Boomsticks: Previously on "View From The Porch"...

1) "That's Mister Housegun to you."


When last we saw Project Housegun, it was awaiting only the availability of the new finishing services at the Armory to be complete. I also decided to ixnay the Surefire forearm light and go with a conventional M73 Surefire railed forearm, which would allow me to use a forward pistol grip for my off hand, instead of the front of the magwell. The weapon is finished in a SOCOM tan molycote, while the moving bits such as the bolt carrier and selector lever and such are in a gray cerakote, which is supposed to be hard as nails and have good natural lubricity. Anyway, it's done now; "Project" Housegun no longer. On to the next AR project...



2) .455 Webley Automatic ammunition.


Lawyerish weasel words: If you blow yourself up, it's not my fault. Don't try this at home, kids.

.45 Colt brass is trimmed to length, has the rim turned down some, and is machined for an extractor groove. Most load data is for 200-220gr .455" bullets. Good luck finding those. Shannon, one of our gunsmiths at work, went with the much more plentiful .451" 230gr FMJ. Given the four thousandths of windage you're getting around the projectile, it takes a bit stiffer powder charge to cycle the action. We got to 6.2 grains of Unique before it would cycle reliably. Cases showed no pressure signs and the gun was running happily. That Shannon, he's a miracle worker...

Boomsticks: "Project Housegun: Lessons Learned" or, "Pimp My Ride."

The AR-type rifle and carbine have become some of the most popular longarms in America today, and it was somewhat inevitable, given their modular nature, that they would benefit from a gigantic aftermarket industry catering to every possible whim a shooter might have for these excellent shoulder weapons. In the early days, there was a marked tendency for owners to hang every doodad and geegaw possible off of their weapons. It got bad enough that it has recently spawned a backlash (similar to the reborn Cult of the Unmodified 1911, which we'll cover in a later post) of folks who take pride in not using any accessories on their AR, and who look askance at those who do. As in most things, there's a happy medium, and I'd like to go ahead and share the lessons I've learned over the past several years; lessons currently objectified in Project Housegun.


For starters, this post is about accessories for the AR-type in its role as a CQB-oriented carbine. There are a plethora of gizmos and gadgets available to adapt the AR to the roles of general service rifle, NRA High Power or Three Gun competition rifle, or varmint exploder extraordinaire, but those aren't what this post is about. What it is about is the weapon that LE, the military, and increasing numbers of private citizens are using to replace the shotgun, subgun, or pistol caliber carbine as a CQB tool: the short AR carbine.

First and foremost, lets get some items out of the way that you definitely do not need bolted to a fighting carbine:

1. A magnifiying scope of greater than about 1.5 power. These are too unforgiving in eye relief and field-of-view. That, and the fact that you shouldn't need magnifiying optics on your gun if its only intended use is home defense: If you can't see it clearly with the naked eye, you're going to have a hard time explaining to the DA why you thought it needed shootin'.
   
2. A bipod and/or free-float forend. What, you're gonna go after prairie dogs in your living room?
3. A match trigger. Undoubtedly a Good Thing on rifles, they don't make enough difference on a carbine (which will be seldom fired at ranges past 15-25 yards) to offset their reduced durability.

Now on to the things that you do want.

The biggest thing for an AR carbine isn't even hardware at all; it's software. The squared-up fighting stance, with the shooter facing squarely towards his target and keeping his elbows in like a boxer, has revolutionized the way that the shorty AR is both viewed and employed. With the carbine held high, so the toe of the stock barely contacts the shoulder, and the head held up and body squared in a fighting stance, the shooter is much more aware of his surroundings, and has an easier time moving without dismounting the weapon from his shoulder. Many of the newer accessories seen on short AR's come from this change in employment. Let's look at a couple of them.

1) Sights.

Not too many years ago, any kind of optic on a fighting rifle was heresy. With the advent of rugged red-dot zero-magnification optics, like the Aimpoint and Eotech, folks have discovered the joy of having an easy to use dot sight that is immune to eye-relief problems and virtually parallax-free. Don't waste time lining up the dot with the front sight when shooting; where the dot is, there the bullet will go. Speed is the advantage that these sights offer in spades over conventional irons, and speed is very important on a long-gun that may well be used inside Tueller Drill range. While the aforementioned two optics hold the lion's share of the market, Trijicon's Tri-Power and ACOG lines are also worth a look, as well as Leupold's CQ/T.

