Category Archives: Rifles and Carbines

Syrian Jihadis Firing a .50

Here you have, perhaps, some of that nonlethal assistance we’ve finally given to Syrian resistance forces, after all the guys friendly to us were whacked by Assad or their extremist rivals, and nobody’s left to receive the goodies but guys who are either Al-Qaeda, Iranian stooges, or some new and even more extremist Islamist barbarians.

Hat tip Pat Dollard, who suggests this is “Obama sending Al-Qaeda Navy SEALs sniper rifles.” Steady on, Pat. There’s another possible explanation.

AS-50s in the hands of AI’s own shooters on BBC’s Top Gear program.

This “Syrian Resistance” propaganda video shows Syrian jihadis firing an Accuracy International AS50 semi-automatic sniper system. The AS50 is AI’s flagship weapon, and is only available to select governments; they don’t even have it on their website. (They do have the discontinued bolt-action AW50 and its successor AX50, which should give you some ideas of how they think about the extreme-range gun and its MG-sourced round).

This video (and possibly Pat’s story, uncredited?) led to a rather overdramatic article, calling the AS50 “the world’s most powerful rifle,” and attributing near-magical properties to the weapon.

The AS50 is a good rifle, but it’s not magic. It’s a similar capability to the Barrett M107 (etc.) and the Serbu BFG-50A, but at a multiple of several times the price. You could argue that it’s less powerful than those worthy guns, as it has a smaller magazine (a 5-round single-stacker, instead of the 10-shot double-stack the Barrett and Serbu share). There are claims that the AS50 is much more accurate, but if AI is making those claims they’re not making them publicly, and we defy you to find an independent test of a production AS50 on the net, let alone a comparo between it and its competitors. AI itself makes quite humble, realistic range claims for its other .50s (1600m). One AS50 strength is that it is more compact and lighter than the now-standard-issue Barrett. Lighter is relative; it still weighs substantially more than a general purpose machine gun, and three times the weight of most sniper rifles. Here’s another video (thanks again to Pat Dollard for finding it).

AI’s has had financial woes and has struggled to fill orders, even for US Government customers. Along with those customers, known buyers include the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. While Pat Dollard was right to flag this as interesting, he’s premature to blame the provision of this weapon on the Obama Administration; Occam’s Razor suggests that the Saudis, probably the second largest financiers of terrorism after Iran (and the largest financiers of Sunni terror), are the source of the Syrian jihadis’ weapons.

Some wonder, to paraphrase Hillary, what difference it makes who wins in Syria. The Assad regime, a bona fide terror sponsor, is the face of authoritarian evil, despite the admiration that the New York literary set always has for a dictator with a good line and some visual style. And his jihadi opponents, while they squabble among themselves over fine points of Moslem supersitition, are the face of totalitarian evil — even more dedicated enemies of American interests than their Baathist opponents.

We have no friends among Islamists of any kind, and it’s more than a bit tiresome to see the same persons, news agencies, and institutions who were trying to sell the idea of “Yuri Andropov, closet pro-Western reformer” in the seventies, now breathlessly peddling “the reformers of the Taliban/Syrian Jihad/Hamas/Pasdaran/Moslem Brotherhood”, the target for the new appeasement. Or collaboration. It’s bad enough that they were unchastened by their misread of Communism; “no one could have known!” they wail, as if we who knew and were shouted down never existed. But they pronounce confidently on what Islamists believe, without any understanding of Qutb, of the Wahhabi/Salafists, or of the Deobandi movement.

They do not want peace with us. They want us to submit. Or die. In that, they are much like the Soviets. But the Soviets were materialistic and practical; these new enemies cannot, unlike Khrushchev, Brezhnev or, yes, even Andropov, be deterred. They teach murder and even death as sacraments in their blood cult.

Yet that’s who the bozos in the foreign policy establishment and the national command authority have put forward as our new allies in the region. There was a time when there was pro-Western resistance potential in Syria, but that time was squandered, and the pro-Western students and professors were the first casualties of Assad’s Baathist crackdown, any survivors the first victims of Islamist purification. They now dwell in dungeons or graves.

When the Syrian fight is over, what happens to the AS50s? Simple, they’ll be used by terrorists against US and allied targets.

Serbu Firing-Pin Failure, illustrated

Serbu Firearms of Tampa, Florida has had a failure of the firing pin in their BFG-50A .50 caliber semiauto. It looks like this.

