military type rifles

Okay, Okay, take it easy on me with this question please. LOL As you know, since retiring I am getting back into shooting. What I am curious about, is the large interest I see in the military type rifles, especially the m16 lookalikes , like the bushmaster series and armalite and others. ? I used an m16 and its early precursor in combat, and dont see the great interest. Is it for nostalgia reasons? Is it because they are more easily modified to a fully automatic? Are they more precise weapons? I see so many shooters with these? I can understand the nostalgia for the garand and earlier type rifles. But why these in particular? I was looking at my bushmaster catalog and kind of like the bullpup model the way it looked, what is the advantage of this rifle with its price tag as compared to other rifles not in the military fashion, firing the same caliber? Again, thanks to all for imparting your knowledge to someone approach later mid life. I am not trying to start an argument or flame as some of you call it, I am truly interested. The people at the range, who have seen me there over the past year or so, do not like to talk about this question. I have sort of struck up conversations about firearms, but this seems to be a no no conversation, sort of like I am not in their secret society.But they always ask me to fire my henry ar7 when I bring that one. They all show a curiosity in firing it. It seems to be a great conversation piece, but I cant get them to talk. They usually just say, I like the style, or something like that. Oh well, just curious.

Much regards Jerry

# I used an m16 and its early precursor in combat, and dont see #the great interest. Is it for nostalgia reasons? Is it because they are #more easily modified to a fully automatic? Are they more precise weapons? # I see so many shooters with these? I can understand the #nostalgia for the garand and earlier type rifles. But why these in #particular? #

American shooters have a tradition of owning military rifles. The AR15 style .223 rifles are handy, low recoil, easy to shoot, reliable when kept clean, and can be quite accurate. These are characteristics that could be considered desirable by a lone individual who must destroy multiple attackers at greater than pistol range. People who share that conviction may not be comfortable voicing it in public. The blow delivered is puny compared to a full power rifle round but, as Jeff Cooper states, these 'poodle shooters' are battle carbines and serve a different purpose than battle rifles.

Well, first off, the current military weapon of choice is frequently given popularity based on that alone, as former military members buy something they are comfortable with, police buy something for which there is a large supply of spare parts, and others buy because the military bought it.

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Modification to full-auto is illegal, and many of the required parts are heavily controlled. But the AR pattern rifles are typically reasonably accurate out of the box and require very few changes to make very accurate. And there are a variety of accessories so you can have anything from a shorty carbine that looks like what our troops are using in Afghanistan and Iraq (if you have a preban) to a long-barreled match rifle, with a LOT of variations in between. And if you're keeping the same buttstock, switching between configurations just requires pushing out two pins and putting a new upper receiver on. I have two upper receivers (actually three, but the third is for sale) for one of my rifles, one is a match grade upper for NRA highpower service rifle competition, the other is a match grade .22 caliber upper in the same configuration, allowing me to use the same trigger and same configuration of rifle for practice, but with a lower cost and lower recoil (which aids in identifying bad habits that need to be trained out). By coincidence, only three rifles are allowed in certain types of highpower matches, the M1 Garand, M14, and M16, or civilian equivalents, and they are only allowed in configurations that externally match the base issue rifle. Of those three, the M16/AR15 is the easiest to get to shoot well, the easiest for most shooters to manage in rapid fire, and the easiest to KEEP shooting well. M1's and M14's are notorious for having bedding problems, or for being fairly picky about how they're handled (if they've had all of the competition modifications made to them). An M16 will basically keep shooting well until the barrel is shot out (for the most part, if the gas tube gets out of alignment and starts hitting the bolt carrier key, that can cause problems), and then you just get a new barrel and matching bolt and install them, or just drop a new upper receiver on.

