We, as Americans, tend to cling to things. We are a nostalgic bunch. We love our 1911's, our M1 Garands and our 1960's hotrods. There's nothing wrong with that really, it defines us. But we also tend to cling to things for the wrong reasons. We get comfortable with something and we are reluctant to let go. Take the M1 Garand and the M14 as an example. We loved the M1 Garand so much that we refused to let it go. When the rest of the world was moving towards more modern rifles, we revamped the M1 Garand and came up with the M14, one of the shortest serving rifles in U.S. military history.
The M16 has been with us since the 1960's. When the M16 came on the scene, it was one of the most revolutionary rifle designs, ever. Why? Because it made use of aluminum forgings for major parts, plastics/polymers for the stocks, was super light weight and fired the newly developed 5.56mm cartridge. The M16, and all of its subsequent variants, became the catalyst for change in small arms thinking around the world, including being the primary impetus behind the Russians dropping the 7.62x39 in favor of the 5.45x39.
I served with the M16A2 in the Marine Corps in the late 80's and early 90's. My first center fire rifle was a Colt AR15 A2 Sporter II, which I still have in my safe. I love the AR15/M16. It's as American as baseball and apple pie. It's served as our nations primary combat rifle for 46 years, the longest serving rifle in U.S. military history.
Adcor Defense B.E.A.R.
The Army has started trials to find a replacement for the M4 Carbine. These trials will include rifles ranging from the FN SCAR, Remington ACR, Robarms XCR to updated versions of the M4 Carbine. Companies such as Remington are fielding revised versions of the M4 Carbine for these new trials as well as new comers such as Adcor Defense and their highly modified M4 style Carbine called the B.E.A.R.
Companies have been modifying the AR15/M16 for many years now trying to resolve "issues" with the direct impingement (DI) gas system. It seems the most popular modification is to replace the DI gas system with a gas piston arrangement similar to that found on the AR18/180. The only problem I have with these modifications is that it assumes there is something wrong with the DI system of operation. I don't believe there is, nor do many who have studied the performance of the M16 in combat.
As a matter of fact, many of these "fixes" to the DI system actually cause more problems than they resolve. The introduction of gas piston systems into the AR family of rifles has caused things like "carrier tilt", a problem that causes malfunctions and accelerated wear in many modified AR's. That's where companies like Adcor and the new B.E.A.R. rifle come in, they claim to correct all the problems introduced by other changes made to the AR's original system of operation. It's a vicious circle, we're now fixing the fixes on a rifle that had no real problems to begin with.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because I firmly believe that if we're going to test and adopt a new rifle the AR/M16 needs to be retired and replaced with a more modern rifle system. I say "system" because the modern warrior needs more than a rifle with iron sights on the modern battlefield. The M16 has adapted nicely to these ever evolving high-tech roles with various modifications, but it's time we adopt a rifle built from the ground up, using modern materials and engineering, for America's warriors. If we're going to replace the M16/M4 in service, let's do it right and not adopt a warmed over, "fixed up" AR15/M16. We owe it to ourselves and to our war fighters to give them the best we can make. I propose we stop with the endless modifications to the AR/M16 and build a new rifle that capitalizes on the lessons we've learned over the last 46 years with the M16 and come up with the next revolutionary rifle design.
It would seem the rumors from earlier this year about a new 1911 offering from Ruger were true. Ruger just announced that they will be producing a new 1911 pistol called the SR1911.
New Ruger SR1911 .45 ACP
The pistol will only be available in stainless steel initially and will have a MSRP of $799. For that rather modest amount you'll get many of the features you would expect on a slightly more expensive 1911 offered by other companies. Of course this is assuming the pistols don't sell for their MSRP and wind up selling for $700 or so, which they likely will after the market settles.
The new Ruger pistols sport a raised beaver tail grip safety, extended trigger, fixed Novak 3-dot sights, flared and lowered ejection port, commander style hammer and wood grips. The pistol is only being offered in .45 ACP at this time. The pistol doesn't appear to have front strap checkering which some folks may or may not appreciate. It also sports a traditional internal extractor vs. the external design used by S&W and attempted then dropped by Kimber.
The design appears to be tastefully done and lacks controversial features such as front slide serrations and an ambi-safety lever. I don't see any roll marks with lawyer speak or large loaded chamber indicators like on the new LC9. It seems to be a nicely done 1911 that would meet the expectations of many 1911 aficionados.
The U.S. Army recently conducted one of the most extensive studies into small arms performance in CQB (Close Quarters Battle) and published their findings. This study was conducted to answer concerns that some warriors were expressing in After Action Reports (AAR) post battle about the effectiveness of the 5.56mm NATO cartridge.