As far as iron sights go, if the front sight tower hanging in front of your dot sight bothers you, then by all means get a folding front sight. Better still would be to learn to ignore it while the dot is up and running, because having to flip up two back up irons (front and rear) in case of optic failure is (by definition) twice as time consuming as erecting only one, and time may not be on your side when you have to do it. For a folding backup rear, look to a quality manufacturer like ARMS, Yankee Hill, or GG&G, and make sure you get a Same-Plane aperture, so that switching back and forth between coarse and fine settings doesn't throw off your POI like it does with standard A2 sights. For the front sight post, a replacement loaded with tritium from XS Systems is invaluable. For a dedicated indoor gun, look to the dot sight post, while a carbine that may be pressed into more general service would better benefit from the vertical stripe.

2) Lights.

Unless you live by yourself in downtown Fallujah, your home is not a free-fire zone. Shooting a target without first identifying it could have a negative impact on your future social life. Given that self-defense encounters in the home tend to take place after lights-out, a white light on the weapon is a good thing. If you have the bucks to spend, a SureFire dedicated forend or M900 vertical pistol grip light is the Mack Daddy of weapon-mounted lights. For a little less money, SureFire's Millennium series or the new lights from PentagonLight will fill the bill nicely. If you're forced to light the cheap seats, Viking Tactical makes a handy bracket that will allow you to clamp a cheap SureFire 6P or G2 Nitrolon to any available Picatinny rail.

3) Miscellaneous Good Stuff.

• In the squared-up fighting stance, the non-dominant hand will be more comfortable grasping either the front of the mag well or a dedicated forward pistol grip. If you use the latter, you should probably locate it as far rearward as you can without interfering with fast mag changes. Eschew goofy gizmos like bipod/forward-pistol-grip combos on a dedicated CQB carbine.
• Some type of oversized charging handle latch will allow you to perform simple malfunction-clearing drills without dismounting the weapon from your shoulder or breaking the firing grip of your master hand. PRI's Big Latch is less likely to snag on stuff than Badger's Tac-Latch, if not quite as easy to use one-handed.
• A better grip (like those from Hogue, Tango Down, or ErgoGrip) and a gapper to fill the space in the rear of the trigger guard will make long practice sessions more bearable for your hand and trigger finger.
• A sling is to a carbine as a holster is to a pistol. You need some way to retain the weapon while your hands are busy doing other things. Three point slings are good for carbines that are intended to be carried around a lot, as they combine shooting functions with carry strap comfort, but they are bulky and have straps running every which way. A single point is better for a gun that will only be used for short periods of time; it is less encumbering, since its only purpose is to catch the gun and let it swing while your hands are otherwise occupied.
• An Vltor or Magpul stock is a zillion times better than the standard 4-position collapsable. Trust me.

Anyhow, that's some stuff I discovered while gradually circling towards replacing my house shotgun with a house carbine. A lot of it is optional, although I think the dot, light, and latch are pretty close to necessary to get the full measure out of the gun in this role. Try stuff yourself, study the available literature (the series of Pat Rogers articles in SWAT Magazine are a gold mine), practice, and if you dicover cool and new stuff, let me know; I'm always up for Project Housegun II.

First World Problems

When I last attended a class in Alliance, I brought my "work" carbine along and was mortified to discover it started doubling midway through day one. I set the gun aside and one of the other students was kind enough to lend me his spare stick to finish out the class.

All blinged out and nowhere to go...

Fortunately, Dave Laubert was nearby and actually performed a house call at the range to check on the ailing blaster. Unfortunately the problem was that it just had enough miles on the lockwork that the hammer/sear engagement was getting spotty. Understandable, because it was a very early Nineties Colt Sporter lower with the original guts still in it. Also unfortunately, because it was a very early Nineties Colt, it's a large-pin lower with a pinned sear block, so getting replacement parts wasn't going to be as simple as running by my local gun store...

Since I had my own backup carbine at home, all sighted in and ready to go, I just pressed it back into service as the housegun and filed the now trigger-group-less Colt away as a "when I get around to it" project.

A giant rail farm, straight outta 2007, with an AFG and MTAC

Some time late last year I was in Indy Arms Co and mentioned my woes to Mark, the manager, and he was like "Hey, I've got an Armalite large pin trigger group right here on the shelf I'll make you a deal on." So I bought it and it rode around in the trunk of my car for a bit until, right before SHOT, I dropped off the carbine and trigger group at the shop. (I've built enough AR lowers to know that if someone else wants to do it, I'll let them.)

