean radius is 1.2 MOA already, meaning there's a lot of natural movement to a groups point of impact location as well.  1 more click right, did nothing measured)

Let's look at closer ranges.  at 50 yards:

Group 8 (1 click right): center of group of impacts is 0.4 MOA left, and 0.5 MOA high
(almost no movement; within the noise of the accuracy of the gun here, so that's good)

Not going to waste time assessing much from the 68 grain ammo.

How about the 55 gr?
 Group 9 (200 yards, same zero as the 69 gr ammo): center of group of impacts is 0.16 MOA right, 0.06 MOA high
(so same zero as the 69 gr ammo at 200 yards, which is great)

Group 10 (55 FMJ at 50 yards): center of group of impacts is 0.7 MOA high, dead-centered wind
(200 yard zero and 50 yard zero are the same - essentially)

Conclusions from all this?
-Accuracy was serviceable, but can't really praise much beyond that.  Frankly, a basic AR tends to group tighter than this, but it's better than an AK.  
-Zero for 50 yards and 200 yards was essentially the same.  1 MOA difference at 50 yards is half an inch; who cares?
-Click movement is a tough nut to figure out.  I've yet to see an official spec sheet from Steyr on just exactly what distance 1 click moves on a 3X scope; and I wish they would.  At one time, I thought 1 click = 1/2 MOA; but I don't know that. I  don't know if the units of click-measure are even in MOA.  My other standard Meopta scope I own mounted on another gun, was marked 1cm/100M units, that translates to close to 1/3 MOA per click.  Is that the same with this scope?  Is it double that?  I don't actually know.

Total round count: 3741

03/03/2018 Update - Fired 41 rounds with no failures of any kind.
Open field 3-gun match today.  Ton of fun.  
Rifle: Steyr AUG - using the 69 gr ammo
Pistol: Walther P99 (Personally I love the P99 and consider it one of the most underappreciated 9mm pistols made), 115 gr ball in 17 round magazines.
Shotgun: Benelli M2.  Not my strong-suit, and lacking the ammo-chest rig/etc really slows me down with this part.

How'd I do?  Eh, OK 43 out of 80 shooters, so.. solid middle I guess.  Nobody's going to be offering me a free gear and a spandex shirt with my name on it (though I should totally pimp Steyr for one anyway).  The AUG portion fared much better then that though.

Stage 4: (rifle target portion is past the treeline)

Start at the line and run forward 30 feet or so, hitting gongs down a hillside at 20 yards or longer.  4 pistol gongs all told, each needing two hits.  Then dump the pistol, and pick up loaded rifle, lean against the truck, and hit 3 steel gongs shooting against a crosswind, about 300-350 yards away and 100' below.  The pistol part I did OK on, but the AUG part did pretty well.  Took me 5 rounds to hit all three gongs, which was better rifle-play than average; though my rank on this stage was still only in the 50's (out of 80), I guess I need to up my pistol game, and get on target faster.  (It seemed the AUG didn't need to be elevated as far as I was expecting, leading me to wonder if it's shooting high)

Stage 5: Shotgun and house:  Another open field; hit about 15 steel and clay's targets with the shot gun about 5-15 yards away (slow shotgun reloads will slow you down).  Then run forward, dump the shotgun, grab the pre-loaded rifle, run 30 feet or so and get into the little house-thing.  Engage 3 steel targets through a window, down a hill about 150 yards away, then two more off to the side, down the hill.  Then change windows, and engage 2 more.  I thought this run went well actually, and even made some air-time while diving through the little doorway getting into the house - because the AUG is so tidy you can really move around more effectively than a longer AR.  Some of the rifle gongs took a couple extra shots - it took me 11 rounds to hit 7 targets, but I didn't think that was bad - yet somehow I ended up near 50th place again out of 80.  Ah well, felt a lot better then that.

Stage 1: shotgun bay.  Actually, it's two standard action pistol bays used at once.  Engage about 25 steel targets, including a Texas star (on steroids), and a spinner.  This is where the M2 really slowed me down, not having the spiffy fast-reload chest-rig everyone else has.  Then dump the shot-gun, run across the facility to the second pistol bay, draw pistol, and engage about 24 more steel targets while running through a house-hallway.  Fun as Hell, even though only ranked about 37'th here.