Ammunition and Weapons Tested
The test team not only tested M193, M995 (AP) and M855 "Green Tip", but they also tested a number of other loads to see if there were any improvements made to the combat effectiveness of the 5.56mm round by civilian companies.
In the 5th paragraph of the report, Major David LaFontaine makes the following statement which pretty much sums up what I've been saying about caliber selection for many years.
In the end, “footpounds of energy” is misleading, “stopping power” is a myth, and the “oneshot drop” is a rare possibility dependent more on the statistics of hit placement than weapon and ammunition selection. Effectiveness ultimately equates to the potential of the weapons system to eliminate its target as a militarily relevant threat.
In the end the U.S. Army found that no commercially available alternatives in 5.56mm ammunition performed measurably better than existing issued ammo (M855, M193, M995). This study was based on CQB effectiveness, and from the ranges of 0-50 meters all ammo tested performed similarly and none stood out as being clearly superior.
The M4 Carbine
Also worth mention is that during this testing the U.S. Army also tested the M80 7.62x51mm round fired from an M14 to compare it to the performance of the 5.56mm in CQB conditions. It performed in the same band of performance as the 5.56mm ammo tested. They concluded that in a CQB situation the 7.62x51mm round offered no measurable performance benefit over the 5.56mm round.
One more important note, they also concluded that "shot placement trumps all other variables". This is something I've been saying for years (and in some of my videos found on my YouTube channel). Take the weapon you can best hit the target with, then worry about what caliber it is. For me, I'm a fan of the 5.56mm and 5.45x39 rounds.
In the end we all must choose what best works for us. Hopefully this study helps some of you figure out the best choice for your home protection and SHTF rifle.
Growing up I've been a Sig Sauer fan. One of my very first high capacity 9mm handguns back in the early 1990's was a P226. I've always been something of a geek at heart, so back in the day I was such a fan of Sig firearms I used the handle "Sig" on my local dial-up BBS systems.
That was when Sig products were made in Germany and were known to be of the highest quality.
My Sig GSR 1911
Jump forward to the mid 2000's and things started to change, at least in my experience. I bought a P220 from my local dealer in 2005 and the gun had functioning issues. It failed to feed, failed to eject and exhibited pretty poor fit between the slide and frame. I was shocked, but I also figured it might just be a fluke. This particular pistol was made by Sig USA.
A few years later, I was excited to see Sig USA making a 1911. I raced to my dealer with money in hand for my very own GSR 1911 (seen to the right). This gun, much like the P220 I had several years earlier had all sorts of functional issues, including going full-auto. I immediately returned the pistol to my dealer after talking to Sig customer service and being treated poorly.
My Sig 556R
Wow, what happened? The company I once thought was the pinnacle of quality and customer service had failed me twice. Bad luck perhaps?
Jump forward to 2011 and the new Sig 556R 7.62x39 rifle introduced at SHOT Show 2011. Again, I couldn't wait to see this rifle. It promised to be everything I wanted in a carbine. Small, light, .30 caliber, uses AK mags which are cheap and plentiful, fires cheap Russian ammo, Sig quality... SIGN ME UP!
My dealer orders two rifles in. I get the call to come pick up my rifle. Once I get there, I pop the box open and see the 556R for the first time. It looked pretty nice at a glance. I picked it up and that's where things took a turn for the worse. I first noticed a large amount of play between the upper and lower receiver. I'm not talking about a little wiggle, I'm talking about being able to move the upper in circles while shouldering the rifle. It felt broken.
Next I noticed the rifle had blemishes all over it. The finish was missing in some areas and there were rough handling marks on it, like the rifle had been dropped several times at the factory. I told my dealer I didn't want this rifle and asked to see the other one. When he brought it out, it too had the same problems. I was floored.
My dealer contacted his distributor and got an RMA to return the 556R's that were defective. He said he would have two more in a few days.
I returned a few days later and inspected the two rifles. Both had a better fit (one more so than the other) between the upper and lower receivers but one had those rough handling marks all over it again. I counted 7 dings in the finish that were through the finish and into the metal. So I took the rifle that had the fewest blemishes and headed to the range.
I won't try to explain what happened, I'll let the video speak for itself.
I was shocked at my findings. I posted this video on the boards leaving out most of the clips showing the endless malfunctions I was having. I didn't want to hammer on Sig too badly, I thought my initial video conveyed my thoughts without showing 15 minutes of failure after failure using current production Wolf ball ammo.
