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[QKShooter]

My Assault Weapon and Me

Gun-banners cause us gun nuts to do funny things. They can pressure us into starting blogs to push back their lies. They can also make us buy guns or types of guns that we might otherwise not buy (the sales of .50 caliber rifles shot up in California between the time Governor Schwarzenegger signed the ban legislation and when it became effective). Who among us has not bought a gun or an accessory just to spite them? With every gun I buy, I think, “take that Brady Campaign.” This past October, their bans and lies helped push me to buy what they call an “assault weapon.”

The recovering liberal that I am, I never really liked “assault weapons.” I had a number of reasons all of them well thought out and yet mixed with emotional knee-jerk stuff. I wondered about the need for 30, 50, 100 round magazines. I did not understand why one needed a bayonet mount. It shot a round that is not good for hunting—a varmint round at best. The biggest reason dealt with the guns themselves. They have dull black finishes, rough spots that should be polished, and obscure levers and buttons.

You see I like fine old guns. I am a dyed in the wool traditionalist where my guns are concerned. I like blued metal and wooden stocks with nice figures in the wood. I don’t care if the finish is pristine. I can find as much beauty in a linseed-oil finished military stock as I do in a fine shotgun’s hand-rubbed Circassian walnut stock. In fact, nickel plate or stainless steel is just a little but too gaudy for me. Just as a side note, who could not like the wonderful, deep blue that Colt was able to achieve in the mid 1900s?

So what am I doing with an “assault weapon?” I started reading arguments on both sides of owning these guns and realized that the evil lies not in the gun, “ugly” though it may be, but in the operator. Besides, who gives anyone the right to ban any sort of firearm or accessory?

I bought a Bushmaster XM15-E2S Carbine (here is a catalog entry for it if you are interested). I wanted to buy it on September 14, 2004 as a personal celebration of the end of the assault weapons ban. Unfortunately, I had to wait for my paycheck and make sure the gun store had just the one I wanted. It had to be an “assault weapon” with everything that bunches up a Gun Fearing Wussie’s panties (or manties).

The one I bought has a collapsible stock, a bayonet lug, a normal-sized magazine, a flash suppressor, a protruding pistol grip—the works. The only thing I don’t like about it is the bayonet lug is situated too far back on the barrel support to ever effectively mount a bayonet. After all, the carbine was designed with a shorter barrel than they offer civilians--taxpayers who the government thinks can’t be trusted with a short-barrel rifle.

So here I am with a gun wildly different than all my others—no wood at all, a finish that only a sergeant could love, and a round that some people like Jeff Cooper call a poodle-shooter (see Volume 12 Number 12 among many others). And, I love it. It shoots like a dream, the ammo is cheap and accurate, and the gun-banners hate it.
What is there not to love (except for the bayonet mount)?

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Bud White]

Got to love it .. I think i need another Evil assult rifle

[P95Carry]

QK - hey - I can think of a few folks I'd like to have written just that - it's a cathartic sorta ''I saw the light''!! Or is it just - ''comin' out the closet'' LOL.

Good read - and I daresay there's a few folks bought this and that ''just because'' - tho the grabbers probably would not realize, or appreciate!

Bud - yep - time for another EBR eh - perhaps just (another) good ol' SKS would do!

[Bud White]

im thinking a AK variant

[Euclidean]

I must confess that I too tend to like the "prettier" guns but not because of their appearance, it's because that's what I like.

However I must also admit I greatly enjoy the fact that I own three military rifles, one of which is a sniper rifle and two of which are still in service in a large part of the world.

[AZG23]

im thinking a AK variant

yup...I was thinking this as well....it would..gasp! sit right next to the AR in the safe!! LOL!

[Bumper]

I have to confess I always thumb my nose at the Brady Bunch when I buy any gun. Especially when I buy an EVIL gun....

[Miggy]

Go AK people! I got tired of trying to save enough to buy me an AR clone (It seems that appliances and cars have a direct connection to bank accounts. Everytime I was getting close to the AR price, something broke down and the money had to be used.)
There is a guy in our club that shoots AK and I decided to ask him about the rifle. He was kind enough to fill me with lots of info and I took the plunge with a Rommy AK (WASR 10) that set me back all of $330 (Tax and all fees included.) The finish on the Rommys are not the best in the world but you can shoot it right out of the box and be happy. Tack driver? No, but it was never intended to be anyway.
You will have to work on it, I thought I had cleaned it pretty good but my first shot produced enough smoke that people thought it was an AK muzzleloader. I refinished the furniture, gave all metal parts a nice bath with brake cleaner, relubricated, subsituted the forend for a wooden pistol grip which I had carved finger grooves and made it more confortable for my hand. Added a recoil buffer, polished the trigger group and added some cheap red dot.
Now, I may sound like some professional gunsmith, but truth is this is my first rifle ever! The AK design is elegant in its simplicity and anybody can work on it without requiring the assistance of 3 mechanical engineers. If you are unsure, there are some good websites with plenty of information on how to do anything and fix almost everything with an AK. Parts (regular and aftermarket) are inexpensive and you can see the good old american ingenuity in some of the stuff available out there. And now that the Hi Cap ban is gone, you can find AK mags like crazy for as little as $10 for a 20 rounder and $12 for 30 rounders.

Are you a real handyman? You can build your own! Get the parts kit, the reciever (flat or already formed) and go at it!

WASR 10 A.K.A. "Mina"

[rstickle]

Guns should look evil....... Just so they fit the stereotype!!

[Tangle]

I haven't got past "cathartic" yet - guess I'll haveta look it up.

[scbair]

Great read!

Yep, I'll 'fess up, too. I prefer blued steel & walnut, but one day at a gun show, I saw this awful looking contraption. Seems the AWB had put the skids to the "evil" Tec 9, so the maker marketed the "AB-10." Supposedly, the "AB" stood for "After-Ban." Without the threaded muzzle of the older, outlawed version, it was legal (also shorter . . .). For the formidable sum of $160 bucks, who could deny themselves the pleasure of tweakin' the Brady "Panties inna" Bunch???

Now, I believe I can stand inside a barn, close all doors & windows, empty the 32-round magazine, and hit absolutely nothin' !!! Still, it's a keeper (heck, now that the AWB has sunset, who else would want it?).

[DirksterG30]

Here's a website that proves the anti's are full of lies when it comes to those nasty assault weapons:

http://www.assaultweaponwatch.com/

[HotGuns]

I too think that well built guns with fitted wood and parts that fit like a fine swiss watch are a joy to behold and I own several. Being a history buff, my milsurp collection seems to always be growing.

With that being said, when the craziness of the so called "assault weapons" banners became something that we heard just about every night on the news channels, I made the effort to collect everyone I could get my hands on. I guess I'm simple like that...

I've got the usual military look alikes that the liberal anti's that like to change the meaning of the english language seem to fear. That would include several AR's, AK's,SKS's, a G-3, the infamous Mac 9 and even several extended tube shotguns that they also seem to fear. If that dosent seem to faze the hardcore liberals out there, Im sure that my ample supply of ammo for each one would at least raise their eyebrows.

Its true...everytime some pinko socialist/communist decides that soemthing is too dangerous for me to have, it makes me want to have one. At the moment I am seriously considering jumping through the hoops to get a class 3 MP5SD...mostly just because I can.

If that upsets the timid folk out yonder, thats all the better...