Here’s what Serbu said on their Facebook page, March 6th:

Bad news: Your BFG-50A firing pin may look like this.
Good news: You won’t even know it, because the gun will still fire!

Apparently a vendor didn’t follow the drawing and apparently we didn’t catch that fact. If your firing pin DOES look like this please contact us about a free replacement!

In the comments below the post, owner Jay Langston asked if that was indeed his hosed firing pin; Serbu owner Mark Serbu confirmed, and Jay commented that the gun did fire in that condition — 60% of the time. Not quite the “good news” Serbu trumpeted, but quite interesting.

Considering the failure, that’s a quasi-safe failure mode. The gun doesn’t appear to be made more dangerous (we seem to recall that the Serbu pin floats like an AR; a spring that required a return spring might be somewhat hazardous in this mode, possible to fire uncommanded on bolt closing, but remember too we’re talking about a .50 caliber gun; a light tap isn’t going to set those primers off). And the gun isn’t made completely inert.

Still, you might want to add a spare firing pin to your spare parts kit. (The wear parts on every gun are different, but good and cheap spares to have on hand are firing pins, extractors and springs, trigger-mech parts, and mag-retaining tackle).

It’s not unusual to find guns that have broken parts and still function. Once, we replaced a missing M16 extractor spring with a section of a twig of green wood; it got us through two days of range fires. Not recommended, but we had no spare parts kit (and immediately built one after that!)

The AR ancestry of the Serbu firing pin is evident here. (Like an AR, the BFG-50A also has a direct impingement gas system, although it works more like the original Ljungman than the AR; the bolt of the BFG doesn’t form an expansion chamber). The gun externally resembles the Barrett M82 (and its descendants), and it takes M82 mags, but that first fact (resemblance) is driven by mission — how different from a Barrett can a semi .50 get? — and the second (mags) is simply a common-sense decision on Serbu’s part. Ask any 7.62 combat rifle shooter how he feels about having three different box mags in stock. Now, the Serbu’s bolt mechanism is quite different from the Barrett (or from the AR).

Unlike the Barrett, we haven’t shot the Serbu yet. We shot the Barrett a lot at the range — it’s a blast to fire! — but never really had a tactical solution for a .50 semi rifle. It’s a niche gun. Or a plinker for the filthy rich — there is that angle. They look like a stand-up company.

It would be interesting to see just how they say the subcontractor that made the pin deviated from the drawing. It looks to us like the failure of the part was due to a flaw in the steel, or bad heat-treating. There was a small crack at first that then suddenly sheared (you can see part of the crack is soiled, but most is clean and fresh-looking). A flaw in the steel might have been detected by Magnafluxing or dye penetrant inspection, we think (dye penetrant is used more with nonferrous metals, because Magnaflux works fine on magnetic steels). Might bad heat-treat also have been detected by a sharp Magnaflux operator? We don’t think so. For stuff like that you have to trust your subcontractors’ processes and their integrity.

Subs that do aerospace work are often burdened with systems that make this kind of checklist-able compliance pretty routine. Despite that, you still get the occasional commuter propjet that crashes because someone sanded a propeller hub wrong, or small-plane cylinder that lets go at night over a cold, wet bay because somebody’s QA inspectors missed a big inclusion in the casting.

A good day at the range

This M&P 15 Sport resembles the gun we had, but ours had an M4-cut barrel -- on a civilian gun that will never mount an M203, a styling affectation.

This M&P 15 Sport resembles the gun we we were sighting in, but ours had an M4-cut barrel — on a civilian gun that will never mount an M203, a styling affectation.

Spent a good day at the range yesterday. Well, the range was part of the day. It wasn’t a usual range or a familiar gun, and gettiing there was half the pleasure.

We’re far away from home precincts, and don’t have our own guns. But friends are here to help, and to beg help — particularly with an M&P 15 (a Smith and Wesson AR clone) that had resisted taking a zero on its optics. We’d handled, but never shot, the Smith AR before, and this gun’s optics were new to us.

This is the Burris AR-332. Secret to sighting it in? Mounting it tight. The Fastfire was attached to the top rail.

