I got in the habit of running a handgun for HD when I lived in a 1920s Victorian-style home that I swear had half it’s square footage used up in half-flights of stairs (3 stories, so 6 half-flights), in a situation like that the manueverability penalty of any long-gun is absolutely untenable. I’ve since downsized my lifestyle (read: got screwed by the economy like everyone else) and now live in a 900 square foot apartment. While the layout is MUCH more conducive to facilitating the use of a long gun, I still run a handgun for three reasons.
- It’s what I’m used to, it’s what I have confidence in, and I have waaaaay more hours training with a handgun (I used to be in the law enforcement game myself) than with a rifle.
- Contact ranges would be close enough that I figure I’m more likely to have sight-bore offset problems than not with an AR (since the longest shot in my apartment is around 7 yards).
and 3. At 7 yards or less, I’m confident a 9mm or .45 autopistol will be effective and accurate enough, ballistically speaking - it should also be a lot less rough on my hearing.
If anyone comes in and I’m involved in a firefight requiring me to go through a 30 round mag and possibly multiple mag changes thereafter, I probably wouldn’t be able to sustain that kind of fight. I suspect that my home invaders at that point are not looking for my extensive amount of cash and valuables, (did I mention I’m a teacher), but may very well have the ability to call in a fire mission on me, in which case I’m done!
Believe me when I say I totally get that attitude and agree wholeheartedly.
I’m going to simply run it and just wipe down the bolt and clean the gas tube, and mark when I have my first stoppage. I don’t know how empirical that is but it will be interesting for me none the less.
That’s actually not a bad AR reliability litmus test. Let us known your results when you finally do hit that first stoppage.
I don’t know what the install process is like. I am at best a tentative “tool guy.” Worst come to worst I’d have a buddy of mine who’s really into AR’s install the kit.
In terms of the actions involved, the installation is incredibly simple. You remove the bolt carrier group from the rifle, remove the bolt from the carrier, drift out the extractor pin, pull the old spring and insert, plug in the new spring and insert, stick the o-ring over the spring, reseat the extractor and reinsert the pin.
There are, however, two tricky points in there, and I shall now share with you the benefit of hours (yes, HOURS) wasted, my sore fingers, and my extreme frustration:
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You must “click” the new extractor spring into the extractor - this is tricky because the spring isn’t really flat and will resist diagonally, just keep trying 'til you get it. You’ll know when you get it because the spring will no longer fall out of you hold the extractor upside down.
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Here’s where the trouble was for me, and I was shocked that no one else on the internet seemed to address this, installing the o-ring with the new extractor spring at the same time was pretty much IMPOSSIBLE because the resistance was so strong I couldn’t get the drift pin back in. What I wound up having to do was install the spring and insert by itself for a week or so to let the spring break in and then return to install the o-ring which, while still physically difficult, became comparatively much easier to do.
This may just have been my bolt, yours may be no trouble, but if you find yourself having a particularly difficult time installing the new spring and extractor together, try doing what I did before you press your fingers raw and throw fits along the lines of declaring to never again have anything to do with assembling AR parts yourself.
:mad::rolleyes: