I would also suggest that ammo hoarded is not a bad thing, if bought smart. Consider it a form of investment. If you KNOW you are going to shoot ~10k rounds/year it only makes sense to buy smart when you see a deal and stockpile it. That way you avoid the kinds of silliness that so many people got into during the shortage. I never once panicked or paid double for ammo at that time because I had shored myself up against such an eventuality.
Buy a 6920. Buy a Glock 19. Buy 20 magazines and at least 2k rounds of quality training ammo for each. Get an Aimpoint, a light, and a Surefire for the 6920. Get better sights, a holster, and a Surefire for the Glock. Train, compete, restock ammo, repeat. Eventually you may find value in a rimfire version of each. Get them at that time. Outfit them to match your 6920 and Glock 19. Eventually you will see the need to have redundancy. Get one more 6920 and one more G19 and outfit them to match your other guns. Keep a primary, serious use and a training/competition copy of each gun.
When surplus ammo was 15 cents a round, I wish I’d hoarded more of it. If I’d salted away a box for every one I sent downrange, I’d have quite a stockpile! Foolishly, I never considered what would happen if ammo prices jumped. I was having too much fun shooting!
Although I stand by comments about hoarding, I want to agree with the above poster who noticed that my 1000 round number was the absolute, sacred minimum–not a maximum. On the other hand, 5k + could be a sign of crazy-pants-ism.
I do echo Rob’s point about rimfire. I actually meant to include should get a good .22 conversion kit. I have an old Ciener that has run for years and years. Absolutely great way to get CQB practice and trigger time.
Colts are great, colts are well built and reliable. But I just can’t buy one when they’ve disregarded the civilian market for so long considering I can get a DD, Noveske or BCM that meets or exceeds the TDP.
Not negating your point, but I think it might be short-sighted to go too far down the “disregard” path. Colt isn’t any different than FN, HK or KAC in that their primary customer base and primary revenue stream lies with contract sales for the military and LE markets – not the general public. Should we really be surprised that they have tended to focus their efforts accordingly?
We would do well to remember that Noveske, DD and BCM didn’t even exist in the 70s and 80s when Colt was doing a very good job of satisfying commercial demand – and was the only source for anything approaching service-grade quality. It may be tempting to hold the 90s against them, but lest we forget, the political and legal climate was so toxic in those days that icons llike S&W and Ruger all but completely sold their souls to the devil by way of comparison. Even then, although concessions were clearly made, Colt still found ways of keeping the rifles available.
The market has changed for the better in many ways; even so, before you take too many shots at Colt, try to keep in mind that they are the only company that has offered the private citizen the possibility of owning an AR for more than 40 years. It is perhaps even more impressive that they continue to set the quality benchmark for these rifles today. Sure, I would agree that the folks in Hartford have made many mistakes over the years, but given the big picture, I’m still inclined to be just a bit more charitable.
Thanks for the advice. I am new to the AR world, your post says what all of us newbies need to know. I can afford the xtra stuff like mags and ammo but I like your keep it simple mentality
Hah! Good on ya. At least you admit it, you crafty Devil.
Had me goin’ there.
Truth be told, I’m somewhat of a 95% BCM fanboy (check avatar), but I do admit their guns are rough around the edges. My shooter has a cosmetic blemished barrel (unadvertised), a “bent” ejection port door that thankfully still locks closed, and some “scratches” inside the receiver that are ugly but are not in the area where the bolt carrier slides back and forth. Do I care? Yeaaaaaaaaah…maybe just a little. But I’ve put nearly a thousand rounds through the damned thing without any more cleaning than a wiping off with a dry paper towel and the gun hasn’t hiccupped yet. I used to own a Daniel Defense and although I’m sure it was a quality weapon I didn’t appreciate the fact that it was set up to almost force you to use a single-point sling without some modificiations. BCM M4’s may have some cosmetic issues but I’m a believer.
Okay, thanks for the YMMV disclaimer. Truth is I feel somewhat guilty for having almost exactly 200 mags in storage. My justification is that I cut my teeth during the 1994 assault weapons ban and so I’m very much oriented towards hoarding. The second thing is that I spent quite a bit of money on Brownells and D & H mags before I found a source (44mag.com) for genuine USGI mags. So I plead guilty but, DAMN, I do feel better with 200 mags versus 15. And in this I am not ashamed.
I think a lot of us went crazy because of the ban. I know I bought a lot of “pre-ban” 229 and Wather P99 mags at $50-$100 a pop for some reason. But AR mags were never really rare in these parts. Even 8-10 years in you could still find AR mags under most rocks. I am sure that had nothing to do with soldiers “losing” them. Either way, I really don’t worry about it anymore. If a ban came and I had 15 mags I probably wouldn’t worry about getting any more and just replace them as needed. Now that I think about it, I used to save my pre-bans and just shoot the post ban mags while training.
Again, I am trying to save people a lot of sillyness. Every one of these sins I am totally guilty of. You are talking to a man who owned 5 p7s at one time. LOL.
I want to say one thing about Colt. At one time I believed that they were the only quality AR available. My experiences during the 1990’s convinced me that there was Colt…and then everybody else. During a period when it seemed like it was either Colt or Bushmaster I was proud to see my Colts were 100% and I was disgusted that my Bushmasters were unreliable knock-offs.
