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 Slinky wrote:
Very nice SMLE and display, Knockagh!

My bayonet's scabbard is marked to the 12th bn RIR, and the bayonet itself is dated June 1916.

Thanks! The 12th battalion was the central Antrim Volunteers would have been the local battalion to were my wifes and my family live.

There’s a pretty active group researching and commentating them locally.

https://m.facebook.com/Royalirishrifles12th/

 Frankenberry wrote:
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On topic, I recently discovered a love for the M1A courtesy of my dad going on about a pair he had when he was younger. The price tag alone is enough to make it a dream piece, but if I ever get the scratch together to snag one, I'll be a happy camper.

Haven't read all 5 years of posts, but has anyone used one?

I have the SOCOM CQB model that comes with the Vortex red dot. It is FUN to fire. The muzzle brake really dampens the recoil, but a 7.62/.308 out of a 16 inch barrel sounds like you are firing a cannon. HUGE fire ball when firing in low light conditions. Even Wife and Daughter like it, and they are recoil adverse.

Son2 and Wife firing mine:

Pistol grip herecy eh? Must admit they are a hoot to shoot. Have you bothered to track down that short barrel 7.62 ammo designed for that sort of madness?

 Insurgency Walker wrote:
Pistol grip herecy eh? Must admit they are a hoot to shoot. Have you bothered to track down that short barrel 7.62 ammo designed for that sort of madness?

Haven't even tried. I have a bunch of German surplus 7.62 NATO which feeds this and my HK-91.

So, looking to pick up a semi-auto at some point, but I live in an AWB state.

I've been looking at a few options, such as the ARES SCR and Mini-30.

ARES SCR seems to have issues... heavy trigger, and a lot of proprietary parts (unfortunately there is a lack of aftermarket components for it at this time.)

Mini-30. I've fired one of these, honestly I just don't like it. Strictly personal preference.

Seems that there are not a lot of AWB compliant arms available, and surplus rifles such as the SKS are getting to be quite expensive for what you get.

Any ideas on rifles for me to look at? I have also looked at the M1A, but good god that is an expensive firearm (and even after getting it, ammunition for it isn't exactly cheap either.) I'm wondering if there are any interesting models that I have simply missed in my research.

 Cothonian wrote:
So, looking to pick up a semi-auto at some point, but I live in an AWB state.

I imagine that a featureless AR would be one of the least expensive options. There are also things like the FNAR or Keltec RDBS. I doubt you'd regret getting an M1A, though.

 Cothonian wrote:
So, looking to pick up a semi-auto at some point, but I live in an AWB state.

I've been looking at a few options, such as the ARES SCR and Mini-30.

ARES SCR seems to have issues... heavy trigger, and a lot of proprietary parts (unfortunately there is a lack of aftermarket components for it at this time.)

Mini-30. I've fired one of these, honestly I just don't like it. Strictly personal preference.

Seems that there are not a lot of AWB compliant arms available, and surplus rifles such as the SKS are getting to be quite expensive for what you get.

Any ideas on rifles for me to look at? I have also looked at the M1A, but good god that is an expensive firearm (and even after getting it, ammunition for it isn't exactly cheap either.) I'm wondering if there are any interesting models that I have simply missed in my research.

The Mini's are probably the easiest AWB rifles to deal with (as most are 50 state compliant out of the box), but if you really don't like them, you won't like an M1A any better (almost literally the same gun, just bigger).

You could look at a KelTech SU-16. An AK with a grip-wrap is also doable (at least in CA) if that's more your flavor. That said, as mentioned by Luciferian, you can do a featureless AR. It'll look silly, but it'll function fine, and the aftermarket support is tremendous, if you're not liking the Ruger Mini, I'd go for a featureless AR.

It helps to have a budget if you're looking for firearm recommendations. What are you willing to spend?

I think you should try to find an SCR to test shoot. The current SCR has a much better trigger than the earlier version and the parts that are proprietary are related to the fire control and bolt carrier. Parts that you don't often need to replace. Granted, you don't have the aftermarket options of some of the other AR based options but you can go as crazy as you want with the upper. Also,
Keltec
I have a love/hate relationship with Keltec but they do make a strangely functional cali compliant bullpup along with other 5.56mm platforms

I'd prefer to keep it under $1000, but that might not be realistic. Seems like the majority of AWB compliant arms are very expensive.

God I envy states where you can pick up and AR or AK for $400. My dream rifle is an AK.

 Cothonian wrote:
I'd prefer to keep it under $1000, but that might not be realistic. Seems like the majority of AWB compliant arms are very expensive.

God I envy states where you can pick up and AR or AK for $400. My dream rifle is an AK.

You can definitely get AKs for under $1000 where I am in CA. I got mine for $1100 after tax, but I got one with a chrome bolt. The were a number of much cheaper ones in the store too if I had wanted to save a few hundred.