It was late February before I got around to picking up the gun and now I haven't had a chance to confirm its reliability myself. It passes all function checks and I'm pretty sure it got test-fired, but still...

So the backup housegun is still the one with the loaded mag in the well.

What's making me itch is that I had intended to replace the Leupold 1.25-4X that's on it with the 1-6X Vortex Viper PST II I won at TacCon last year, and now I have no easy way to sight it in...so I guess that's going to hold off for a bit. At least that way it's still dialed in if some weird scenario requires its use.
.

Boomsticks: Eek!

Jeff at Alphecca is a little late with his scary Halloween post.

No, not this one; this one.

A return of the Scary-Looking Gun Ban? Brrrr!

I was running a gun shop when it came around for the first time, too, and I find the difference in my responses interesting. Back then, I was all about the wondernines and scary rifles, and I rushed about in a tizzy, stocking up on mags for my Glocks and SIGs and Astras and CZ clones. I picked up another MAK-90, a couple of AK drum mags, and a bunch of 30-rounders.

For a hypothetical '06 repeat?

Well, I don't even own any handguns that take large capacity magazines, nor do I accumulate scary-looking rifles anymore. The only self-loading rifle I own that was made after 1950 is Project Housegun, and it's more a tool than it is part of my collection. I'd probably spend a chunk of my next paycheck on some durable steel HK 30-rd SA80 magazines, and swap one of my more expendable 1911's (probably the Springfield Lightweight Loaded) for a couple of AR lowers with collapsable stocks. I'd go ahead and take pictures of the lowers, assembled together with my eeeevil bayonet-lugged upper, sitting atop today's newspaper, and then put the upper back on Project Housegun and stash the lowers in a closet to await eventual completion.

That'd be it, really. The rest of my time would be spent tearing off angry rants at my congresscritters and jogging them to the mailbox.

Boomsticks: Are they really just 'things'?

The Gun Guy recently wrote of his trip to the Tulsa Gun Show, penning a poignant rant on how the thrill had gone for him. It seems that, after having to sell off many of his guns to stave off the lupine pest lolling at his door, he no longer views firearms as special entities, but rather as simple material commodities.

Allow me to commiserate.

Three times now in my brief life, I've been forced to sell off my guns in order to keep a roof over my head and that owie, empty, hurty feeling from my tummy. That, plus the fact that I buy, sell, and trade guns for a living probably causes me to view them with a level of mercenary detachment that is anathema to the casual collector (more correctly, "accumulator", as true collectors tend to be too neurotic to be casual.) The net result? This history, combined with the fact that I'm now collecting, rather than accumulating, makes trips through gun shows a lot faster for me. Other than an obligatory stop at the Georgia Arms table and picking up a bag of Blazin' Cajun ends 'n' pieces from the Crockett Creek jerky lady, my gun show experience consists solely of chatting up various collectors and business acquaintances to catch up on news, and a quick surf through the aisles to see if any S&W Model 58's or Mannlicher-Schoenauer rifles are lying about and available cheap.

My guns themselves? Well, except for the one on my hip, they are just commodities. I have them ranked in my head more or less constantly in order of "sellability". The Excel spreadsheet I keep on my collection has a column titled "Fast Sale Value"; ie. the price I could put on a gun of a gun show Saturday morning, and not still be holding it come Sunday afternoon. Does this mean I'm some callous, unfeeling ice queen who doesn't care about her hobby? No, it's just pragmatism.

There's a definite heirarchy of sellability. At the very top are pieces with sentimental value due to being gifts, as well as one or two earmarked for personal defense needs. These are only for sale if needed to, say, keep me out of prison or off the streets or the like. Behind that come the milsurp rifles and my S&W revolver collection; I'm saving these for a really, really rainy day. For the forseeable future, they are my own personal museum, but some black day in the far future, they'll be part of my retirement fund, too, and I harbor no illusions about that; I'd no more sell one on a whim than you would dip into your 401k for a night at the movies. At the bottom of the totem pole are practical pieces; various hunting or target rifles, some custom 1911's, and Project Housegun. These remain ranked in my head in order of replaceability; for instance, if I need to shake loose a quick grand in cash, my decked-out M4gery goes on the block. After all, another stripped lower is chump change, and, within a month or three, it'll be all built back up into another swell Housegun. With 1911's, outside of exceptions like the Springer Pro or the Delta Elite, the build is half the fun. My stainless 1991A1 could go away tomorrow and be replaced in a month, and my heart would remain untroubled.

