I mentioned a few posts back that I had put together an entirely ODG (olive drab green) AR. I like the color, it goes well with everything, and, honestly, black rifles get a little boring. On the other hand, finding accessories in basic black is a piece of cake. Finding accessories in ODG, however…that takes some work. Well, thats not really true…what it takes is money. But, Zero wanted an all-green gun and, dangit, thats what Zero got.
Sling – MagPul M4 Sling
VFG – Magpul VFG
Rails – Timber Creek aluminum rail segments in ODG
Sights – Magpul BUIS in ODG

I’m a bit disappointed that the QD socket attachments were only available in black, but you can’t have everything. I’ll be swapping out the muzzle device for some sort of QD-supressor-compatible device as soon as I figure out whats available. And, the glaringly obvious glaring barrel might just be left as is..or it might get the rattle can treatment…we shall see.
And since TPIWWP:

Well, quieter, anyway.

You guys remember last month when I missed out on an auction for a fixed-sight, full underlug, 4″ GP-100? Yeah, that was a bit of a heartbreaker. But, I’m soothing my feelings with this:

It’s from 1995 but is in very nice condition. For those who aren’t familiar with this piece, some background may be in order. Fixed sight variants of the GP-100 are a bit hard to find. Most of them were made for police/security contracts, including a .38 Spl DAO version for the NYPD. They were available in a couple variations – stainless or blued, full or half underlug. Ruger catalogs a 3″ variant these days in stainless, but the 4″ don’t show up much. Century Arms re-imported some stainless half-lug DAO versions a while back and they turn up on GunBroker, but I’d prefer to have the option of single action as well as double action.

Anyway, this gun is gonna get some cleaning and then its time to head to the range and see how it shoots.

A while back, one of my vendors was closing out KE Arms complete polymer AR lowers. These things are the successor to the old(er) Cavalry Arms poly lowers that were available years back. I wound up going pretty deep on these things and have about 20 of them sitting here. If you shop carefully, you can wind up putting together a deliciously light carbine. My vendor was selling two different flavors – the basic black with mil-spec parts, and a OD green model with razoo trigger, ambi mag release, and a couple other nice features. I picked up two or three of those. Here’s the problem – I hate mismatched colors on guns. I fully understand that two-tone guns can look quite striking and cool…but when it comes to AR’s (or carbines in general) I really would prefer them to be one color or pattern. A green upper receiver on a black lower just seems so….kitchen-table-assembly ghetto. Yeah, its a snob thing. Sure, I could have just pulled an AR off the rack and had it sent to the guys at Blue Line with instructions to green it up, but I figured if I waited long enough I might find one.

Turns out that when it comes to getting a factory-produced OD upper made by a major manufacturer…its a stretch. Do a hunt for a colored AR AR of color and you’ll see that most outfits just color the furniture. Want a green AR? No sweat…everyone sells an AR with some OD Magpul furniture….stock, handguards, pistol grip…..but the actual lower and upper are still black. Not what Zero wants. Before you start commenting about how so-and-so runs off lowers in various colors, please not that Im not saying they arent out there. Im simply saying its not an easy thing to come across assembled uppers in ODG. (Aero, for example, puts out colored uppers but there are not assembled.)

However, patience pays off sometimes. I found a ‘take off’ complete OD upper made by SIG on GunBroker. I put a bid in on it and won. So…time to ‘assemble’ another AR.

I had mentioned, a few posts back, that I impulse picked up a Poverty Pony lower that had been registered as an SBR by the Iron Mountain guys out in Potomac. Since I had a ‘wrist braced’ JAKL ‘pistol’, and the the JAKL uses a 95% (have to use a slightly modified bolt release paddle) standard AR lower, this seemed like a good opportunity to turn the wrist-braced-pistol into what nature and man intended it to be – a stubby carbine with a real stock. And thus, this happened:

Pretty cunning, innit?

The JAKL (and the AR-180) [and by extension the Sig MCX] are interesting guns from a survivalists perspective because the have almost all of the AR’s ergonomic benefits and modularity, while removing one of the AR’s (questionable) liabilities – the buffer tube making folding stocks impractical.*

Unless youre driving around in a GMC van with three of your war buddies, dodging the military police for a crime you didnt commit, the utility of being able to fire your carbine with the stock folded is something that doesn’t seem like a frequent need. Not saying it won’t happen…hallways and stairwells exist, but as a general sort of thing…not a frequent need. However, being able to reduce your carbine to a compact, easily storable, portable package…well thats a different story. This particular package will just barely fit, assembled and ready to shoot, in my Bag O’ Tricks ™ (admittedly not leaving me room for much else).