But several people on the gun boards questioned my comments about having multiple failures besides the soft primer strikes. So I pulled together some of the left out footage and created another video showing the severity of the failures I was having with my Sig 556R.
Ultimately, the rifles quality and unreliability were so bad that I decided not to bother with trying to get it fixed by Sig and simply returned it to my dealer for an exchange. Several reasons prompted this decision.
Sig's past treatment of me on the phone was so bad and left such a sour taste in my mouth that I didn't want to deal with them again.
The rifle exhibited serious lapses in quality, things like the stock was horribly cheap and didn't function properly, the red dot sight was cheap, and the lower alloy receiver wasn't compatible with steel magazines or military surplus polymer magazines that used steel reinforcements (see image below)
Sig is now telling people (customer service reps named Scott and Josh) that the Sig 556R is not designed to be used with steel cased ammo.
I discovered the rifle does not have a chrome lined bore and it's not nitrite treated. Sig claims on their website the barrel is "military grade" yet it lacks these basic military features.
From Sigs' website
How can a rifle designed for "special forces" according to Sig not use steel cased ammo? The vast majority of the ammo in use throughout the world in 7.62x39 is steel cased ammo.
Erosion caused by use of steel mags
That also brings me back to the magazine issue I mentioned above. Every magazine I have in my collection with the exception of perhaps 5 are steel mags. I prefer steel mags. But the alloy lower receiver of the 556R does not have steel reinforcements where the magazine locks into the receiver and thus, with minimal use you begin to see severe erosion like you see in the image to the left. It's also worth mention that many military surplus polymer magazines also use steel reinforcements for the locking lip and magazine lips. It stands to reason these polymer surplus mags may cause excessive wear as well.
So in the end I'm left wondering, "what happened to Sig"? I expect so much more from Sig that I find my recent dealings with them to be disheartening and troublesome. I can only hope that Sig hears the frustrations and complaints of its former fans and loyalists and moves to quickly remedy the quality issues many of us see.
Update 3/30/11
A poster, Tim_McBride, on AR15.com has been doing some testing of his own with his Sig 556R. The results of his tests are quite interesting.
Steel Case Ammo report;
I fired 20rd of each of the following boxes of Ammo. I also fired a few mags of Yugo with no issues. Brown Bear SP No Issues Brown Bear HP No Issues Brown Bear FMJ No Issues Golden Bear FMJ 2 FTE(Fail To Eject) Golden Bear HP 1 FTE Seller & Belliot FMJ No Issues Silver Bear FMJ No Issues Silver Bear HP No Issues Silver Bear SP 4 FTE Tula 122 FMJ 2 FTI(Fail to Ignite) All rounds fired on second strike, all that failed first strike had very deep set primers Tula 124 FMJ 3 FTI, All rounds fired on second strike, all that failed first strike had very deep set primers Tula 124 SP No Issues (Lucky I guess) UCW 122 FMJ No Issues Wolf SP No Issues Wolf FMJ (Black Box) 2 FTI All rounds fired on second strike, all that failed first strike had very deep set primers Wolf FMJ (Camo Box) 3 FTI All rounds fired on second strike, all that failed first strike had very deep set primers Golden Tiger 2 FTI (I saved one, the other fired on second strike
It would seem that the light primer strikes and failures to extract/feed aren't unique to my rifle. Of the various ammo he tested, roughly half of the types tested failed to either ignite or feed. I've never seen such failure rates before using 7.62x39 in any rifle chambered for it I've owned.
It's also worth mentioning that since posting my videos and blog entry I've had several owners contact me saying they've experienced the same issues with their new Sig 556R rifles.
The problems with the Sig 556R are wide spread and apparently fairly common. Hopefully Sig listens to these reports and corrects the issues the rifle has with popular brands of 7.62x39 ammo for future owners.
I'm not typically a big fan of bullpup kits that convert a standard rifle into a bullpup rifle. It always seems kind of cheesy to me.
Every once in a while a product comes along that changes the way I think about things. The Kushnapup is one such product. The rifle they convert? Well, it's not really a rifle, it's a shotgun. The Saiga 12ga. to be exact.
You can see the bullpup kit in the picture to the right. It looks very modern, and draws its inspiration from the Steyr AUG it would seem.
Most bullpup kits look rather gaudy to me, but this kit seems well thought out, at least from the pictures I've seen. It almost looks "right" to me. The addition of the top rail and EOTech sight clinches the deal for me, I want one. Now all I have to do is go buy a Saiga 12ga shotgun, a gun I'm really not all that interested in.
The stock is in the "pre-order" phase so apparently you can't get your hands on one just yet. Once they're shipping I might have to run out and pick up both the stock and a shotgun to put it on for a review.