Stage 2: (rifle portion is that row of black gongs running the width of the photo as those black dots a ways back - and no, I don't really know the shooter, though everyone on the squad was very cool)


This one was cool, with the rifle pre-staged inside a car, you standing outside drivers seat - draw pistol and engage 10 steel targets with the pistol, then dump the pistol, take the rifle, and engage about 15 steel targets.  This one went fairly well actually, though the pistol was a little slow, as I'm out of practice.  The rifle part actually went well, with only a few reshoots to hit them all, but somehow I skipped a couple of the gongs, which cost me a fair amount of time - putting me down to 56th place here.  The nice thing about the AUG is it shoots from weird positions better than an AR.  You had to shoot over the top of the roof of the car, while pressing your body into the car.  All the 30rnd AR shooters had awkward holds for that, but the AUG "pistol" grip is an awesome pivot-point/ground-rest for such a position, it was very smooth and natural with an AUG.  Not so much for those AR guys.

Stage 3:  This one was the rifleman's stage.  

10 steel gongs of various sizes ranging from 90 to 450 yards, in a wide arc, with some hidden in the woods, and some quite small.  Prone platform, but it's suspended by chains to rock around on you, on purpose.  For this one, you were able to use one leg to stabilize yourself against a pole.  Start at the line, run around the platform, hop on, stick your foot out to stabilize, drop into prone, and start hitting.  I started near targets way on my left first; and it took a couple shots for the first target at 90 yards, even though it's big, because the rocking platform. Second target at 150 yards was 1-hit, third target at 160 yards, but way off to the other side, was also a first shot hit.  Then 4 tiny "pesky poppers" at 150 yards, that took probably 8-10 shots.  I had to aim at their feet to hit them... interesting.  Then I hit the 450 yard target in about 4 shots, by holding high and right (nasty cross-wind).  The next two at 350 were hit fast, and I was done in damned good time.  Took me about 25 shots to get them all, but comparatively speaking, that actually wasn't bad.  Placed 10th place here!  Again, the configuration of the AUG helps.  When shooting prone, without a sling or bipod, the AR can be fine.  But with the AUG, put on a work-glove or something thick, and just use your top two fingers to grip the bottom of the forward pistol grip.   You're extended hand will now rest on the ground, effectively giving you a fast monopod.  Helps a lot - and fast to do on an AUG.    I had a ball on this stage.

Action shooting with the AUG is a total blast.  I've shot it a few times before, and always have a good time with it.  It placing 10th on the main-rifle stage, says a lot.  It means about the only people who out-shot that gun at distance were people wearing spandex shirts with their name and their sponsors name on it, and THAT was pretty darned cool!

Total round count: 3782

03/04/2018 Update - Fired 167 rounds.  No failures of any kind.

At yesterdays 3-gun match, I was tempted to pre-load wind and elevation on my optic, by clicking it on. But I lacked confidence on just what one click really is, so I didn't, and just did hold-over.  Today's goal was to test just what a click is.

To analyze - I did a wide-box test, arranging a very large configuration to allow a broad span of clicks.  The AUG accuracy is such, that it's not easy to just click over 5 clicks, see that bullet hole, and do that math; too much error in each individual shot.  So instead, I did a digital analysis of the photo-image, to find center of impact for multiple groups, at multiple click-distance settings, and then averaged the inches/click results from reference point of aim.


(App used for this was RangeBuddy; Odd learning curve, but once you get used to it, I quite like it.  Did all this raw data collection on my phone, then dumped the numbers into Excel)
There are 7 groups on the target spread.  Three of them are zero repeats throughout the BOX test, using my reference sight setting.  The rest were done with many counted clicks, but aimed at the indicated target, to discern how much movement there is with that many clicks.  Individual shots are not precise enough to draw an accurate estimate, but groups of shots will give a center-of-group when analyzed, which dampens that out. Results won't be perfect, as the mean radius is around 1 MOA on average, but with multiple groups at multiple counts and using high counts of adjustment, it should start to average out.  And it did.