 Cothonian wrote:
I'd prefer to keep it under $1000, but that might not be realistic. Seems like the majority of AWB compliant arms are very expensive.

God I envy states where you can pick up and AR or AK for $400. My dream rifle is an AK.

Alas, gone are the days of $400 AK's, probably never to return for a variety of reasons. $700 is the low end now, even for WASRs, at least in terms of new 16" barrel rifles. That said, $1k is doable.

If you have a good CA FFL that does transfers nearby, Atlantic Firearms has probably the best AK selection out there and does ship to CA (as long as you're cool with a $40 weird grip flap being stuck to the gun to make it compliant). If you're budgeting about a grand, either get a WASR from atlantic and have a bit left over to get a red dot or ammo too, or pick up one of their in-house built guns made from Polish WBP parts. Sadly I don't think any Arsenal's can be had for under a grand any longer.

That said, you *can* just pick up a bare AR receiver for $50-100, and build it to your desires (as they fit within CA law) and budget over time.

It is definitely cheaper if you build the gun yourself. Thats probably the only way you'll ever get a sub $500 AK nowdays. It doesn't seem terribly difficult either. The only part I would be concerned about would be the barrel assembly, but you can buy complete barrels so its not a huge deal. AK's are elegantly simple, and all the parts except for a complete receiver can just get mailed to your door.

I just recently purchased an AK pistol for $479. It was an internet special from cheaperthandirt.com. Normal price was about $600. It functions fine.

Don't get into the politics of it, but if you own a bump stock, the bump stock ban looks to be pretty imminent - the final rule declaring them to be machine guns was leaked but not yet published. I don't know if there will be an injunction or not but the reason I post this is if you own one, you might want to follow the news on this.

 Ouze wrote:
Don't get into the politics of it, but if you own a bump stock, the bump stock ban looks to be pretty imminent - the final rule declaring them to be machine guns was leaked but not yet published. I don't know if there will be an injunction or not but the reason I post this is if you own one, you might want to follow the news on this.

They'll probably be forced to allow all existing Bump Stocks to be retained. Illegal seizure and forfeiture of property and all.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Don't get into the politics of it, but if you own a bump stock, the bump stock ban looks to be pretty imminent - the final rule declaring them to be machine guns was leaked but not yet published. I don't know if there will be an injunction or not but the reason I post this is if you own one, you might want to follow the news on this.

They'll probably be forced to allow all existing Bump Stocks to be retained. Illegal seizure and forfeiture of property and all.

It would be a pretty sweeping Constitutional violation to make all retroactively illegal. Ex Post Facto laws are illegal by plain Constitutional language.

There is also the interesting thing that, if you legally make the Bump Stock itself a Machine Gun, what does it do to the Firearm you attach it to? What if you have multiple firearms that could attach it? Would that make any gun with a bump stock 2 Machine Guns from a legal standpoint?

If that last one was true, that would result in something interesting. I take a Semi-automatic firearm, put a bump stock on it. It now legally becomes a machine gun. I then buy all the parts necessary to actually turn that semi-auto firearm into a regular full auto and install them. Its already legally a machine gun if its got a bump stock in this hypothetical scenario, and since its perfectly legal to replace parts on a machine gun you own legally. For extra mindfethery, remove the bump stock and put it on another firearm and repeat the process...

This could apply to any Bump Stock, or related device that does the same thing, that gets turned into a machine gun.

Even if you go the slightly more sensible route of "A firearm that currently has a Bump Stock attached to it is a machine gun" and don't allow for the moving of the Bump Stock to a different firearm, that still would potentially open a loophole for people to attach a bump fire device to a firearm, get it registered as a Machine Gun, and then just add regular Full-auto trigger groups to the gun. You can't be found guilty of manufacturing a Machine-gun if the gun in question was already legally considered one.

I hope they word the Fed law better than the FL law, which effectively outlaws any device/mechanism/whatever which allows a weapon to fire faster than the 'un-altered' version. As worded the FL law would make any custom trigger, or heck, even a good sling, illegal.

Frankly I hope all of these laws get smashed by the SCOTUS as unconstitutional.

BUT back on topic... I just bought 8 25-round magazines for Daughter's and Wife's Ruger 10/22s. Are there any decent 'magula' type loading devices for these magazines or am I doomed to sore thumbs? (Yes I do get stuck as the Official Magazine Loader in the family)

Frankly, I wish they would enforce the law which requires all laws to be written in "plain language". That would get rid of a lot of bloat.

I wonder if that FL law would mean anybody whose body was capable of faster than average finger movement to be a criminal?