This is a viewpoint obviously shaped by my own experiences. I'll be told constantly by folks on the various gun boards how horrible it is to sell a gun, and how they've never sold one of theirs; I try to politely refrain from explaining the differences in viewpoint of someone who owns ten guns, and someone who may have owned half a thousand, but really has no idea what her total is.

They're just guns, folks; easy come, easy go. Unless you're talking about an heirloom, historical artifact, or rare out-of-production piece, they're easy to replace. And even those are easier to replace than a kidney, or the roof over your kid's heads. Don't lose perspective.

Boomsticks: One gun a month.

But not the way the scaredy-cats usually mean it.

Me? Milsurp rifles and old Smith wheelguns are going to have to go on hold for a while: The next six to eight months are going to be all about the suppressors and SBR's. I'll be giving the 9mm AR the short-barrel treatment and getting a can for it. I'll also be picking up a .30-cal can for the two Whispers, as well as a 5.56 can for Project Housegun and a Gemtech Outback II because... well... everybody needs a .22 suppressor.

Maybe for thee, but not for me.

Both JayG and Carteach0 have reviews of Lasermax guide rods up. While I agree with both of them about the quality of the product, I'm skeptical of its utility for me on a carry gun.

I've had Lasermaxes in a couple of guns, the last one being a G23C back in... '01? '02? I gave up on the concept myself, at least for CCW, because of the need to operate an extra button to get the laser dot up and running. I'd imagine a real-life incident with my Glock would have run something like:

"Holy $#!+!!!"

BANGBANGBANGBANG!

*pant-pant-pant*

Oh, wait... *click* ...and on comes the laser.

Still, a useful training aid, or maybe on a housegun where one would presumably have more warning before use.

It's Buy A Gun Day!

I don't own a Magic 8-Ball, so I'm going to use you guys instead. I was recently reminded that today is Buy A Gun Day. Do I:

A) Go ahead and buy the Surefire M900 that I was planning on buying anyway. (It's not a gun, but it's as expensive as one, and it goes on a gun. I'm going to put it on the 6.8 carbine. This will allow me to move the Pentagonlight and GG&G grip back over to my brown carbine and return it to housegun duty.)

B) Buy a used Springfield Armory Lightweight Loaded that we got in on trade at work. It needs a cleanin' something fierce (the previous owner was apparently unaware that stainless is just that: stainless, not stainnot, and doesn't mean you can store the gun at the bottom of your saltwater aquarium) but I can probably just barely swing it, and I sure do miss my old Lightweight Loaded.

C) Buy the cheaper (thumbscrew instead of ARMS throw-lever) M900, and put the difference down on a sweet little 18" 20ga Remington 870. The rationale here? Bonnie and Clyde stole my shotgun, at least for another week or so, so that should be plenty of reason to buy a stand-in.


I'm feeling pretty much obligated towards "B)", and, frankly that's the way my heart leans as well (Q: "Should you buy another 1911?" A: "Whattarya? Stupid? Yes.")

Boomsticks: A-ha!

So the A1 flash hider that I pulled out of my purse the other day has been sitting next to my keyboard, baffling me with its origins, for the last couple days.

I've been picking it up and fiddling with it the way one does with worry beads, but just now I actually looked at the thing. Wow, that's a big hole...

Eureka! It's a 9mm flash hider! I must have tossed it in my purse when I put the Vortex on my 9mm carbine and forgot all about it.

You can't imagine what a load off my mind that is.

This inspired me to go clean all the AR stuff off the Table What Has Accumulated A Big Pile Of Gun Detritus and put it in a box the way I did with the 1911 bits. I was a bit surprised at just how much AR effluvia had piled up there. Green and black followers, mag floorplates, mag springs, a complete collapsable stock and buffer tube assembly (from when I put the M93 on my Superior), black plastic A2 pistol grips, green Hogue and Ergo grips (a legacy of installing MIADs on the 9mm and Project Housegun), A2 carbine handguards, non-tritium front sight posts, EOTech battery compartment latches, ladder rail covers, push-button QD sling swivels...

If I dropped a barrel, an upper receiver, and a lower in there and shook the box real hard, another carbine would fall out. Hmmm... We still have a bunch of DPMS stripped lowers at work for, like, a buck and a quarter, and a life without a current AR project is a life devoid of purpose.

Here's an idea...