Here's what I learned
1) The return to zero on this scope is pretty decent.  I'd put 40 clicks on it.  Take 40 clicks off to check return-to-zero, and the group is pretty much back in the same place.  Repeat-ability like that is an important mark of a quality optic.

2) Group sizes were OK.  Using 69 gr Sierra Match kings, the gun was averaging about 2.4 MOA (1 MOA Mean Radius).  Not great, but OK.  It terms of actually using at a 500 yard outdoor 3-gun match or shooting at anything worth shooting at, that's within the realm you can get away with; since you're shooting at 12" gongs at 200 or 300 yards sometimes.

And to answer the big question?
3) Measured average inches per click ranged from 0.756 to .933, and the average of 8 measurements came out to 0.86"/click  (or technically, 0.82 MOA/click; with a standard deviation of +/-0.065 from that data).  So.. that's an odd number.  That translates to 2.38 cm/100m, which is also an odd number.  So... ok, more math, and that comes out to 0.238 mil.  Ah - found it, WELL within my experimental error range.  The AUG 3X scope adjustment clicks are at 1/4 mil / click.  Now we know, tadaaa!.  1/4 mil means 0.86 MOA/click (again well within my experimental error, and quite close to my average).

I don't use mils, but next time I'm at a match, and want to put on 450 yards of elevation, I'll know how many inches per click that AUG now has (0.86 MOA/click, which is 0.9 inches).  The important item here is most people who just go to the range and do a couple quick tests, could easily erroneously conclude 1 click is 1/2 MOA or 1 MOA.  That may not seem like a big deal, but go to a match and try preloading 500 yards of elevation, and you're going to be screwed if you don't know it's actually 0.86 MOA/click.  I know this, because I tried that once, and paid for it.  If I knew it was actually 0.86 MOA, that would have made a world of difference.

That settled, finished the day shooting a bunch of other rounds, and had a blast with my AUG.

Total round count: 3949

Have you considered a 36/300 yard zero?

You can.  I ran the math on that once, and didn't care for the results as well as I did 200 yard zero:
https://www.ar15.com/forums/ar-15/EOTech_AimPoint_etc_Zero__A_study_on_the_effect_of_zero_range_selection/18-526921/

I like to keep my rifles general purpose, and general purpose to me includes accuracy target shooting and hunting, in addition to action-sports.  And for that, I wanted a tighter window of arc, than 300 gives me.  A 300 yard zero will zoom up to 6" over the point of aim, at places.   My philosophy of approach was I wanted to be within 2" of point of aim over the widest span of yardage, and the 200 yard zero gave me that.  I also concluded that 50 yard zero is close to a 200 yard zero, but not quite as close as everyone says.   Oh, and the 25 yard zero is just dumb.

This is why I have been trying to figure out a laser system, or a reliable shell-deflector combined with a holo-sight and rotation.  Almost all zero's have you shooting way low at 0-15 yards.  So a laser, particularly one mounted closer to bore axis, lets you run with a 10 yard zero for CQB, and then the AUG integrated optics for anything past 30.

I use a 200yd zero also. I was just thinking that with the over 300 yd shooting that you do, you'd have a lot.less holdover

Gotcha!  Thanks, it's not a dumb thought.  Now that I know what a click actually is, I'm definitely going to stick with the 50 or 200 yard zero.   Usually I can get a clue of the distances before I actually start firing.  So I'm pretty excited that the click-distance mystery has been solved, because next time - I can dial in with confidence.

edit - wups, overwrote

It's probably in one of the pages, but can you describe your lubing schedule, if any.

I ask because from the residue, it seems that you are using a lot more oil than I tend to use.

I have a MG host A1 with 20k+ uncountable rds through the same original bolt. I'll try to get a picture tonight or tomorrow.

Not heavy - but I do a lot of AR work as well, which run best wet, so maybe I'm still overdoing it.  I don't think so.

