Posted on 11/01/2008 1:02:11 PM PDT by Boiling Pots
AR15 - Colt 6920
Would you recommend an M4-style AR bought w/ rails or just buy a standard model and add the rails later with a kit?
For my SHTF (S&*t Hits The Fan) gun I dont think I’ll be shooting at targets 500 yards away. I want capacity and the ability to aim and fire quickly. An AR with an EOTech Holosight or Trijicon Acog is perfect for this. Plus the super low recoil of the 5.56 makes it ideal. If the AR 5.56 platform was so horrible we wouldn’t be deploying it all over the sandbox. Even the man portable SAW is chambered in 5.56. My wife can also handle an AR with ease which is cool.
Just make sure if it has a carry handle it is detachable, the rails will already be underneath, if its the receiver rail your talking about. If its the forward hand grip rails it doesnt really matter except for very few guns where there is a special grip that might require gunsmithing or special tools to change, although most guns are not like that and can be changed easily. A rifle like an LMT will cost more but it comes with all the rails and a BUIS (back up iron sight) because there is no handle with the sight. The cool thing is that if you add an EOTech or Trijicon sight you can co-witness the back up iron sights with the glass so you are always looking through both sights simultaneously that way if one fails for some reason it doesnt change the way you aim and fire.
Cool, thanks for the info. I was thinking of an EOTech (we had several in my Platoon), but I’m really partial to the ACOG...it’s what I carried on my rifle for years, all through a combat tour in Iraq. Unfortunately, it seems to cost almost as much as the rifle!
Yeah Acogs are not cheap but they are the best. If you dont need magnification the EOTech is great and cheaper. On a carbine I prefer the EOtech. These guys carry everything http://www.swfa.com/c-2183-riflescopes.aspx and have great prices. I’m a big fan of switching the grips out to rails because you can mount things like a Surefire, sling, or vertical grip so easily.
The ejection port is on the right side, but the shells eject so they don’t bother a left handed shooter.
My right handed and I’ve already shot it. What I find amazing is that it has less felt recoil than a CAR4 in .223
“You don’t need a .308 for close quarters combat;”
Tell that to the troops over in the sandbox.
Here's a good firearms-related site you might want to check out:
www.thehighroad.com
Check this out. Uses an M1A action. Great for CQB
http://shortrifles.com/
I think you meant:
http://www.thehighroad.org/
My stepson is over there right now and loves his M4.
Wow, thanks very much for the links—there’s some great stuff on those sites! I made a deal with my wife—if Obama wins, then on NOV 5, I get to buy an M4. If McCain wins, I’ll still get it, but we’ll be able to put it off a bit longer.
Thanks, mine is one that is being recalled!
Thank you.
I ended up going with the Ruger Mini 14 Ranch.
Also bought my wife a Smith and Wesson .38
Picking them up next Saturday (5 day WP)
Yes, exactly.
I'm still trying to get the wife to cut me loose about $1500 for a NM rigged M1A witha 22" NM barrel. Yummy... Love my Ar's, but I like other firearms too...
Let me quote this from the Speer reloading manual #13, Page #137.
“The 223 Remington resulted from the military development of a new service rifle cartridge. Adopted in “February, 1964 as the 5.56mm Ball cartridge M193, it was introduced as a commercial cartridge by Remington one month earlier.”
I checked each of the 13 reloading manuals that call my reloading bench home and each and every one of them say that the 5.56mm and the 223 rem are the same.
Still not convinced that my 25 years as a smith and my Dillon and RCBS dies for the 223/5.56 weren’t lying to me I called a good friend who is retired from RCBS and asked him if they had ever made separate dies that were dimensionally different for these cartridges. His answer was no.
There is always a difference in pressure/OAL (overall length) of cartridges between different manufactures on the 223 round and every other caliber I’ve ever seen. That is one of the reasons why the sell case trimmers to reloaders. The other reason any serious reloading bench has a trimmer sitting on it is that the chambers in different rifles vary in diminutions, not much but they are different. When you fire a 223 in one rifle the case expands and “fire forms” to that specific chamber. If the chamber is long or the headspacing isn’t right then the brass will “grow” a bit. The dies force it back into specs except for length and a reloader uses the case trimmer to take care of that.
Now to address the chamber pressures you were talking about. I have semi auto 223/5.56’s and in each of these rifles, AR types and my mini 14’s the chambers are very sloppy. The nature of the semi auto beast is that they do not lock up to the same exact point consistently. Because of this the chambers do not contain the ignition sequence as efficiently as a bolt action does. A bolt-action rifle, by the nature of its construction, is a very strong action. A bolt action locks up in exactly the same place every time, produces more consistent headspacing and is a stronger action than any semi-auto ever made. I can take that same 223 barrel/action on a bolt gun and rechamber it for any of the much hotter 22 cal rounds and it will hold the pressure without any problem at all. This is not true of an AR type action that is built for the 5.56 round. The bolt-action rifles are made to withstand higher chamber pressures than the semi autos can handle. That is a matter of physics and a well-established fact.
One of my blue progressive presses, a Dillon, stays set up with a set of 223 dies. We shoot several hundred rounds of 223 each month. I have two custom bolt guns that we shoot prairie dogs and coyotes with that are chambered for the 223 round.
I have carried the 5.56 M16 and several variants into combat. They served me well but there are better rounds out there for taking on people in a lethal situation. The new 6.8mm that they are working with now produces better impact energy on and in a body.
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