All posts tagged Remington 870

Combat guns and plinking guns and just having fun

I remember all of those times I spent arguing with people on gunboards about which gun was better and which guns were pieces of junk.   I started out collecting many of the Soviet era military style rifles, namely the SKS rifles.   There are some fun accessories from Tapco that can make even an old relic like an SKS into a more modern looking rifle, but even if it’s not an AK, you can always customize the firearm to your liking.   I wouldn’t expect to use an SKS for house to house clearing, but if you got it for $200 and want to improve the fit to your liking, go right ahead.

One problem I have found with many of the semi-autos I owned was that the length of pull on the guns was very short.  This was not something I go too worked up about with the plinking firearms I owned, but for a primary weapon, the rifle stocks you use on them should fit you like a glove.   Customizing a firearm to fit you is an important step in learning how to effectively use a firearm.   I have learned that the hard way with various rifle scopes that ended up putting a ring around my eye because the stock was so short, I forgot to adjust my bean and got a good thunk.  There is nothing wrong with changing the butt pad on any gun you own to fit you.  Just be aware that when you are wearing a heavy coat or winter clothing that LOP might need to be shorter, so don’t modify your stocks too much, and think about an adjusteable stock for just that purpose.

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Are gun locks obsolete?

I’ve come to the conclusion that unless you are traveling and want to prevent someone from using a firearm against you on the road, gun locks are pointless to keep on a firearm.   As a matter of fact let me revise my opinion.   Gun locks are a waste of money and do not make your firearm more safe.  The traditional two piece gun lock the locks inside the trigger guard if  not absolutely rock solid tight can still cause a firearm to shoot if bumped.   What’s the frickin point of that?   Keep the gun unloaded and store the ammunition in a hidden place.  If the point is to keep children away from them, put them in a safe.  If you are concerned about theft or fire damage, get a gun safe.

With the advent of Biometric technology, many reasons for not locking up a firearm are now over.   I think  you are asking for more problems if you leave a loaded gun in your home and it is not in a safe.  Guns can get used against  you and children know how to get into things when Mom and Dad aren’t around. Gunvault gun safes are more diverse in application then from years ago and I have a few Biometric safes that are holding up as advertised.  They work great for keeping money and jewelry in and the Nanovault NV 100 is something I travel with.

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The Mini 14 in it’s secondary format

The Mini 14 seems to have a love hate relationship with gun owners.   There are a lot of gun owners that were mad at Bill Ruger for his lack of a spine during the Clinton years and his support of the Assault Weapon ban, and many people were irked by the fact the Mini 14 was not sold with 20rd or 30rd magazines which were supplied to Law Enforcement and AC556 owners.   The Mini 14 is one of those guns that everyone wishes would hold up to the same reputation of combat worthiness that the M1 Garand and M14 or M1A had, but it couldn’t.   There were design flaws that kept the Mini 14 from ever being anything more than for a few quick shots.

The Mini 14 with all of it’s shortcomings is still an extremely reliable firearm under most conditions.   It does not hold up to the amount of fire that an M16 can tolerate, but although it is very good as a truck gun or varmint gun, it can be used for home defense because the .223 is actually a very good close range caliber if using the correct kind of defensive ammunition.   Butler Creek rifle stocks have given another angle to the Mini 14, and if you using fragmenting ammunition, the Mini  14 is as destructive as any AR15 rifle is.   This urban Carbine is light and easy to store in your gun safe.  Heck, I’ve actually had more room in my gun safe for more firearms since I swapped a few standard Mini 14 stocks in for these folding stocks.

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5.11 tactical jeans review pt 1

I finally did my rounds and checked out a few local 5.11 dealers to see what they had in stock.    Something I always find annoying about stopping in these places is how much of a mess the clothing usually is.   I always have to dig around for my sizes and rarely do any of these gun shops or police and security stores keep there crap together.   The other thing that I find annoying is that so many of them clear out certain styles of clothing during the year like there is a non-season for polos and jeans.   Some of these tactical clothing manufacturers are running huge shortages and various products are out of stock for 6-9 months at a time.   I actually noticed many of the gun shops in my neck of the woods stopped selling 5.11 tactical pants because it was too much of a headache for them to deal with.