Here's a video from the manufacturer showing it in use.
One of the most maligned products I've seen in the firearms community is Wolf ammunition. Wolf ammunition is made in Russia and is sold under the Wolf Performance brand name here in the United States.
Much of the misinformation surrounding Wolf ammo comes from the fact it uses steel cases. From this fact several myths have arose over the years and have been spread across the internet via the various discussion boards.
Here are a few of the myths.
Steel cases damage your chamber
Steel cases damage your extractor
Ammo is lacquer coated and it causes malfunctions
I address some of these myths on my YouTube Channel with a recent video. Here's the video:
The myths become out of control when you have bloggers like TacticalYellowVisor giving outright bad advice. I stumbled across their blog this morning and was amazed at how bad the advice it offered was.
They instruct the reader to modify their rifle for the sake of improving reliability when in fact they will make the rifle less reliable with Wolf if they follow TacticalYellowVisors advice. Here's a quote from their blog:
-make sure you have a 5.56 chamber. if you can't be sure of the chamber then have it reamed to be sure.
Wolf .223 is, well, .223 and not 5.56mm NATO. Looking at the image above, you can clearly see that the box is marked ".223". What this blogger is telling people to do will potentially make the rifle LESS reliable.
Wolf ammo can cause problems because of carbon build up in the chamber caused by the steel case not sealing completely against the chamber walls. By reaming a .223 barrel to 5.56mm NATO you will increase the leade (throat) which in turn will allow even more carbon past the steel case allowing it to deposit in the chamber. By following this bloggers advice, you will increase the likely hood of causing malfunctions, not reduce them.
Extractor mark on Wolf case.
The best advice someone can give you about running Wolf ammo is to do the following. Buy a couple of boxes, take it to the range and shoot it. Look for tell-tale signs of problems like the image to the right shows. If you see damage like this on the spent cases, your rifle is out of time and will not be reliable. If you don't see extractor marks such as this on your rifle, you're good to go and Wolf should run fine in your gun.
You may have problems with your rifle not cycling Wolf .223 as it's typically loaded to lower pressures than standard NATO 5.56mm and even much of the commercial .223 currently produced. If you have an adjustable gas rifle like a Bushmaster ACR, FN SCAR, or even one of the gas piston AR conversions, simply add a little more gas until it cycles. Generally speaking this shouldn't be necessary for most people using Wolf ammo. I run Wolf in an assortment of 5.56mm and .223 rifles every week without issue.
In my experience Wolf ammo runs just fine in most modern rifles. You will need to clean your rifle to maintain reliability, but firing 500-1000 rounds between cleanings isn't unheard of. Wolf doesn't damage your rifle any more than brass cased ammunition does, so don't worry about firing it if everything checks out.
A news report posted Feb 9th, 2011 tells us that the Swiss are set to vote on a referendum that will outlaw ownership of military rifles (select fire), and pump action rifles, by Swiss citizens. The Swiss have over 500,000 Sig 550 variants in private citizens hands alone, which is their standard military rifle.
The Swiss approach national security differently than most other 1st world nations, especially those in Europe. Their standing army is relatively small and all men are required to serve in the militia. Men from 18 to 34 years of age must obtain military training and then return home, as a member of the Swiss militia, with their rifles. Only 5% of the Swiss army are professional (full-time) soldiers, the rest are conscripts in the militia.
The Swiss have a long history of firearms ownership and their country is often cited as an example of how private citizens owning military firearms doesn't necessarily increase crime. Swiss crime has always been low, even for Europe, despite having millions of gun owners in a nation of only 8 million people. Gun related murders totaled just 24 in 2009.
Why are the Swiss entertaining this legislation then? The leftists behind the referendum claim it's to reduce the number of firearms related suicides. Switzerland has the highest rate of suicide in Europe it's reported.
Here in the United States, we're all too familiar with these leftist anti-gun tactics. We have our rights threatened every year by those on the left who claim they want to "save the children" or, more recently, to prevent violence against politicians. All it takes is one shooting which gets national attention, and the proposed legislation begins to fly around the hall of Congress. It seems the Swiss suffer from a similar phenomena in their small Alpine country. Anti-gunners are the same all over.
I hope the Swiss are able to defeat this referendum and maintain their rights, not to mention keep their militia and thus national defense strong. It seems the gun grabbers never worry about things like national security or personal safety in their never ending quest to grab guns.
I'll leave you with this video about Switzerland and their time honored tradition of firearms ownership.
UPDATE:
The Swiss voted to keep their firearms. News can be found here.