In other news. I just took the plunge and bought a blank 80% AK receiver. Rails are all installed, magwell and trigger holes are drilled. All that it needs are the small rivet and post holes to be drilled. Probably going to assemble it as a Pistol.

If anyone is looking at doing an NFA Form 1 for anything, now's the time. E-File is back up (well, it's accepting applications anyway, whether it's working or not at any given time can be...interesting), and Form 1 stamps are coming back in as little as a week, typically under 20 days through E-File, while paper applications continue to languish for ~8 months or so.

Unfortunately it appears Form 4's for doing transfers still all have to be paper.

EDIT: as for the bump stocks, my guess is that even if a final rule gets published tomorrow, there will be courtroom drama keeping everything in limbo for...many moons. I suspect that such will ultimately require actual legislation and not agency reinterpretation of existing law.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
I'm looking at getting a gun that can reliably and effectively defeat light body armor. Any suggestions?

This is sort of a hard question to answer, because body armor comes in different levels, and might have additional plates as well.

For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume the cheapest and most comfortable option, which ls level IIIa and no additional plates.

For a pistol, an FN FiveSeven will do it no problem. The only problem is a FiveSeven is $1100 and the right ammo for it is pretty expensive. SS190 is not supposed to be sold to non-government people, although it's lawful to possess - as a result it's about $200 for a box of 50.

Unofficially, there are other 5.7 rounds that will do it without officially being rated as AP.

If you're not looking at a pistol, then it's a lot easier. Regular old FMJ 5.56 (AR15) & 7.62 (AK) will defeat IIIa. It's not designed to stop rifle rounds.

Some ammo easily available in 5.56 will defeat some level III plates (though again, there are a lot of factors at play here).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Don't get into the politics of it, but if you own a bump stock, the bump stock ban looks to be pretty imminent - the final rule declaring them to be machine guns was leaked but not yet published. I don't know if there will be an injunction or not but the reason I post this is if you own one, you might want to follow the news on this.

They'll probably be forced to allow all existing Bump Stocks to be retained. Illegal seizure and forfeiture of property and all.

It would be a pretty sweeping Constitutional violation to make all retroactively illegal. Ex Post Facto laws are illegal by plain Constitutional language.

The complication is that machine guns aren't technically illegal. Presumably if you live in a state that allows you to register a machine gun, you can keep your bump stock and just register it.

Unfortunately a lot of states, like my own, prohibit machine guns so it's a state law that will have me turning in my own bump stock.

It will be interesting to see how it shakes out. I truly have no idea how it will go. I don't think they will be grandfathered in, though. Just my gut feeling.

 Ouze wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
I'm looking at getting a gun that can reliably and effectively defeat light body armor. Any suggestions?

This is sort of a hard question to answer, because body armor comes in different levels, and might have additional plates as well.

For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume the cheapest and most comfortable option, which ls level IIIa and no additional plates.

For a pistol, an FN FiveSeven will do it no problem. The only problem is a FiveSeven is $1100 and the right ammo for it is pretty expensive. SS190 is not supposed to be sold to non-government people, although it's lawful to possess - as a result it's about $200 for a box of 50.

Unofficially, there are other 5.7 rounds that will do it without officially being rated as AP.

If you're not looking at a pistol, then it's a lot easier. Regular old FMJ 5.56 (AR15) & 7.62 (AK) will defeat IIIa. It's not designed to stop rifle rounds.

Some ammo easily available in 5.56 will defeat some level III plates (though again, there are a lot of factors at play here).

Yeah, pretty much any rifle round will defeat common body armor. You have to get to tierIV(or stuff that is rated equal to tierIV) before you'll reliably stop rifle rounds.

The nomenclature for body armor is a little weird though. Some stuff that is listed as tierIII is actually tierIII, while some is rated equal to or better than tierIV but is sold as TierIII, so its down to the physical specs of that particular plate than just what label is slapped on.

There is also a big difference between penetration if you're shooting pure lead bullets, jacketed hollow points, jacketed soft points, FMJ, and actual armor piercing rounds. And there can be a difference between different manufacturers of what is technically the same ammo type. The Brown Bear 7.62 I use is a jacked hollow point, but the hollow point is barely a MM across meaning it would still have some fairly high penetration.

 Ouze wrote:


The complication is that machine guns aren't technically illegal. Presumably if you live in a state that allows you to register a machine gun, you can keep your bump stock and just register it.

Unfortunately a lot of states, like my own, prohibit machine guns so it's a state law that will have me turning in my own bump stock.

It will be interesting to see how it shakes out. I truly have no idea how it will go. I don't think they will be grandfathered in, though. Just my gut feeling.