Some of that residue is likely ammo related; I've got many thousand rounds of budget low-recoil light ammo, that cycles fine; but tends to burn incomplete and leaves a lot of crap behind.  Just basic chemistry - a low pressure light charge of a powder designed for a higher pressure load, is not going to give a complete burn; which means it's going to leave a lot of junk behind.  Standard M193 ammo will be cleaner than this.

What I did on this cleaning was pretty typical.  I use a tiny dab red Mobile-1 grease (high T rated) on the rings, and on the piston spring.  Very little - maybe 1/4" out of a tiny 3CC plastic syring tip on each of those two spots.  I'll run an oily patch down the barrel, and chase that with two dry patches.  I'll put a drop or two on each of the guide-rods, and then wipe with a cloth.  A drop on the barrel take-down cone-thing attached to the take-down lever.  I'll grease up the bolt-lugs and the barrel lugs with more red Mobile-1 grease.  And then a few drops of oil in the bolt carrier group contact areas.  I've now gotten a lot more aggressive about oiling where the control pin was, since my last one shattered on me when I didn't, so I want to make sure it's never binding by being dry (to be honest, I think it was just a defective part, and not usage, but who knows).  Overall, way less oil than I would on an AR, but maybe more than some?  Anywhere that metal rubs metal, I like a light touch of oil.  Anywhere really hot that metal is pressing against other metal with high-force, I like grease.  The beauty of the AUG is it just runs clean, with no crap building up in the BCG, so it doesn't take much.  If I am putting on more than typical, I have no regrets, because this gun has very little wear on it, yet never jams (like... ever).

Really enjoying your posts and pics from the matches and scope work.  Keep it up.  I need to get into an AUG.

I always recall that the manual that came with my A1 says that from 0-300m, centering a man sized target in the reticle will guarantee a hit. For 400 and 500m shots you put the feet of the target on the bottom of the circle. Of course this is for a 1.8m soldier, not a 12" gong

Sure, and for that application, it's fine.  For a combat application where rounds in anger are flying, everyone is moving, distances can be highly variable, and your rifleman is going to have the precision performance of someone who's being shot at anyway.  All while shooting at 1.8m tall targets, yea a 300 m zero with 8" or so of flight variability in that span is plleeeeennttty good enough.

But for almost anything else, it's kind of terrible!  Even for personal civilian defense; you're never going to combat engage something 300 yards away like that!  So for you and me, a 300 yard zero is more of a PITA than useful.

Also, bullet drop once you get much past about 300 yards, starts getting very significant.  So a 300 yard zero at a 500 yard target, isn't going to really be any more useful than a 200 yard zero at a 500 yard target.  Both of them are going to need notable over-hold, regardless.  Heck, a 300 yard zero even at a 350 target, isn't that great, that bullet is really starting to fall.

I once did the math in great detail, and actually concluded a 63 yard zero was my personal ideal.  And then realized that distance is never going to realistically happen without a private range and good laser-range finder, so just settled on the 50 or 200 yard zero.

This is the page from the manual I was talking about



This is for the 1.5x optic, but the same principle applies for the 3x since the ring is half the thickness

For what it's worth, here are the two optics options:

1.5X and reticle


(stolen internet photo of 1.5x)


(and the manual scan one more time for the 1.5)


(and the official dimensions of the 1.5.  Note they measure everything in mils, confirming that the click graduations are also done in mils based units, though I don't know if 1.5X is 1/4 mil/click, or perhaps coarser)


1.5X had a damned thick donut, compared to the 3X, which is shown below:



(other stolen internet photo of a 3X - probably from the run where they were shipping them out crooked)


Personally, I like the 3X a lot.  I like the bigger window and cross hair it has.  And the ability to spot 12" gongs at 400yards with ease.  1.5X is light.  That said, 1.5X is superior for CQB.   I pay for that 3X on stages where I'm engaging 10 yard targets.

Regarding their 300 yard zero.  That's effective for that goal.  In my experience, a practical civilian field target level application and desired hit-zone is at most twice the size of the guys head in the drawing, and that's about it.