Having said that, over the years I have personally experienced and I’ve known a number of people who have had issues with Colt rifles. I am almost sad to even type that. But I can’t escape the impression that “something” happened at Colt over the years, and they just don’t put the football over the goal line every time.
Were I to seek out a Colt AR today, I would be more comfortable trying to get an early SP-1 than the latest M4. Yes, my bias is that I’m Old School and I’m more likely to trust something made 20 years ago versus something made last Tuesday, but I’m not smoking crack when I say that I’ve seen/heard of /read of/experienced more issues with Colt rifles of recent vintage than with some of the quality clones like BCM, DD, Noveske, LMT, and the like.
I would absolutely love to order a Colt M4 and be secure in the knowledge that I’m going to get the ne plus ultra of M4’s, but I just can’t have 100% confidence.
My one dislclaimer is that Colt maybe makes more guns and is therefore more likely to have problems, but I tend to think that’s rationalizing and I look forward to a day when Colt “gets it” and tries to make every weapon the best it can do, and doesn’t sluff off the lemons as “acceptable.”
I agree with most of your points here. Sticking to a conservative mindset when using deadly force equipment is a safe strategy overall. However, becoming too conservative also closes the mind. As the technology around us advances, so to does the art of war. There have been many great men who have adopted a certain philosophy and warrior creed from a previous generation, and due to their conservative thinking have failed to change with the times and were thus rendured obsolete in the modern age…some would argue Colonel Jeff Cooper was one such man.
Save a small portion of your resources to explore new weapons, equipment, and training philosophies. The primary purpose of an assault rifle is after all, a tool for war. The art of war changes with time, you are in constant competition with your potential enemy, and there is no silver metal for finishing second.
I shoot on average 5-10k rounds of rifle ammo per year. Almost all of it is in matches and classes, meaning I’m shooting with 10-20 other people almost every time I’m at the range. I run a monthly carbine match and a monthly practice session that combines to mean I’m supervising ~300 rounds/month/shooter across 20-30 shooters. Many of those other people are shooting Colts. I’ve been on this schedule for the last ~7 years or so. In that time I have seen one Colt AR fail. One. and what failed? The aftermarket barrel the owner installed was causing failures to extract. I talk to the instructors as those classes. Some of them I’m fortunate enough to call friends and can email and/or call when I have questions. In discussing this with them my experience matches theirs.
Your experience, or perception thereof, is your own and I won’t discount that, or bother trying to change your mind, but I offer the above as a counter-point to others reading this and perhaps thinking of using your post as justification for their own “as good as”.
While I agree with the basic premise of this post, I differ in my mode of thinking. My mindset has me believing that while, yes, it is probably good practice to have a back-up or spare, having a dedicated training/competition gun and a separate, “serious use” gun doesn’t really make sense to me. Training and competing IS serious use. I would rather use the rifle that I have properly inspected and maintained for 10,000+ rounds than the one that is set up identically but only has 2,000 “failure free vetting rounds” through it, and sits most of it’s life in the safe or gun cabinet.
Weapons maintenance is exactly that. Maintaining your weapon by not only cleaning it, but also by inspecting, repairing, and replacing worn or broken parts. Firing a weapon for 2000 failure-free rounds, then putting it in the safe is not my idea of “vetting” a weapon. Yes, it is reliable, but that is not a high enough round count to accurately gauge the weapon for when it does start to hiccup. There is a lot of information out there from trusted sources that have recommendations on when to replace certain parts, which is a great starting point, but every rifle is going to be different, and the particular way it is used and/or abused is going to add or subtract to the lifespan of the individual components. Quality components still wear out with time and use.
I do agree that having a back-up is a good thing, but every rifle is going to have it’s little quirks or variations, regardless of if you have 2 rifles with sequential serial numbers. While for the common man, these small quirks are infinitesimally small, it’s still worth knowing.
Personally, I own a PWS MK 110 SBR. While I can’t say anything for or against PWS, what I have heard is almost nothing but good things (other than the internet minions bitching about piston ARs), but again, all of this is second hand information. I bought it because it was cheaper than some of the other options I was looking at, and it comes with about 95% of the features that I was looking for in a new AR, and was going to replace on a different rifle anyway.
The one downside to the PWS rifle is that it has a proprietary BCG, which is about $350 to replace, including an affixed BCM gunfighter charging handle. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a flaw, but it is definitely a consideration to make, with the planning that I have to run this rifle pretty damn hard. The fact that the BCG is more expensive than most typical DI BCGs, and can only be had from PWS makes it the weak link of the rifle. It may never break, but if it does, well, I know of only one place that I can get one.
My pistol of choice is a G19 Gen3. There is an abundance of parts out there from different vendors and manufacturers, so pretty much for the life of the pistol, I’ll always have access to replacement parts for a reasonable cost, with reasonable availability.
Before this becomes too much more of a rant than it already is, my point is this: Yes, it is good to have a back up. No, don’t run it quite as hard as you do your primary, but never the less, you need to know how hard you can push a weapon that you plan on staking your life or the safety of your loved ones on.
