One and Done AR Thoughts

DeutschlandUberAlles said:

Tried to get thru NutNFancy's review, UNWATCHABLE! This tactitool rambles on about his watch, the strap on the watch...............WTF!!!

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Product placement...


Some thoughts for you when making your selection:

1. Piston-driven guns run MUCH cleaner, but their gas blocks and pistons tend to be proprietary -- something important if one of the things you expect from the gun is SHTF prep/use. Key to this is that direct impingement guns, while they run dirtier, are everywhere … meaning there's lots of parts (I'm thinking gas blocks and gas tubes, possibly cannibalized from scavenged rifles, here) during potential SHTF scenarios where parts may not be available from the manufacturer, a reseller, or a distributor. Plus, you can readily fashion a serviceable gas tube out of an appropriately-sized piece of pipe with something as simple as a pipe cutter or hacksaw if you absolutely have to do something make-shift -- whereas fashioning an equally serviceable piston for a piston gun would be more difficult (sure, you could use a piece of rod and cut it with a hacksaw, but getting the correct hardness/strength rod would be the challenge).
2. Piston-driven guns run cooler during extended firing sessions.
3. Direct impingement guns are generally more suppressor friendly.
4. AR-patterned .308 caliber guns also tend to have proprietary parts, so if parts interchangeability matters to you, you probably want to stick to 5.56 NATO.

What I'm kind of driving at is that the guns that do certain things well (like run cleanly and cool-ly) don't tend to do SHTF well. One gas block crack or piston rod failure and the gun's done … probably with no way to easily fix it. By comparison, direct impingement gas blocks and gas tubes are all over the place and the latter is easily made. Thus, if your 'do it all well' scenario includes SHTF, you have an impossible task ahead of you … or you must make some hard choices (tradeoffs --- or you buy spare parts to account for potential failures in the proprietary parts in the gun). If, however, your 'do it all well' scenario does NOT include SHTF, then I think a piston-gun is the route clearly ahead of you … since their higher cost isn't an obstacle for you.

GeoNole94 said:

Although .308 is not a “traditional” AR caliber, it is certainly more potent than 5.56. A friend has one in 300 Blackout, which is pretty cool but pricey to shoot. I own two SIG “black rifles”, which is heretical among Colt AR purists right out of the gate. One is a conventional DGI M400 AR in 5.56 and the other is the gas-piston AR-AK hybrid 556xi “Russian” in 7.62x39. Ammo cost and availability were a consideration for both, and both have been utterly reliable. I have red-dot sights on both (SIG and Eotech). My $0.02

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I have an AR pistol with stabiling brace chambered in .300 ACC. It's my most expensive AR to shoot, but it's also the quietest to shoot when running suppressed. Frankly, I see no sense in a 300 blackout build unless you plan to run it suppressed...

I have owned an AR chambered in .308. I shot it so little that I traded it for a bullpup .308 I thought I'd like more, but it's seen little action, as well. Key to this is: when I want the punch and range of a .308, I find I also want the accuracy associated with it on a traditional bolt-gun platform. For that, my Remington SPS Tactical bolt gun (running suppressed on a Magpul Hunter700 stock) has been king. It's my go-to .308 rifle, and I like it better than my Ruger Precision Rifle (also chambered in .308), as I've found the Ruger's POI tends to walk all over the place when suppressed (but it was sub-moa out of the box, unsuppressed). I suspect it to be a barrel harmonics issue, by the way.

I'll probably be selling three of my four rifles chambered in .308 (once the market comes back) … specifically because I find myself always reaching for my tweaked SPS Tactical when I want to shoot .308. It felt worth describing/mentioning here in case it saves someone else the monetary pain I went through to learn this about myself.

I've had a pof upper (10.5") for about 8 years, about 4,000 rds that has run flawless in semi/auto/suspressed. There's a lot of new improvements on the newer revolution, lighter and slimmer. I can personally testify to their quality. it's even survived Jimbo's torture test a few times

The more I see/hear about the POF Revolution 308, the more I like it.




There's another vid, this guy talks about the San Bernardino PD having an all original POF Revolution 308 with over 60k rounds, and still shooting sub M.O.A. groups (under 1" @ 100 yds). They CAN'T wear it out, cause it to fail, or shoot + M.O.A groups.


I'm ordering the POF 308 Revolution this weekend, will decide on a 2nd gas operated AR in 5.56 soon.


The POF 308 Rev is a must have IMHO.

Lifesize makes an excellent point; overthinking this is pretty easy.
OP, First question; why .308? Unless you're hunting, probably no need.
As Watcher rightly noted, DI 5.56 guns are the norm; in some coming bad time, commonality of parts (even well short of SHTF) will be handy.
I always put in for range duty in my old Guard outfit; at the end of the day, range crew got to shoot up any unused ammo.
My M16A1 saw more than its share of mag dumps and rotsa shooting. It was dirty afterwards, but heat wasn't an issue. For a civvie shooting semi-auto, it just doesn't signify.

DI gets dirtier, but the dirt all stays in one place, and if you keep it wet, it will keep running. Fieldstrip is easy, as is cleaning.
Personal advice; just get a Colt M4gery or its pencil barreled cousin. It will be mil-spec (in the real sense), and a Prancing Pony will be worth more down the road. The logo and known quantity count.
Said Colts can be found for less than a grand currently; get a gun, 6-12 quality mags (GI are fine) and some factory ammo. Green tips are fine, and more is better.
Pistol caliber carbines are another question, and subsonic 9s can be suppressed. They are much cheaper to feed than a Blackout.
But enough advice for now.
Moon

I busted my AR cherry a few months ago. Had no clue where to begin.

I am not the right person to talk about quality ARs......so let’s get that straight. But I do like nice stuff.

So while you guys are talking about Ferrari’s and Lamborghinis, I bought a Chevy lol

Paid $300 for a new PSA, stuck a fancy $30 scope on it, and upgraded the trigger with a $12 spring.

Anyway, it goes bang, shoots well and is fun as hell.

I don’t have anything to add to this debate....but I will keep reading and learning from you guys.

But as much as I enjoy this AR, this will likely be my one and done one 🙂

DUA, There are SO many choices and SO many uses for an AR, my advice to you is to determine what you want to do with it, first. Choices can include any and all of the following, plus more I may not have thought of:

• Deer/mid-size game hunting
  Hog hunting
  Prairie Dog hunting
  Large Varmint hunting (Coyote is big in my area)
  Long-Range Precision
  3-gun matches
  Home Defense (inside the home)
  Zombie Defense (social break-down/Civil War/TEOTWAWKI)
  Range fun

A one-and-done AR can do 2, 3, or even 4 of these, but not all.

If I was closer to TX, I'd come over and build you one.