Like lots of other people, I have a "lighting the cheap seats" white light setup on an AR carbine. The whole schmear (rail, vertical foregrip, Viking Tactical mount, and Surefire G2) on my 9mm AR cost less than the PentagonLight MS2 on Project Housegun, and that's not counting the Surefire rail forearm and GG&G foregrip on the latter weapon.

I know lots and lots of users with this setup, either because they're short on funds, don't want to sink a mint into a .gov-issued weapon, or just want a cheap light on a trainer or backup rifle. The first company to make a remote tape pressure switch that'll replace the tailcap on the cheapie G2 Nitrolon will make a mint. I'm waiting...

Boomsticks: PentagonLight product eval in progress.

The SureFire M500 on Project Housegun was a rilly, rilly good weapon light, but I have gotten so used to using a vertical foregrip or gripping the front of the magwell with my support hand that it was awkward for me to use the membrane switch on it.

What I really wanted was an M900, but I just couldn't swing the shekels for one right now. We've been selling the PentagonLight MS2's at work, which are rugged little units with an A.R.M.S. throw-lever mount, so I figured I'd give one of those a wringing out while I waited for the cash to accumulate for the M900 of my dreams.

Selling the M500 and adding a SureFire M73 rail setup and a GG&G foregrip lets me use the 5.56 carbine the same way as the 9mm trainer. This is a good thing.

I'll rustle up some PMC Green and wait 'til I can try it on a dark range and let y'all know how the MS2 stacks up against both the M500 it replaced and the Viking Tactical/Surefire G2 setup on the 9mm.

OMG! That is too cute!

Now I'm wishing I'd been able to find a way to make it out to Nashvegas on Sunday. It looks like I missed all the fun.

From the Volkmeister's site:

photo by Oleg Volk.

I didn't get a pink AR when I was little. How bitter am I?

(...and no, I am not going to take a can of Krylon to Project Housegun. It occurs to me, however, that maybe the forthcoming .300 Whisper might not need to be so, um, serious. ;) )

Boomsticks: The Ghosts of Evil Black Rifles Past...

It's true. I have fallen out of love with Evil Black Rifles.

Don't get me wrong; Project Housegun does yeoman duty at the job once filled by a Remington 870, and my 9mm AR, while justified on the roster as an indoor-range-capable trainer, is an amazingly fun plinker, but I just don't collect accumulate Scary Black Long Guns the way I used to. I've traded them all off or sold them in order to fund more purchases of derelict Mausers in odd calibers.

That phase did allow me to get some hands-on time with some interesting guns that didn't make the "tools" cut, however:

There was, for instance, the Beretta AR-70. To your rabid He-Man AR Haters, this gas-piston poodle-shooter would seem to be ideal. After prolonged exposure, though, I grew disenchanted with the mediocre ergonomics, flimsy stamped receiver, and magazines priced like imported sin. It got turned into a stainless Delta Elite with a ton of extras and a stack of hundred dollar bills.

Beretta AR-70. Photo by Oleg Volk.

There was also my all-alloy .223 FAL, built on a Williams Arms receiver. While undoubtedly handy and light, it was a pain to get set up for reliable running, and even then the "almost as handy as an AR's" controls and the knowledge that the receiver would eventually get beaten to death made it, in the long run, disposable. It's gone, and now I have a one-of-200 3" 625 in .45 Colt to replace it, plus the associated stack of C-notes.


These, and others like them, such as my Daewoo and a .223 AK, are gone, while my ARs linger on. The end result? For all its alleged flaws, I've found the oft-derided plastic poodleshooter to be a handy, reliable, and versatile rifle, while other guns came and went.

I still don't like my ARs, but I can't argue with what works...

Boomsticks: My gun makes Dianne Feinstein cry.

As predicted, visits from friends can sometimes result in pictures of some pretty swoopy hardware.


On the left is a pretty deluxe Bushmaster, complete with Surefire M900A and Aimpoint. On the right is the now-completed Project Housegun. Well, almost completed; I still need an Ergogrip (In Coyote Brown, of course. "Coyote Brown: It's the new black.") I decided to go with the EOTech 512 because... well, I'm lazy and didn't want to wait for an ARMS throw-lever ring to get restocked at the shop. Plus, it has the Donut-Of-Death reticle, which is pretty cool...

Boomsticks: Project Housegun Update.

Finally got the XS Sight Systems 24/7 stripe front post sight installed on my carbine. I had one of these on my last M4gery, and had gotten so used to it that this gun felt naked without one. We sell 'em for something like $49 at the shop, so if you haven't experimented with a tritium post on your AR, it's not terribly expensive to give it a whirl.