A couple months ago, just to be safe, I ordered some complete AR lowers from Palmetto. Price? $250 ea. Just ordered some factory blems, with Magpul stock/grips, for….$150 ea.

Things are changing, guys.

So, always having been fascinated with takedown firearms, I wound up with a Ruger PC Carbine and a PC Charger. Both guns take down into two halve, with a shank of barrel and some locking lugs that mate into a hole in the receiver. Here’s the issue – since the guns takedown and can be transported in pieces, it is entirely possible to have the exposed metal locking surfaces on both halves get dinged or damaged if rough handling occurs. And, lets face it, rough handling is pretty much gonna be they by-word of the apocalypse.

If youve ever come across an old shotgun case from the early half of the last century, you’ll see that the two halves of a shotgun were each given a separate padded compartment to keep things safe. While that is certainly an option today, I rather prefer not to be tied to a particular piece of luggage…I’d rather just drop my gun into my Bag O’ Tricks ™ and skeedaddle.

As it turns out, there’s an outfit that makes a ‘muzzle cover’-style cap that protects the mating surfaces on each gun half. Lets take a look:

One cap gets put over the lugged section of barrel, protecting it’s surfaces. The other cap is inserted into the corresponding locking recess, thereby protect it from dirt and debris. The two parts are simple plastic extrusions that, really, anyone with a 3d printer could probably fab up in ten minutes.

Do they work? Seem to. I haven’t bounced my guns around in my bag lately, but I see no reason it wouldnt work. Is it necessary? Beats me. For $17, I feel its a reasonable precaution. I mean, I could just wrap things up in an extra pair of socks or something and tuck them into my bag, but this is a more elegant and purposeful product. While I can see the potential for damaging occurring if those parts were unprotected, I can’t really say I’m all that worried about it. But, I’ve been wrong before…and I’d rather not find out the hard way when the Antifa torchbearers are running up the stairwell to my office and I’m wondering why the two halves of my carbine won’t click together.

As an aside, I’ve been pretty pleased with the Ruger 9mm carbine/pistol setup. I wish it were a locked breech mechanism in order to reduce weight, but then the price would be even higher. Still, been a good shooter for me thus far and I really like he takedown features.

Everyone has a few moments in their life where someone told them something and it turned out to be a nugget of wisdom that they carry for the rest of their lives. Years ago, I was talking to one of the nationally known weapons collectors and I asked him how he managed to find all these amazing deals. He said, “When you’ve been in this business long enough, you don’t have to go looking for good deals…the good deals come looking for you.” And he was right. The more I travel in particular circles and network, the more often the materiel comes to me rather than vice versa. Todays example:

Singlehandedly fighting The War On The War On Guns

WASR-10, 2 mags, and 400 rounds of ammo. Annnnnd….(wait for it)……….$425.

I was done…done I tell you!…buying guns at the end of 2020. My needs were (mostly) filled. I would have been very happy to just ride out 2021 turning money into silver and food, not thundertoys. And yet…here I am. Can’t really complain, I reckon…I bet I could double my money by summer.

The deals come looking for you, alright……..

As an aside, I’m not really an AK guy. I respect them for what they are, and I have an excellent milled Arsenal AK for my AK needs, but I think that anything an AK can do I can do just as well, and more accurately, with an AR. And although the AK has a record of reliability, I think that any modern manufactured AR from a good manufacturer is right up there in reliability…but with the advantage of better sights, better optics, better accuracy, better ergos, better aftermarket support, and better standardization of parts. However, I will say that in a world of short-range (MOUT) environments I can see a case for the AK for it’s chunkier bullet. Anyway…..

The deals come looking for you, alright……..

Minding my own business, not planning on buying any guns (especially a single-stack gun), and this came across my radar:

Actually, it didnt really come across my radar….the bloody thing came and found me. I got ‘The Call’ from the same guy that has been putting dents in my wallet for the last couple years now. He texted me and said if I wanted first crack at it, cmon down.

Ok, so who knows if Remington is ever gonna make more of these. And it is apparently a decent gun. And it’s like new in box. Punchline? $400.

Dude, I’m not even a 1911 guy! They’re fun guns, great range toys, but a 1911 is never my first choice for anything involving self-defense. I’ll take a modern-ish double-stack 9mm every time.

But….price was right, condition was good, brand was okay, and in this market any gun is a good value gun. But….I was so sure I was done buying guns.

As you may recall, Remington went into bankruptcy a little while back and several of their subsidiary companies were picked up by other people. Most notably, Marlin was acquired by Ruger. I think this bodes extremely well for the continuation of the Marlin product line. However, I was so excited about Marlin becoming part of Ruger that I failed to see the forest for all the trees. To wit: Remington is out of business.

Or is it?

Remington, as I understand it, is now part of Vista Outdoors and they’ve begun the process of starting up the plant tog et back to making guns. But…I’ve seen this before in the gun industry… a company goes under, a group of investors (or a single investor) buys it up and thinks they’ll just pick up where things left off, and usually after a short while they go out of business. Examples? Hmmm…AMT (The AutoMag folks), Wildey, Lorcin/Bryco/Raven, at least half a dozen lower-tier AR manufacturers, etc.

The reason I was thinking about this was because if Remington is, in fact, no longer ‘a going concern’, then one of the staples of the survivalist’s armory, the 870, may be living on borrowed time.

Name two of the most common, most well regarded pump-action shotguns. You said Mossberg and Remington, right? Sure…FN and a couple other outfits make some quite nice pump guns but for probably 90% of the gun buying population, when they buy a pumpgun its either an 870 or a 500/590. Easy.

So, I’m curious if perhaps it’s time to recommend the 500/590 over the 870 simply on the basis of future availability. Certainly existing 870’s will have virtually all their needs met by third-party markets. Remington 870’s are like Ford 9N tractors…you can build one virtually from nothing but aftermarket parts and never use an original OEM part.

Personally, I’ve got enough 870’s tucked away to completely remove en entire taxon of waterfowl… the death of the 870 will be sad but effect me minimally. I know there are Chinese knockoffs of the 870 and yours works flawlessly, but anyone who buys a Chinese copy of an 870 with the idea it’s “just as good as” deserves what they get.

I suspect that Remington as an arms manufacturer might be a little ‘too big to fail’…with its long history, highly regarded (at least, up until a few years ago) product line of stalwart designs, and high aftermarket support, it would make sense for future owners/investors to try to keep some of the flagship guns like the 870 in production. But…who knows? These could be the same goobers that gave us the R51, RP9, and that crappy .380 they came out with.

As I think about it, I am getting more and more respect for Ruger. They’ve managed to run their business better than Colt, Remington, and Winchester if bankruptcies and sales of ownership are anything to go by.

Should be interesting to see what happens…I will definitely be watching to see what happens to Marlin under Ruger, but it’ll also be worth watching to see if the 870 continues to be on the market. (And hopefully with better QC than what was slipping out the doors a few years ago.)