Posted: 11/8/2008 7:05:36 PM EDT
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Well, I just picked up a RRA LAR-8 at the gunshow today. I went to the local indoor range, becuase I didn't have time to go out to the nice range, and shot around 100 rounds through it.
It is the mid-length 16" barrel model. I was told that this is all that RRA is making right now, because of various issues. I really wanted the Varmint model, but at the rate these things are coming out and with the current political environment, I thought I'd better get this and get a Varmint upper later on. Anyway, all I can say is......Awesome! I didn't have a decent scope to put on it, so I stuck an EOTech from one of my other AR's on it. I started off by shooting South African surplus through it and was getting nice 5 round groups, that were all touching, but had some slight verticle stringing. Then when I ran some Black Hills 175 gr match through it, I basically got one hole. Granted this was only 25 yards, but I've seen other AR's do a lot worse than this. This rifle feels light to me. I have an AR10 that has the 20" barrel in a carbon fiber free float tube and it seems to weigh more than the LAR-8. Recoil was not bad at all. The SIG556 seemed to have more recoil than this thing has. I tried a couple of 20 round magazines and a couple of curved 30 round magazines. One of the 30 round magazines wouldn't fit in, but the other fit and worked just fine. One slight problem I encountered was the right side magazine release button. It was stiff and hard to press. After a while it seemed to be loosening up. The left side mag release button worked fine. The bolt release worked as expected. The upper and lower fit together very tight. There is not wiggle or slop at all. No need for a "wedge" in this rifle. Next weekend I will be heading to our nice outdoor range and will report back what happens. Thus far, I'm very pleased! Time will tell as to how it holds up. |
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Just an update, I put some iron sites on the LAR-8 today. I picked them up from the store that has the same indoor range I went to last time. They were nice enough to let me try before I buy, which was a good thing, because I found out that the Yankee Hill Machine front flip up site does not work. At least not with the ARMS 40 rear flip up site. I ended up getting the ARMS 40 rear and found that the Midwest Industries front flip up site worked perfectly. The MI sits a bit taller than the YHM site, which is what I needed.
I only shot 20 rounds through the rifle, again at only 25 yards, but I could cover a 10 shot group with a quarter, and that's with iron sites. I'll be at the outdoor range on Friday and Saturday and will shoot out to 600 yards, if not further. |
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As promised, I took the new LAR-8 to what my shooting club calls a "Patrol Shoot". It is basically a high endurance test of both you and your equipment, where we will shoot upwards of 300 rounds of rifle, 100 rounds of pistol and sometimes 100 rounds of shotgun. This year was the first time we did a night shoot.
Friday I got to the range at 4:30pm. We are lucky to have lots of great helpers who came out early and had the whole course of fire set up by early afternoon. This gave me a chance to make sure my LAR-8 was sighted in properly. I ended up putting an EOTech sight on it for this shoot and I mounted my suppressor also. After getting it all sighted in, we headed to the club house and had a some dinner. We then determined the team orders of shooting. Each team consisted of 4 shooters. By 7:00pm we started the shooting. The shoot started out by all 4 team members behind a 3 ft rail tie wall. We then engaged around 20 pepper poppers at a distance of 200 to 300 yards away. A lot of us used tracer rounds and it was just like the 4th of July. It's amazing to see where the ricochets go! The shooters could use what ever gun they wanted to on this stage and this was the only stage in which you could leave equipment behind. I decided to shoot the LAR-8 the whole way through the COF. Using the EOTech, wasn't the greatest for this stage, but I did knock down my fair share of poppers. After this stage, we then ran about 100 yards to an area of the range in which there are 3 pits next to each other, with the 2 side pits connected together with a "hallway" behind the middle pit. In the first pit we were required to shoot 4 targets with our handguns, then transition to our rifles and take out multiple 1ft x 1ft plates, scattered throughout the pit. After they were all down we then lined up and ran down pit where it does a couple of S-curves and we engaged more metal targets. As we rounded the next curve, we then pulled our handguns to engage the "Texas Star". Then back to the rifles and engaged even more metal targets. Proceeding down the pit, we then came to 3 whirly gig targets in which we had to use our handguns to get the whirly-gigs to spin. They had to spin, before we could proceed, otherwise we would get a penalty. After this came the shoot house. At the shoot house, my job was to kick the door in. As soon as I did that, my team mates then entered the room. Two went to the right and as I followed in, I went left and we shot multiple IDPA style targets. Some were behind barracades and such. We then lined up and went down a hallway and the first two cleared the first room and me and another guy cleared the last room. The last room had a hostage situation, in which we only had the hostage takers head to shoot at. As soon as the rooms were cleared we headed back down the hallway and out the "back door" of the shoot house and shot more metal plates in the "back yard". We then cleared our weapons and showed clear to the SO's and ran back out of the pit and proceeded to the middle pit area. At this area there were 4 barracades set up about 10 yards apart across the front of the pit. The first team member ran to the first barracade and engaged two pistol targets, then engaged 4 targets at the end of the pit, about 100 yards away. The targets were barely illuminated with flood lights at the top of the pit. Each target had to be engaged 2 times each. As soon as the first memeber was done shooting, he proceeded to the next barracade and engaged the 4 targets again. Then the second team member would come to the first barracade and do the same thing. We did this at each of the four barracades, until we had all made it through. Then cam the last pit. This pit had a car in the middle of it and various barracades set up. We entered it via a door way and split left and right, taking out multiple metal targets again as we winded our way through the maze of barracades and the car. I thought it was especailly funny when I saw my main partner run up on top of the car's roof and start taking out various targets. Not very smart in a real gunfight, but it made for a great "Hollywood" moment. 
I went through around 250 rounds of .308 in the 16 minutes it took my team to run the COF. The LAR-8 was perfect throughout. I didn't have one hiccup and I was shooting S.A. surplus. Here is a picture of my set up for that shoot: 
I stayed overnight at the range and the next day I swapped out the EOTech for a Leupold Mark 4 scope. I wanted to see what kind of accuracy this thing could produce. Here's another picture with the Leupold on: 
I was pleasantly surprise with this group. I shot this with Black Hills 175gr Match ammo at 100 meters. The one shot that is out of the group, I attribute to the scope mountings coming loose. I guess I was still tired from the Patrol shoot the night before an didn't tighted them down good enough. Here's a picture of the group: 
I am very happy with this rifle and it is far exceeding my expectations. The mag release is starting to loosen up a bit also. Some of the FAL magazines fit tightly, so I have to pull them out, because they won't drop free, but having to do this on a FAL anyway, it has not bothered me. I'm looking forward to more range time with this rifle in the future. |