The main scope on the gun was a Burris Tactical AR-332 and the sight, too was new to us, as was the backup red-dot Fastfire (also a Burris product). The night before, we did our homework on the glass and tried to do the same on the Fastfire, but the Burris website only has product information on the newer Fastfire II and III, and no user manuals even for those. We didn’t care about what Burris marketing had to say about the silly thing, we wanted instructions for adjusting it. Was that too much to ask? Evidently. The Fastfire was mounted to the Picatinny rail that’s integral to the AR-332.

We also had a few other guns to shoot. Now, as a rule of thumb, you get more done at the range, and you get it done more elegantly, if you’re only trying to do one thing. This is time to be the hedgehog, not the fox.

The AR-332s reticle (ours was black). The ring gives you a CQB sight, but you still have the eye-relief-sight-time issue with any scope.

The AR-332s reticle (ours was black). The dots give you holdover. The ring gives you a CQB sight, but you still have the eye-relief-sight-time issue with any scope.

The problem sighting in the AR-332 was simple. It wasn’t firmly locked on the rail. The S&W AR turned out to be a real tack-driver, and we soon had groups adjusted right where we wanted them for a battlesight zero with 55-grain M193-equivalent ammo.

We didn’t like the AR-332′s reticle. It has a bullet drop compensator, but this particular one was black, apparently unlighted, and was easily lost against a black bull’s eye; it’s also not obvious from looking at the scope whether the compensator is for 62 or 55 grain ammo (they have different part numbers). We’re sure with more experience, we’d get better at using the scope, but the premium price of an ACOG is worth the money in our book.

This is actually a newer FastFire II. For some reason, it couldn’t adjust below about 8-9 feet above point of aim at 25 yards.

We never did get the Fastfire dot sorted out. It is boresighted about eight feet above the target and there isn’t enough adjustment to bring it on. Anybody have a manual for a first-generation Burris FastFire?

We did like the Smith AR. It’s a simple, DI AR with no forward assist (a dead weight, in our opinion). It worked fine, accepted PMAGs, and handled well. Even the Okeechobee range staff, who see lots of guns, liked it.

There was plenty of ammunition available for range members and guests, at (post-crisis) reasonable prices. We do think they gave us a military and police discount, but we paid $12.49 for 5.56 ammo.

The Seminole Inn, 1946. Only the cars have changed!

Lunch stop enroute was the Seminole Inn, about the only interesting thing in Indiantown, FL. It was owned by the father of Wallis Simpson, later Duchess of Windsor, and contains one room where the Duke and Duchess once stayed (Palm Beach was more their style). It is quite venerable by Florida standards, built in 1926, and architecturally fascinating. The lunch was a dreadful, listless buffet, but the uniqueness of the setting made it enjoyable.

(This is a hastily published report, ~~we hope to add some images later, although we shot no pictures at the range~~ Done! -Ed.).

LWRC eyes Maryland exit

OK, so Beretta is considering leaving Maryland, Magpul’s already bailing on Colorado (while, RUMINT says, preparing to pour resources into crushing its Colorado politician enemies at the polls, in hopes of reversing the Hickenlooper Ban, and saving their corporate HQ and many of their employees’ jobs), Colt’s hinting at dumping its 150-plus-year residence in Connecticut, so why not LWRCI?

Most civilian gun owners haven’t seen the products of the company based on the economically backward Delmarva Peninsula, but the company operates in the high-quality niche of the ever-growing AR market. LWRC has had a long and convoluted history (it has been the Leitner-Wise Rifle Company and the Land Warfare Resources Corporation before its current iteration)

LWRC's entry in the Marines' IAR competition. Open to show the proprietary short-stroke piston system.

LWRC’s entry in the Marines’ IAR competition. Open to show the firm’s proprietary short-stroke piston system.

Its customers include the government itself, friendly foreign governments (LWRC supplies Britain’s designated marksman rifle), local police agencies and discerning individuals who don’t mind getting in the queue behind, say, Saudi Arabia’s $100-million order. They’re perhaps best-known in the market as dedicated promoters of the CQB-optimized 6.8mm SPC round in the AR. But, while their executives might be able to retire rich as Croesus just on their US and foreign military orders, they want it known that that’s not how they roll. They sent a key EVP, Darren Mellors, to testify to that effect in the Maryland Legislature, and his testimony is posted on the company’s Facebook page:

The direct jobs that would be lost if LWRC was move out of state belong to the least of your Maryland brothers and sisters. These are people and communities that have access to very few resources, who can’t simply drive to another county to find another job.

