Hopefully in the next couple of weeks.  Have a road trip to do though in mid Fed, so I may wait until I get back to begin.  Weather should be warming up a little by then.

Can't BELIEVE it took me this long to get this project done.  But it's finally DONE! 

I did most of the drill-out work in April using a small borrowed bench mount drill press from Harbor Freight.  Not the prettiest job in the world, but I had access to the drill press so I went for it.  I did everything except the final end milling stages of plates 4 and 5 on this small drill press in April. 

Today, I finally got a chance to use my father-in-law's much larger and more rigid stand-alone press.  I was able to get the end milling done very quickly because his drill press has a vise with the roller adjustments which allowed me to make full cutting passes with the end mill.  I think it took me maybe six passes on each pocket to get it all cleaned up.  I've not done this type of work much before and this is my first time using this particlar drill press, so you will see lots of tool marks.  At the end of the day, the final product WORKS and I'm happy with the result.  This was a great project and I cannot imagine a better jig system than the Broken Arms setup.  I was impressed when it first arrived and I'm doubly impressed now that I've actually used it.

So, I got the lower milling all done today, installed the lower parts kit and put the rifle together.  Took it out and shot 30 rds through it before dark just to make sure everything was working well.  The rifle fired and cycled flawlessly.  Again, this is my first AR build ever.  The Surplus Ammo fully assembled upper setup ROCKS...  Love the whole package so far!   Many thanks to Broken Arms!!  A superb jig solution even for newbies like me!

Here's the drill-out work from April on the small press:
Starting at Ground Zero...














I messed up here... forgot to drill out the 7/16" hole after plate #1!  DOH!! 
You can see the aluminum channel and C-clamps I was using on this drill press.  I couldn't find the channel brackets I had made back in April by the time I got to finish the milling here in January.  But I didn't need them on the bigger shop press you'll see below.. 








The next picture below is where I ended up after the drill-out in April.  After I was done, I realized that I had forgotten to drill out the 7/16" hole which the video explains should be done immediately after plate #1 and before drilling with plate #2.  Notice the metal "wall" between the front trigger pocket and rear safety pocket.  Fortunately for me, the drill press I used to finish the milling work today was VERY rigid and had a very secure vise which made removing this metal effortless and with zero chatter. 




Here is the drill press I used today.  Notice the vise platform with roller advances.  This isn't the most accurate
drill press in the world, but it certainly is SOLID.  I helped move this beast when they moved recently and it is INSANELY heavy and very TOP heavy.  That massive center column has to be at least 6" in diameter:



Below is after the first pass with the 3/8" end mill.  I wasn't sure how to determine how deep the cutter should be set to avoid digging into the guide plate on the first pass, but I got it right just eyeballing it.  I was planning on going 60 thousandths at a time, but after I made the first pass, I knew this machine could easily handle a full depth mill pass.  This saved me a LOT of time because I wasn't able to free-hand the milling due to the mounted vise controls.  The end-milling actually went very quickly once I got used to operating the roller adjustments.  Milling the bottom of the pockets was like milling butter:



Finished milling:




I had some issues with getting the depth correct on both sides of the pocket.  I relied on the micro depth roller to keep its position.  For some reason this drill press disables the quill lock when you are using the micro roller to set the depth.  So you can see there is a groove down the middle of the pocket floor. 


To navigate around the pocket required simultaneous adjustments of both the X and Y coordinate rollers which ultimately cause some tool marks to be left on the sidewalls. 


Made another silly mistake...notice in the picture above there is no safety hole drilled in the sidewalls.  Back in April, I only drilled out the two small trigger pin holes and did not drill out the larger safety pin hole.  LOL...  I was so excited to begin the lower parts kit installation that I installed the bolt stop, mag release and had the trigger installed before I realized I hadn't drilled out the safety hole!  Had to disassemble and remount in the jig which wasted another 45 mins of daylight!  DOH!!  But I FINALLY got the lower parts kit installed. 




I was a bit surprised to find some of the black anodizing had flaked off after I removed the jig.  The lower receiver had been in the jig from April to today when I finished the project.  I guess it had bonded to the jig and perhaps the extra pressure from the drill press vise caused the flaking.  You can see it mostly just above the trigger area and just below the mag release button.  Not a big deal since I'll probably cerakote this in FDE.





And here's the fully assembled rifle:



And here's what I've been waiting a whole YEAR to do... 




Looking forward to my .308 build, but don't know when that will happen.  I will just enjoy the 5.56 for a while first.  

Last edited by Pisky (1/15/2017 11:19 am)