In my previous
article, “The
Most Common Feeding Problems with an AR-15,” I called Sam’s
black gun a “Frankenstein.”
In the current political environment, I’m NOT calling the AR a monster
to be feared, the fake news has that covered, but rather a nickname used
within the gunsmith community to describe a specific rendition of
firearms; in most cases an AR.
Let me ask a rhetorical question.
What makes Frankenstein a Frankenstein? First, as I understand
it, the original monster was called “Dr. Frankenstein’s monster”, so the
name comes from the mad doctor.
As humans like to do, we shorten, abbreviate, or acronym any
word, sentence, phrase or title with more than one syllable.
Therefore, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster was shortened to
Frankenstein. In keeping
with the tradition of unnecessary abbreviations, I’ll call Sam’s AR-15
“Franky.” Second,
Frankenstein was manufactured by putting together body parts of
different corpses to make an unnatural living being; a monster.
So, why did I call his rifle “Franky.”
Like the monster, Sam’s AR was assembled into one gun using the
part from different manufacturers. If
you recall, the original Frankenstein could function in some capacities
like a human but failed in so many other ways. Some “Frankies” are
partially functional like the original Frankenstein monster, while
others are perfectly functioning firearms that are more like the
creature at the end of the movie, “Young Frankenstein.”
So, you might ask, “What is the difference?” It basically comes down to the monster’s manufacturer (doctor) and the parts used. Did the manufacturer have skill, knowledge and experience, or were they someone who read a book or two, watched some YouTube videos and built a couple of guns? Did they use quality parts or cheap ones? Don’t get me wrong. You can get parts cheap and make a good AR. The reliability resides in capabilities, care and scruples of the assembler.
If you recall from the other article, Sam bought his AR at a gun show from an unscrupulous salesman. What I found as I took the gun apart confirmed the type of business that Sam was dealing with - not to mention all the unneeded attachments he was sold. Let’s look at Sam’s “Franky.” It was made up of parts from different manufacturers. I recognized most of the manufacturers; some I researched to find out who they were. The upper and lower receivers were from the same reputable manufacturer; this is a good thing. I didn’t take the gun completely apart, but from what I worked on I could tell that it was a hodgepodge of parts from different manufacturers. After removing the attachments, the first thing to remove was the forearm/barrel shroud. This type used a special barrel nut that had holes threaded into it so forearm could be screwed on to it. The first sign of poor craftsmanship was that the non-typical forearm (not a bad thing) was not screwed down tight. The forearm was attached using 6 screws that were not tight. I could tell by the scratches on the forearm caused by the underside of the screws heads rubbing the paint off the forearm. This forearm slid when the gun was fired causing the head of the screws to scratch the finish. This might be acceptable if the gun had been shot a lot, but “Franky” had been shot less than 10 times. On the upside the loose screws did make it easy to get the forearm off. When I put it back together, I went to the manufacturer’s page to find the proper torque weight for the barrel nut and used blue Loctite to secure the threads. The caliber stamped on the barrel differed from the stamp on the frame, this will be addressed later. The barrel was installed, but not “fitted.” In other words, the barrel needed to be altered in relation to the receiver, so that the rounds would feed properly into the chamber. This led to the barrel extension ramps issue I spoke about in the prior post. My guess is the builder of Sam’s “Franky” knew how an AR-15 went together, but didn’t understand its design, function and operation (DFO). To finish, the assembler decided to use an assortment of attachment, to give the black rifle the “zombie killing cool factor.” I will admit, it was an impressive looking weapon that would make any action hero proud. Sam’s “Franky” was unnecessarily a monster. If the builder (aka “mad doctor”) had understood the DFO of an AR-15 and spent a little extra effort he could have easily produced a functional Young Frankenstein.
One last
thing about Sam’s “Franky.”
It still has the potential to be a monster.
If you remember the barrel and frame didn’t have the same
calibers stamped on them. Because of this I warned Sam not to shoot
5.56x45mm ammunition in “Franky.”
In my next article I’ll explain why, and provide once again,
another reason to beware of unscrupulous dealers and be careful about
what you are buying.
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