LWRCI will bring in excess of $130 million dollars into Maryland this year. This money is put to work in Dorchester County, one the most economically distressed Counties in MD, and the money is spread throughout the state through subcontract work to Maryland businesses, the purchase of capital equipment and technical services, the rental of properties, contracting construction for expansion, employee’s payroll dollars and corporate taxes. The millions of dollars we bring from outside of MD into the state do more to stimulate the economy than any scheme legislators or members of the State and Federal executive branches ever could.

We have invested every dollar back into expansion and growth. We invest in our employees, training them in high tech skills like machining, programming, drafting and other skilled jobs. We use the Maryland institutes of higher education offering tuition reimbursement to our employees. Our goal from the first day of operations was to expand and build something of value, not take annual dividends. We have invested in Maryland, our communities, and its people.

This one where you really have to go to LWRC’s Facebook page, and — you know what we’re going to say – Read The Whole Thing™.

The testimony is quite lengthy and reveals, for example, that none of the 60,000 LWRCI rifles shipped to qualified buyers has ever turned up in an ATF crime trace. (Not surprising, really. Their market is not exactly the Chi-town gangbanger set, or the ATF’s own SInaloa Cartel Purchasing Authority). But the bottom line is in this question: “”

Mellors’s threat is not in the least veiled, unlike Colt’s or Beretta’s.

The legislation as written seems to be window dressing for political gain by a few in the face of ineffective crime control. The real issues of public safety as they relate to gun violence go largely unanswered. The MD government is making it clear through its actions with this legislation that we, nor Beretta nor other firearms manufacturers are welcome in MD. It sends the message that this is not the State to expand in.

This legislation also sends a clear message to MD citizens that wish to exercise their rights under the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution; that they are no longer welcome in MD. For criminals, it will be business as usual. As such, if this unconstitutional ban passes as written, we will comply with your wishes and move our companies out of Maryland along with as many employees and their families that wish to go.

He signed off “Respectfully.” That seems to be the one insincere word in the whole thing, unless he’s referring to respect for constitutional state offices, not for the bozos that currently occupy them.

Reportedly, the de-facto one-party state legislature, and Governor Martin O’Malley, have told their supporters that “LWRC can’t leave because they depend on government contracts,” and they’re pulling in chits with the Obama administration to cancel LWRC’s USG and FMS orders if the company moves. That would be a blatant violation of the DOD’s arcane but toothy procurement regulations, and would lead to the mother of all contract-cancellation lawsuits. That’s even before the market reacts to pick up the government’s slack. The USG only uses about two to two-and-a-half million AR-type rifles, total, for all services and agencies, and that’s the fruit of 60 years of AR-buying. Civilian sales of ARs were running at a million a year before the re-election of the man with the ban on his mind.

If you strike LWRC down, you will only make them stronger.

Here’s a rarity from GunBroker: M16A1 Carbine cutaway

The M16A1 Carbine upper is cut away to show the workings of the gas system and locking mechanism.

Long after the XM177s were gone, and before we got the first weapon called an M4 (which had a fixed, M16A2-style, carrying handle) there were “M16A1 Carbines” and “M16A2 Carbines.” These weapons were made for export and for very limited US military markets — mostly for special operations “mobs for jobs”. To see one today is pretty rare. To see one professionally cut away is rarer. So you can see one in this post, or at least, its upper.

Ever wonder what a gas port looks like inside? Or what you’re actually pressing on when you adjust an AR-15′s front sight? Here’s your answer.

You can also go to the source: GunBroker, where you can actually buy it, if it’s worth $1,200 to you (or more if the bids get rolling).

For you cheapskates who won’t buy this, or impoverished taxpayers who can’t buy this, you can at least look at these pictures and perhaps use them when you instruct on this weapon. There are more pictures at the link, also.

The gun appears to have been of circa-1970 manufacture; one interesting feature is a 1960s-vintage C MP B marked barrel. That’s one of the early Chrome Bore barrels; the barrel marking was changed to C MP CHROME BORE in the early 1970s. A C MP B marked 14.5″ barrel is quite a rarity these days, compared to the later C MP CHROME BORE variety. (Even rarer is the mid-sixties C MP C marking, which indicates a chromed chamber, but a non-chromed bore).

Bolt Carrier Group cut away to show the internal gas chamber — and charging handle cut away to expose the BCG.