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Whatever you like Some people like bullpup-type rifles because they are more compact. Not personally my style, both of my AR's are configured for service rifle competition, but I really liked the Bushmaster commemorative rifle I handled the other day, just didn't like the price

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James

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The short form answer is that the basic gun, or more precisely , the lower receiver, is a handy platform for all kinds of tricked out uppers in various calibres and configurations. The gun with a heavy barrel can be a pretty good shooter as is, and it doesn't take a lot to make it a serious tack driver. And the 5.56x45/223 ammo is cheaper to either buy or reload than the various .30 cal rounds and has fine terminal performance for smaller game as well as great long range accuracy in heavier loads. I have one in my old AF service config (minus full auto) for nostalgia and a more modern heavy barreled one for tight target shooting and will likely get an additional upper or two for more exotic shooting, like a 6mmPPC or an extra heavy match barrel. Think of it like a model T chassis that just cries for all kinds of sporting mods and add ons that can be mixed and matched to suit your preferences of the moment.

You're right; this one has great flame potential!

I am an AR owner and I agree there's a mysterious appeal to these rifles. There are plenty of cheaper rifles out there that are much more accurate and powerful; and in many cases, more fun to shoot, as you have pointed out. It is only slightly difficult to modify an AR to shoot automatic, and it may be a selling point but I doubt it's something many people actually do.

The reason I originally got mine is because I use, and train others on, an M16 at work. I can practice at home with a nearly identical rifle. I realize this is a terrific way to avoid coming up with a good explanation but it works for me. The ammo is also fairly cheap, though nothing like .22LR.

I can offer another reason, but again, one that is easily adopted by someone who just wanted a cool military-looking rifle. The AR family lends itself extremely well to customization. You can get tons and tons of parts and experiment to no end with it. Of course, most of the ones I've seen at the range are plain old factory models, with the postban fixed-length M4 a particular favorite.

I suppose in the end what sells so many of these rifles is nothing more than how cool they look.

# Okay, Okay, take it easy on me with this question please. LOL # As you know, since retiring I am getting back into shooting. What I am # curious about, is the large interest I see in the military type rifles, # especially the m16 lookalikes , like the bushmaster series and armalite and # others. ?

I would like to thank the group for its intelligent answering both publicly and privately on my question. I always get a good education without having to take out a student loan I am going to try and call a few ranges and see if any of them rent out an ar type rifle. I would like to try one. From a lot of the answers I see a lot of the reasons. Some are interchangibility of parts, high accuracy, low recoil, making them nicer to shoot, inexpensive ammo, plus a lot of veterans want something similar to what they use in the service. My son who is in Iraq uses the saw19 and is generally not happy with it as a weapon. I dont know the details, but he has fired a lot of other similar weapons used by other nations, and says some of them are really nice. When he did a Kosovo rotation about two years ago, he got to qualify and receive awards for qualifying on the german, swiss and greek military weapons. He said the germans were not a pleasant bunch of guys, but he said they had the best military weapons he has ever fired. I will ask him, next time he calls(which could be weeks and weeks, or days and days) what weapons he used of theirs that he likes. I know their handguns were sigs(which he uses as an nypd officer) and some h and k.s on the rifles.

Much regards Jerry

# On Sat, 12 Jul 2003 00:40:52 +0000 (UTC), 'j.lef'

# Just the look of it attracts the eyes of many. As much as performance # matters, looks do too. For us non-military/non-ex-military people, # it's neat to have a firearm similar to that of the military.

Forget all the other bull people are feeding you, this is the reason everyone has one/wants one!

*************************** * Evan M. Richardson

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I have a few reasons to like the ARs. I cannot deny that the 'cool factor' is a motive.

I'm a big guy, and I have trouble finding a rifle that fits me. With an AR, I can add an adjustable butt plate to get the 15 1/2' length of pull that I like. I can also add a slip-grip to get trigger reach to my likeing.

I've never felt comfortable with pistol gripped stocks like on most bolt guns and early service rifles. I greatly prefer a vertical or pistol grip like on the AR.

I love modular stuff. Going from carbine to target rifle is quick and easy.

Cheap ammo is always great.

For under $2000, I can get a DPMS Panther Bull Special that will group under .75' at 100 yards, and is almost exactly what I want in a