Archive for the 'AR-15s' Category

What I read in this Ammoland article struck me as plausible prior to reading the article as I thought about this.

Sources also tell AmmoLand News that Associate Deputy Director Marvin Richardson, another career bureaucrat, has an ax-to-grind against pistol braces and belives they violate the NFA but doesn’t think that they have the political capital to make a move against the millions of accessories under a Trump presidency. Those inside ATF with knowledge of the situation told AmmoLand News that higher-ups at the ATF believe that they will have the political capital and cover to go after braces under an anti-gun Biden administration.

The same unnamed sources feel that the ATF agency heads are preparing for a Biden victory. They have inferred from conversations with ATF leaders that they are actively working to defeat Trump, and this move was to designed to disenfranchise gun owners just ahead of the election. Although the heads did not say this directly, three independent sources who work closely with the agency heads have verified this interference to be the unspoken truth within the highest halls of the ATF.

It’s possible that the ATF is actively trying to undermine Trump with the gun rights crowd (that has effectively already been accomplished with the bump stock ban and support for red flag laws).  This would be icing on the cake.

On the one hand, this administration is getting hit in all quarters.  On the other hand, it’s Trump’s job to appoint good people who understand tricks like this, and we’ve already seen his lack of good judgment in the people he appoints with whom he surrounds himself (e.g., Sessions, Comey, McCabe, Barr, McMaster, Kelly, much of his white house staff, etc.).

David Codrea has more on the history of the recent kerfuffle over the “Honey Badger.”

Instead of contacting DOJ, GOA asks members to “contact President Trump and let him know that you are counting on him to put a stop to this new ATF overreach and order them to reinstate the Honey Badger Pistol’s status as a pistol equipped with a brace. Then, contact your member of Congress and insist that they cosponsor H.R. 5289, The Home Defense and Competitive Shooting Act.

I understand the sentiment, but I’m not sanguine about its chances of success.  David continues.

That GOA asks members to contact Trump instead of the DOJ is an effort to remind the president that his continued lip service about “our beautiful Second Amendment” followed by his deliberate indifference and even support for outright infringements serves only to demoralize gun owners, which in turn serves the purposes of ban-whatever-he-can Joe Biden. But the fact is, rumblings on this brace nonsense started over a year ago, and the buck for it stops squarely at the president’s desk. We know he’s not a “gun guy,” but he needs to listen to those who are, and I’m not talking about prop marriages of political convenience or do-nothing “advisory boards” designed to pander to the gun vote, but a genuine “cabinet” of serious advocates who will actually have his ear and who he will subordinate his presumptions for and listen to.

“I’m going to surround myself only with the best and most serious people. We want top of the line professionals,” Trump famously pledged in his first campaign. We’re certainly not seeing it at ATF, where the bureaucrats have either taken it on themselves to act like their inconsistent rulings are immutable law subject to no oversight.

“Unbeknownst to the general public, ATF has ordained in private determination letters that it considers ‘any firearm with a length of pull over 13-1/2 inches to be designed to be fired from the shoulder,’ thereby making it a short-barreled rifle,” the Gaetz letter observed. “However, ATF has also privately proclaimed that even firearms under this length of pull can be classified as a short-barreled rifle, if ATF identifies other (and often unspecified) applicable ‘indicators.’”

“Even more troubling are reports that these non-public standards are being used to criminally prosecute unsuspecting gun owners. Given ATF’s refusal to explain these standards, it is impossible for the public to comply with ATF’s ever-changing body of secret law,” Gaetz continued.

I think it’s generally safe to carry your pistol brace firearm to most ranges today (this does not constitute legal advice).  Depending upon the outcome of the election, this may change.  Furthermore, if Trump doesn’t hold the ATF in check, it may change anyway.

Some half a million bump stocks had been sold before the diktat to declare firearms using them to be machine guns.  Many millions more firearms sporting a pistol brace have been sold.

This is a clever strategy to undermine Trump and make gun owners smart where it really hurts.  Remove half a million votes from Trump in the upcoming election (because they were declared felons overnight) and that could swing the election given that his margin of victory was smaller than that in the last election (in spite of his electoral victory).

As for pistol braces, if even a small fraction of owners see Trump doing nothing about the ATF, the deep state has successfully undermined one of his core constituents.

John Farnam writes at Ammoland.

I love Aimpoints and most other red-dot (non-magnifying) optics, because they’re fast, relatively compact, and with generous eye-relief, I don’t have glass in my face! Yet, SROs tell me that for their job they need more downrange detail than an Aimpoint will provide, even at ranges under 100m.

With Aimpoints (and most other red-dots), you can get a “swing-out magnifier,” but it is bulky, precarious, and gets in the way.

As a practical matter, when shooting in a congested environment without magnification, past 100m I can’t tell what I’m shooting at. In many cases, I can’t adequately identify a threat past 75m.

So, I equipped my wonderful IO (International Ordinance) M4 with a 1×4 Steiner optic (P4Xi) and their excellent low-profile mounting system.

From exchanging email with John he indicates to me that “The Steiner P4Xi that I’m using features an illuminated red dot (with variable intensity) at the center, which can be used when it is hard to make-out the traditional reticle.”

So he’s claiming that the scope he’s using gives him the shorter range red dot performance, along with the LPVO performance for longer distances if he chooses.

A very nice idea.  I don’t happen to do well with flip-to-side magnifiers.  Of course, this scope isn’t cheap.  You may have to break the piggy bank open for it.

I don’t anyway.

Eh, whatever.  I’ve never had one come loose.  Besides, you should give your weapon a check before use every time anyway.  A guy whose AR castle nut can be removed by hand just hasn’t been paying attention.

Good video.  This is why generally speaking, I don’t like the idea of shooting rifles inside homes or in neighborhoods.

A pistol or pistol caliber pistol carbine (PDW) seems preferred to me based on the risk of shooting high velocity rounds.  And in the pistol or carbine, use personal defense rounds (hollow point), with proven ballistic tests for expansion.  Lucky Gunner has good tests online.

And there is a corollary point.  +P rounds aren’t necessarily the best home defense rounds for this reason.  I shoot 45 ACP, and there are some very hot +P loads for that caliber, including 450 SMC (which is way too hot for something like home defense – I carry for that bear defense in the bush with a 22# recoil spring).

Buffalo Bore and Double Tap make some of the hottest loads, including in PD ammunition.  It isn’t at all apparent to me that these loads would be a better choice.  The homeowner must be the judge given circumstances.

This video and those like it make the pistol caliber carbine a worthy investment for home defense.

No.  The 5.56mm round will not “knock yo’ bitch ass down.”

No.  That’s not a bullpup.

No.  That’s not a shorty.  It looks to me like a 20″ barrel, common on earlier AR platforms.

No.  Guns don’t “go off” every day of basic training with people getting killed.

No.  The AR platform isn’t that reckless and dangerous.  Eugene Stoner was a genius, and he objects to your stupidity.

No.  The BCG moving forward is by design to chamber a round – it does not cause a round to discharge.

Yes.  This NFAC leader is an imbecile.