Ironically, the early M16 parts, once unloved orphans as Class III owners, police departments, and private collectors updated their arms, are now hunted by an obsessive legion of retro-heads. But they’re no good to anyone if they’re cut away.

Unless you’re one of the minority who has a use for a cutaway curiosity piece, new to you.

AR vs. Feral Hogs

From CNN, of all things. And played basically straight; Hal Shouse, who drives his “Hambulance” as part of the feral “Hog SWAT Team,” which is what he calls his one-man (plus paying customers) hog-eradication firm, explains that he could eradicate hogs with a single-shot rifle, but not nearly as effectively as he does with an AR. And CNN reports, with much less editorializing than we’ve come to expect from them.

It’s almost as if they want to start doing news again.

Hat tip: this week’s W4, The Captain’s Quarters.

Effect of Smaller Mags on Rounds Fired

It’s become conventional wisdom, but do larger magazines really affect your ability to fire X number of aimed shots in period Y? Here’s an experiment, with Sheriff Ken Campbell refereeing as an experienced shooter (Jim) and an inexperienced one (Christy) fire with several magazine configurations. The results are eye-opening. Jim and Christy each tried putting 30 rounds downrange from a bog-standard Glock — first as two 15-round magazines, then as three 10-rounders, and finally as five 6-round magazines, a configuration that only Andrew Cuomo (D-Apalachin Summit) could love. Here’s what it looks like:

As you might expect, the experienced shooter outperforms the novice — by a couple of seconds, which is also the difference between the most convenient (two mags) and least (five) reload situations. In terms of real, practical, difference… there isn’t any. It’s simply a matter of convenience, not necessity.

The video also demonstrates AR-15 10-versus-20-round mag performance, and how the “New York Reload” (brainchild, as you may know, of fabled NYPD marksman and gunfighter Detective Jim Cirillo, of the legendary Stakeout Squad) means you can put equivalent lead on target even if your weapon is a 6-shot revolver, simply by using an array of pistols instead of just one.

You can quibble with some facets of the video — it looks like the pro shooter in particular is firing more rapidly when he’s shooting from the smaller mags — but one thing it does show is how fast even a relatively inexperienced shooter can reload. And like most physical activities, most humans can do it faster with practice.

They also don’t make it entirely clear why a home defender might want a larger mag, especially in a tactical carbine; they just assert that he does, while an opponent might argue that their own video disproves that. Let’s take a moment to explain what we think they meant.

In the military, there were times when we had a limited supply of larger standard-capacity mags (30) or even high-capacity mags (40, 90, 100 rounds – we tried them all) while most of our mags were still the Vietnam era 20s. We used larger mags for an initial burst of fire to achieve fire superiority if ambushed, or to lay down “to whom it may concern” suppressive fire, for example, in order to break contact. And we also took advantage of the larger mags when dealing with multiple targets — the classic example is in the shoot house with several shoot and several no-shoot targets (hostages and hostage-takers, for example). The private citizen’s version of this nightmare is the multiple-offender home invasion. Having access to standard-capacity mags increases his chances of survival and success.

Hat tip: Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. The video was produced with funding from Armalite.

Why we Criticize Police Training, Number Umpteen

You’ve gotta be a pretty big bozo to get made sport of — internationally. But the web makes it possible, and a SWAT team of incompetent cops is being taunted from here to London — even in the working class English tabloid, the Daily Mail — for not knowing their weapons, and assembling one improperly. First, we’ll describe the incident; next, the picture; then we’ll get straight to the mockery.

The Crime and the Consequences

The incident was a serious one, and needed more police professionalism than these guys showed, but it ended well — with the multiple-shooting suspect dead as a mackerel, no cops dead, and no more innocents shot. (The FBI did lose an agent, but he was a K9). But it seems that the could-have-been-worse outcome was despite, not because, of the untrained clown car SWAT team that was deployed on site.

Nobody knows why the guy snapped and shot the people he shot, but he fired up a barber shop, and then went on to an oil-change-and-lube business, killing six and wounding more at these everyday venues. Cornered by cops, he was finally killed when twenty of them swarmed into an abandoned bar from which he was firing. All the information you need is here and in other links on that site.

The Picture and the Problem

Here’s the picture causing the ruckus.