I'[ve become rather fond of SBR/SBS’s in the last year or two. Their compactness and handling of a short barrel, combined with the steadiness and rigidity of a ‘real’ stock (as opposed to wrist brace), just feels quite good in the hands. Obviously there’s a tradeoff with a shorter barrel, but for the distances at which such an arm could reasonably be expected to be employed the differences in exterior and terminal ballistics will be niggling.

First choice for running out the door when Der Tag kicks off? Nope. But when that time does come its a nice choice for keeping in the truck when quick handling goes from ‘nice to have’ to ‘best practices’.

And, as you can see form the picture, I’m starting to drop red dots on pretty much everything, although iron sights for backup are a non-negotiable.

*= Keywords here: impractical and practical.

I was thiiiiiiiiiis close. And someone snaked it out from under me about a half hour before I called the gun shop to say “Hey, do you still have this?”. What was it? Why, a 4″ Ruger GP-100 .357.

What is so special about that, you might ask? After all, aren’t there scads of 4″ GP-100s out there? Well, yes but…

I have long thought that an ideal ‘combat’ revolver, if a revolver can be said to be ideal for the rough and tumble of irregular warfare, would be a sturdy fixed-sight, full-underlug, stainless .357 Magnum. It would have no adjustable sights to get damaged, have a full lug to protect the ejector rod and give some weight at the front, be in everything-resistant stainless steel, be built on a large enough frame to handle a steady diet of .357 but not too heavy to inhibit fast handling,  be in the powerful and versatile .357 and still have the option to be fed with .38’s if thats all that was available. The only major manufacturer who made something like that was Smith and Wesson with their 681 series of revolvers built on their L-frame*. An excellent gun it has been out of manufacturer since the 90’s. Ruger, though, once in a while, drops a fixed-sight variant of their GP-100 and thats what your buddy Zero is looking for. The 3″ variants are easy enough to find, and there are some 4″ DAO re-imports that century brought in a while back, but the full-lug versions are scarce.

One of my ‘Grail guns’. Still looking.

I came across an auction last week for a half-lug version and I’d take that over nothing. But…I missed the auction deadline and the store that had it for auction sold it shortly before I called. Dang it.

I would much rather run through the apocalypse with a Glock or HiPower, but if I were to carry a revolver, and I were expecting trouble from things that had language skills, this guy would be a top contender.

*= Yes, Smith ran of some oddball, very-limited-run .357’s with fixed sights on their N frame. (Most notably, the 520.) But the numbers are small enough that they may as well be non-existent. Also, the 520 was blued. There was, I think, a fixed sight variant of the 627 out there but N-frame is bigger than the handier L-frame and I don’t believe it had the full underlug.

The weather warmed up a bit, and the snow has turned into a a slushy mess so…lets go shooting!

First off, I got to shoot the Ruger RXM Glock-clone. It shot just fine and, I thought, was pretty accurate. I also swapped a threaded G19 barrel into it and shot it suppressed. The SIG suppressor I picked up has  been giving me some issues on the RXM and my G17… I think the spring in the booster needs to be changed out for a different one. Need to investigate that. Other than that, the RXM was very nice. I think Ruger may have finally created a centerfire autopistol that the public will want.

After that, it was time to try out the stubby 11.5″ S&W AR. As predicted, it was a little noisy. Threaded the Griffin Abyss suppressor on the end and that tamed it down quite a bit. An interesting gun, and certainly a niche piece, but I have to say the short barrel with the suppressor on it brings the gun to the same size as an unsuppressed AR, but with the advantages of a suppressor…pretty nice.

Last gun to play with was the Angstadt Arms 9mm AR which was a lot of fun to shoot. 9mm carbines are just plain fun. I had a three-lug adapter on the end of it so my Obsidian9 just snapped right on. Then it just sounded like a nailgun. And, again, a lot of fun.

I also helped a friend sight in their new Ruger AR556 MPR. This is a gun I very much like. I don’t think you can get anything better in it’s price range. It has Ruger’s cleaned up 452 trigger, a rifle length gas system, and 18″ 1:8 barrel, and a nice brake on the end. A pleasure to shoot. Strong recommend.

Any day at the range where you don’t come back with more holes in your body than what you started with is a good one. Wet feet aside, I had a good time and it really has been too long since I’ve gotten out to the range.

So, overall pleased with my purchases although I’d like to shot the RXM some more to see how it performs after I adjust the sights a bit.

Dang it…almost made it two full weeks.

The year is 3.84~% done and…well….It had been __0__ days since I bought a gun.

Quitting purchasing guns isn’t hard…I’ve done it a dozen times.