It was time to restock my tactical pants inventory and I’m not prone to sticking to only one manufacturer.   I have worn 5.11 tactical pants, Eotac, Woolrich Elite and even SigTac.   Each tactical clothing company and tactical gear manufacturer has it’s pros and cons,  but I’d give Eotac and Woolrich Elite the edge on quality control.     I am comparing the Eotac 205 concealed carry jeans to the 5.11 jeans and there is no comparison.   I feel a difference in the movement of each jean, but I really don’t think I feel restricted in any way.   They are both well made, but there are huge differences in the designs.   The Eotac jeans are very similar to the Woolrich Elite Discreet MKII pants, but they are definitely not the same.   The 5.11 jeans are what I’d call more for deep concealment.   There are internal pockets that can hold a j-frame revolver or a small semi-auto and a few spare magazines.   I find the pockets to be a  little too deep and don’t really like the fact the guns are practically inside the pants.   I tried putting a Sig 239 in the pockets with spare magazines and it was extremely uncomfortable when sitting down, so I would have to say you need something smaller than that.

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Road trips and cleaning firearms

I was never one to jump on the bandwagon that it should  be necessary for someone in the military to break their M16 down every day and clean it.   I always thought that if the gun needed that much attention, they really should think about a new design.   The real reason the military does this for many soldiers is basically to keep everyone occupied and give them something to do.   I don’t think even an M16 needs to be cleaned more than 2 or 3 times a week, even in dirty conditions.   I’m sure that it some situations you are better off keeping  your chamber hatch closed and not opening to clean it when the air is full of sand and will just attach itself to the gun lube on your  bolt.   We sell a lot of Otis gun cleaning kits to the military for a reason though.   Everything you could want to clean a pistol or rifle is in a small compact case.

I personally find using rifle cleaning rods to be easier and for some reason I feel like I am getting a thorough cleaning.   Bore snakes work very well, but I have found them to become real messy to use if they are being used often.   You have to put them back in the clear case they came with and sometimes I feel it’s easier and cleaner to toss out dirty cleaning patches instead of putting the filthy boresnake back in it’s patch.   Bore snakes are easy to clean if you want to toss them in a wash machine, but this isn’t practical if you are on a road trip.   Otis gun cleaning kits, depending on which you purchase, should have just about every tool and brush you need to clean your firearm.   I did jam a patch in a rifle once and i did have to resort to using a cleaning rod to unjam it, but after I got the right method for “taking a pinch on the patch” and not using too much of it for a smaller caliber, I got the job done.   Otis has plenty of videos you can watch before you buy a cleaning kit if you think the kits are a little overwhelming.

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gun grips and bare hands

As we progress into the tactical accessories market, the more we realize that when we make  one change to a firearm there is a good chance we may have to make another.   For example, there are a lot of rifle scope and rifle stocks  out there, but one may feel too short in the summer when we are wearing a t-shirt, and the other may feel too long if we are wearing a heavy coat.   I still laugh when I hear people say that the AK was built for short people, when the reality was that it was designed for people wearing winter clothing, and that’s why the stocks are so short.

The M4 carbine stock is designed for people that are wearing body armor and may not fit into your shoulder very well if you are not wearing any.   These are minor things to think about, but just as we think about the type of holster we are wearing, we should think about what kind rifle stocks, and how we are going to be shouldering and using a Carbine or Rifle.   Anyone that has gone on any extensive hunting trip will gladly get rid of an extra 2-3 lbs of weight if they can which is why so many prefer a Mini 14 for hunting over a 5rd AR15 type of rifle.

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Taking a gun apart is even easier than you think

It was only a few years ago that I thought that I needed to schedule some time with a Glock certified gunsmith so I didn’t have to sit and read a book about assembling and disassembling a G26 which is always a royal pain.  Even though guns are fairly simple, there are always little tricks to holding a gun and knowing how to wiggle difficult parts out, no matter how many times I’ve read my directions for installing computer software or putting my damn kids legos together, a good old instruction video is better.   I  was really happy to see that Otis sends out CD and DVD instructions with their cleaning kits which probable saves there customer service department a lot of headache phone calls.