Did you see what’s wrong with the picture? The TV station that took it didn’t. But his EOTech holographic sight is on backwards. (And we’ll bet an EOTEch it had either no batteries, or dead batteries in it. An EOTech has a very short battery life, if switched on, compared to the red dot sights that are more common).

Clue for cops everywhere: If the on-off switch is on the face of the EoTech away from you, you may have a problem. Clue Number Two: If you can only see the hologram reticle when you have a cheek weld on the flash hider, and the buttstock is 30-odd inches away from your face, you have a problem. Like feet, EOTechs go on with the ankle on the rear side and the toes forward.

This not only means he didn’t know how to assemble the rifle, it also means he deployed with a weapon that wasn’t zeroed. (You can’t zero a backwards EOTech. You can’t see the hologram of the reticle).

Then again, in our experience, most police EOTechs are used as carriers for dead batteries anyway.

The picture of the cop with his EOTech on backwards has caught worldwide attention. Let’s let the Daily Mail jeer at the Colonials, shall we?

A SWAT team in upstate New York is being mocked as an example of the difference between military and police training after an officer was captured peering through a backwards sight on his combat rifle. As users on the military Reddit were quick to point out when the image was posted, the reverse sight makes it effectively useless. Users mocked the SWAT officers training and some went so far as to question the motives of some of the men serving in local law enforcement.

“The officer is using a military style assault weapon with a close quarters combat sight that costs roughly $500. It’s disturbing to think that 1 none of his buddies corrected it, and 2 hes in a real-life situation with his optic on backwards, which means hes never fired that rifle with the optic on it, which means it isnt zeroed and he thought it was OK to show up to a gunfight with an unzeroed weapon,” wrote one Reddit user.

Joked another: “So much tomfoolery in this photo. You sure this isnt a screen shot from the next Three Stooges movie.”

via SWAT officer attracts ridicule after he¿s pictured with his rifle sight on backwards | Mail Online.

Now, there were ultimately no consequences to Officer Gun Bozo’s beginner miscue. Despite the backwards sight, the standoff ended with the gunman killed and no reports of innocent bystanders being accidentally shot by SWAT, so this passes the “all’s well that ends well” test. But really. Somebody grab that cop by the stacking swivel and square him away. Please. Next time, he might need to aim that thing.

The good people of the Mohawk Valley in general, and Herkimer in particular, apparently didn’t get enough abuse from the deranged gunman and the cops failing to master EOTech 101 on the way to the call-out. No sooner was this standoff over when Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-Five Families) rolled into town for a campaign photo op, for the Cuomo 2016 presidential campaign that the poor guy doesn’t know has already coded from self-inflicted gun injuries.

The good burghers, many of whom work at Remington in nearby Ilion, booed him. Never assume that all New Yorkers are like X because their Manhattan/Albany political celebrities are X.

A thousand dollar AR barrel?

As we write this, the auction isn’t over yet, but $1k for an original AR-15/M16 barrel is a distinct possibility (the auction’s up over $900 already). Whatever price the auction finally stops at — which should be before this post goes live Monday at 0600, so we may update — will certainly be a record for a mass-produced M16-series barrel.

Barrels have been in increasingly short supply since an ATF ruling suddenly reclassified barrels as non-importable parts, even ones like this that were made in the USA. This is contrary to the letter of the law, but the Congress and the courts have given ATF bureaucrats very great latitude in how they interpret the law.

As a result, gun parts kits have only been imported without barrels for the last several years. And in a parallel Obama Administration initiative, the military has ceased disposing of barrels and other parts by sale, but has demilled them at great expense instead.

Cast FSB (no forging flash) and non-chrome-lined barrel. (Click to embiggen).

But still, what’s so special about this barrel? Two things: it’s a relatively early barrel, and it’s unfired, both of which are extremely rare. Hundreds of thousands of these barrels were made, but few survived; the military replaced them when the rifles went to depot for maintenance. This barrel predates the chrome bore and even the chrome chamber, which were production-line reactions to Vietnam maintenance and reliability issues. It also contains the cast front sight base, which was only used for the first few years of production and was soon replaced by a forged part.

Bottom line: this is a necessary barrel to build an accurate early M16 clone, or a Project Agile weapon. It is also the barrel someone would need to restore an early Colt AR-15 SP1, guns that have become expensive collector items in their own right. So a lot of people want it. At this writing Sunday night, eight different bidders have bid it up to $916 and there’s still three hours to go. (There’s usually a flurry of bids at the end of an auction, unless an earlier high bidder is already way up high).