The Ex Post Facto clause doesn't just forbid Congress, it also forbids the states from doing the same (only part of the constitution that binds both to the same restriction till Amendment 14, fun facts!). I think the issue is how the law regards once legal items acquired and owned legally before the law changed, and does that violate the restriction (there's precedent that swings both ways), on which I'd say Vaktathi is right. Lots of litigation before that works out and people probably want to stay on top of whatever is going on to avoid running afoul of however the law shakes out.

Question also: do you mean "Defeat" as in, penetrate, or 'Defeat' as in, stop the person wearing it?

Because as I understand it, most soft body armours don't necessarily prevent injury- just penetrative injury. There's still massive bruising, potential broken bones, and you might 'stop' the wearer without ever penetrating the armour. In which case, wouldn't a powerful enough non-penetrative round (.44 magnum?) still work?

And then there's the matter of ranges, who exactly you're expecting to come after you wearing body armour, etc. etc.

Most body armor today consists of both kevlar and hard plates. If the magnum hits a plate, its going to do little more than leave a bruise since those plates are designed to stop pistol rounds.

In a life and death situation, bruising and even broken bones aren't going to immediately stop someone. Anybody in a situation like that is going to be hopped up on adrenaline and will easily ignore broken ribs and bruises. They can even ignore actual gunshot wounds which cause severe, but not immediately lethal, injuries. Someone might be bleeding out, but till they lose enough blood to actually cause loss of consciousness they will still function well enough to be a threat.

A .44 magnum would be incredibly lethal to someone who isn't wearing any body armor at all, but if they have some it becomes a very dicey situation. Another problem with a pistol like that is they can be a little difficult to effectively put multiple rounds in a target, which is what you want. Lots of people also can't effectively use a pistol of that caliber. Size matters, but it is secondary to being able to put rounds on target in rapid succession. Which is why my motto is to use the largest caliber your body can control effectively.

Any type of body armor that uses plates is going to be highly resistant to pistol rounds because that is what it is designed to stop. The FN FiveSeven that Ouze mentioned is one of the few pistols that is designed to counter body armor(which is because it is essentially using a very small Intermediate Cartridge instead of a pistol caliber), and aside from edge cases like that a pistol is going to have extreme difficulty unless you get some obscure armor piercing ammo, which would be both rare and potentially illegal depending on where you are. But rifle and intermediate caliber weapons on the other hand will generally always defeat most body armor simply because they are orders of magnitude more powerful than simple pistol calibers.

Relying on simply injuring an assailant to stop them is a bad plan. Most likely they'll still be able to kill or maim you before they've stopped.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Cothonian wrote:
I'd prefer to keep it under $1000, but that might not be realistic. Seems like the majority of AWB compliant arms are very expensive.

God I envy states where you can pick up and AR or AK for $400. My dream rifle is an AK.

Alas, gone are the days of $400 AK's, probably never to return for a variety of reasons. $700 is the low end now, even for WASRs, at least in terms of new 16" barrel rifles. That said, $1k is doable.

If you have a good CA FFL that does transfers nearby, Atlantic Firearms has probably the best AK selection out there and does ship to CA (as long as you're cool with a $40 weird grip flap being stuck to the gun to make it compliant). If you're budgeting about a grand, either get a WASR from atlantic and have a bit left over to get a red dot or ammo too, or pick up one of their in-house built guns made from Polish WBP parts. Sadly I don't think any Arsenal's can be had for under a grand any longer.

That said, you *can* just pick up a bare AR receiver for $50-100, and build it to your desires (as they fit within CA law) and budget over time.

Alas, I live in CT, where all forms of AK and AR are effectively banned (except for the ARES SCR, as it has a shotgun stock which clearly makes it harmless.)

Honestly looking at a Mini-30 again. Yeah I said I didn't particularly care for it, but then again the last time I fired one was literally over a decade ago... I'm going to see if I can find one to test shoot. I already have a bolt action chambered in 7.62x39mm (CZ 527 if you are curious), could be nice having multiple rifles using the same cartridge.

I'll assume you're also unable to buy a decent pistol-caliber carbine?

Yeah, unable to buy that. In CT, any pistol where the magazine is forward of the grip is deemed an "assault weapon" and thus illegal. For example, the Mauser C96 is designated as an assault weapon and thus banned. For good measure, anything bullpup that isn't a shotgun is also illegal.

Any carbine/rifle with the magazine in the grip is also illegal (man I wish I had gotten my hands on a Hi-Point carbine.)

I don't mean to be difficult. Honestly there just aren't a lot of options. I kind of wish stripper clip fed firearms would make a comeback lol, as those are CT legal (since they lack a detachable magazine.)

You could always cheat the system. Get a Glock lower for a couple hundred bucks, buy a Mechtech rifle upper (minus the stock), and get a pistol wrist brace (Mechtech can be compatible with AR-style stocks).

It's then still "technically" a pistol, but will in all intents and purposes be a carbine.