I have a few AGI gun videos I strongly suggest picking them up, but now in the age of youtube.com it’s easy to find someone who has posted there own instructional videos and I have found some really good ones.   Please be aware that I am not saying that youtube is a great source for valid info because I have seen plenty of poor gun handling skills which I wish would be removed, but as much as there are some bad points about the internet, there are plenty of good ones.   Installing gun parts and accessories if done incorrectly may mean damaging or breaking your gun or the part you are trying to install.   I know a few gun shops that limit the amount of gun accessories that they carry because they are tired of the complaints about how the gun parts were broken when they got them.

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Practical and tactical should go hand in hand

Although I am a big fan of battle rifles and prefer to carry a gun bigger than an M4, if I gotta carry ammo on my person and it’s not being carried in the trunk of my car, I’ll gladly take the smaller caliber.    The M1 Garand is a great and powerful weapon, but combat is at a much faster pace and being able to suppress a target with small arms is as important as neutralizing it.  If you are a weekend warrior and are considering taking a Carbine Class, even though your training will take place in the Course, you should do research on gear and accessories before you walk in the door.

 

I always try to sit in on training courses whenever I can although I wish I had the time to actually take more classes.   I’ve written on several occassions that one of my greatest joys of watching classes is watching all of the gear fall off or fail a student and watching their slow evolution of losing gear along the way.   Theirs nothing wrong with being a tactical accessory junky, but if you have to carry an M4 all day like i’ve had to, you’ll quickly learn that lightweight, means a happy person.  There seems to be a big craze getting tactical gear with the quad rails even though most people don’t need them, and then having to go out and get rail covers, when a simple stock would have lightend the gun by a few pounds.

 

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Tactical gear and clothing

There are a lot of words that get thrown around in the firearm industry that are fairly broad.    Tactical clothing these days may sound like BDUs to one person and 5.11 tactical clothing to another.    Tactical gear can mean anything from a folding stock to a knife, or a $1500 rifle scope.    The word “tactical” doesn’t really tell you what something is going to be used for in the field.    I have some pretty dressed down AR15 rifles that to some people, just look like violent weapons and scare them, while most of us that are familiar with the accessorized M4 Carbine, will find a A2 style AR15 to be  pretty bland.

The so called tactical clothing and concealed carry markets seem to be new markets and these terms get thrown around a lot but don’t really tell us much.  To the trained individual, they can spot a knife in the pocket and 5.11 style pants from a mile away and loads of pockets full of tactical gear and usually that’s a dead giveaway that someone is carrying a firearm.   Think about what purpose your clothing is to serve and adapt to it.   There are more than a few good clothing companies that are making concealed carry friendly apparel.

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Tools and accessories and practicality

Once we out grow the arguments about which gun is better than the other and which caliber has more stopping power, the next bit of squabbling is usually about accesories and gizmos.   There are absolutely higher quality tactical scopes and combat reliable flashlights like Surefire and Streamlight, but there are still credible debates about how much of a white light you should have on a firearm.    If it’s too powerful, you’re more than likely going to be draining batteries for more than what you need and a light can easily get in the way and begin to snag on things especially if it’s too big.

Tactical gear like rifle stocks like VLTOR and Magpul have a very good reputation from users and those that sell them.   We have very few complaints about durability and even though the average weekend warrior can put one of these on their Bushmaster or DPMS AR15, these tactical rifle stocks will last the life of the firearm.  When you are trying to decide on what to put on your AR15, think about everything you expect to use the firearm for and leave yourself some room for future modifications without having to overhaul the stock. If you think  you’re going to be putting a laser or flashlight on the gun, get the appropriate rail configuration.  If you are looking for long range shooting, a red dot or Eotech may not be something to put on your gun, just leave it setup for iron sights until you find the right tactical rifle scope that your money can buy.

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