Retro M16 XM16 Colt 602 through 603 barrel – UNFIRED

This is the last of my retro parts AND YES I saved what I believe to be the best for last. This is an original Colt 602 through early 603 barrel that is UNFIRED with original cast front sight post. This barrel has never been on a rifle, has not been refinished and would be virtually impossible to upgrade upon.

If my information is correct, this would have been used approx. 1963 through 1966.

These barrels are very hard to find now in any condition. If you are building an early retro black rifle this is as good as it gets. Bid now, because there are very few of these out there (that anyone is willing to part with) and I have never seen another offered in this condition. I bought this years ago for a future retro project that now looks unlikely due to my Connecticut lawmakers; this is the only one I have.

via Retro M16 AR15 Colt 601 602 603 barrel – UNFIRED : AR15 Parts at GunBroker.com.

Certainly the current AR-15 feeding frenzy is also a factor. We were actually planning to bid on this, but we were expecting it to go for around six hunge… obviously our market calibration is out of date. (And if you think barrels are crazy, check out reputable bolt carrier groups… if you can find ‘em).

The seller is known to us; we’ve bought other retro parts from him (barrels, actually, if we remember right) and he always treated us right. We are glad to see this windfall going to a deserving fellow. We always liked his clear photos, like these. And the GI blanket background was a nice touch.

Update

It did indeed go over one large… $1,035 to be exact. That’s definitely a record. Will it go down into the retro parts record books… or will it soon be broken?

Five Guardsmen in the guardhouse

Five Tennessee National Guardsmen — one of them a cop in his civilian life — are jammed up for boosting a few M-16/M-4 magazines. Well, more than a few. Almost 800, actually.

We don’t know anybody who got home from the service without a mag or two in his gear, and generally the mags, which were originally conceived by Stoner, Sullivan et. al. as disposable, are not closely accounted for. They’re treated as expendable items, because they’re not that durable, not particularly valuable, and absent the weapon and ammo, they’re inert as a brick. But the Army does pay $9.31 for each one, and while Big Green turns a blind to you ETSing with a couple or three in the bottom of your duffel bag, they really have to do something when hundreds of them fall off the proverbial truck.

SSG Walker

The Jackson Sun has had several reports on the February case. This is the most comprehensive:

Five National Guard soldiers have been arrested in Lexington, accused of stealing and planning to sell high-capacity magazines that are in demand because of a proposed federal ban.

PFC Walker (the cop).

Lexington police were notified by the commanding officer of the 251st Military Police Company on Feb. 13 that the Tennessee National Guard Armory in Lexington was missing 798 30-round, M-4 magazines, according to investigators.

Almost all of the magazines have been recovered, authorities said on Thursday. The magazines did not contain any ammunition. A spokesman with the Tennessee National Guard said that ammunition is not stored at Tennessee armories as a matter of policy.

Sp4 Camper. He is not a happy Camper!

With the assistance of Guard personnel, Lexington police developed suspects in the case, which led to the recovery of 593 magazines the day the theft was reported. On Feb. 15, 200 additional magazines were recovered.

The five soldiers have been charged with theft over $1,000, which is a Class D felony, in connection with the case.

Staff Sgt. Richard B. Walker, 42, of Clifton; Spc. Jeremy E. Camper, 32, of Scotts Hill; Spc. Ronald G. Clark Jr., 38, of Lexington; Spc. Ryan M. Bromley, 24, of Reagan; and Pfc. Jonathan M. Walker, 38, of Bells, have been charged.

And Sp4 Clark.

via 5 soldiers charged in gun magazine theft; Empty 30-round mags were stolen from Lexington armory | The Jackson Sun | jacksonsun.com.

No word on whether the Walkers are related. The junior Walker is not only a pretty elderly PFC, he’s also a Bells police officer. The Sun was unable to find out what his status with the department was, but we’ll go out on a limb and suggest that he’s probably suspended for now.

We found the mag-theft-ring’s mugshots in this story, but there’s none for Bromley. According to the most recent update, they all have been arraigned, and they have another date in court on April 2.

We’re trying to run down a rumor that these fine gentlemen are assigned to a Guard Military Police unit at that armory. Lord love a duck.

WeaponsMan

Quiet Professionals, Noisy Machinery