Tactical Carbine

[Tgace]

I use the Giles sling and red dot optics for possible close up shooting on all my semi auto combat rifles. It is essential to have a see-thru mount just in case your battery goes dead. I have found the main culprit in this to be forgetting to turn it off when not in use :uhyeah:

A few ideas: Get spare lithium batteries now, and store them in a film container with the weapon or your pack/combat vest, etc... Lithium batteries have a 10 to 20 year storage life. A film container can hold at least 10 of the wafer style batteries. Tha's a lot of field use.

Theres also some nice pistol grip replacements with watertight compartments for battery storage...

 

[AC_Pilot]

And several of the Cherokee Delta and CAR cheekpads for standard and CAR stocks have battery compartments. They really are for the lithium 6 volt batts but the wafers sometimes fit also. I sell Cherokee so I get to handle and examine them and they are very lightweight and give a good cheek weld for optics use.

 

[Tgace]

Whats your opinion on the Bushmaster ACE Skeleton stock? Been looking at it. The foam cover over the buffer tube has me wondering about durability. Seen some guys doing a paracord wrap instead......

 

[GAB]

Hi all,

Good post Tgace, good information.

I have a 458 Win Mag...Weighs 19 lbs. I figured if I could carry the BAR in the early 60s, heck I could carry this. Nice to shoot not much recoil.

Regards, Gary

 

[AC_Pilot]

Although I own several Bushmaster CARs, I have not seen this "foam" stock. What I do have are the all aluminum 4 position Bushmaster CAR stocks which are very sturdy.Bushmaster makes some great stuff but I would want to handle and play with that stock first....

Regards,
Steve

 

[TonyM.]

Lever action Gab?
I do a good impersonation of .458's 44-40's and 444 marlins. Ya walk downrange slowly like a bulldog and punch the target really hard.

 

[AC_Pilot]

I had a nice .444 marlin and I wish I had not sold it. I'm going to get another one in stainless steel as soon as I can find a private sale. They can shoot .44 mag and .44 special in a pinch, BTW...

 

[Tgace]

The Transition:

If youre in the middle of a firefight with your carbine and it goes "click" (or nothng) when it should go "bang", you have what is known as a malfunction. You options are: One, clear the malfunction. Two, transition to another weapon or three, use the darn thing as a club. If you are enganged in a long range fight (say 75yd.+ or 50yd+ and hes not rushing at you) and you have some cover, clearing the malfunction may make better sense as hitting a target that is shooting back at that distance with a pistol is a crap shoot. The generic method of doing that with a magazine fed semi-auto can be remembered as SPORTS.

S-Slap the magazine to make shure its seated properly. (Sometimes you may feel the bolt close on a live round when you do this and you may just decide to try shooting again.)

P-Pull back the bolt.

O-Observe the chamber as you Pull. Look to see if a round is ejected or an empty casing. Look into the chamber to see if there is a round stuck in there or a double feed.

R-Release the bolt, letting it go forward.

T-Tap the forward assist on weapons that have them (this one may be omitted if yours dosent have one).

S-Shoot.

If the fight is upclose and personal you wont have time to bother with this. If you are within H2H range you may just consider going bayonet style on the guy with your long gun. If you have the gap ,and a secondary weapon, its time to go to it.There are various methods to do this, each with Pros and Cons.

1. If on a sling system, swing the carbine down and away with the weak hand while drawing pistol with the strong one. Start shooting with one hand if you have to and bring up the support when you can.

Pros:
-This means you are using a sling system which has pros and cons in itself. Pro's:The sling gan give you better support for shooting and lets you free up your hands when you need to climb, cuff, dig out gear, etc. and still have your weapon "on you". The Con's are its attached to you and can hamper your movements and bind you up.
- Keeps the carbine on you so you can clear it and get it back into the fight when the immediate threat is taken care of.
Cons:
-Leaves the weapon attached to you and can be used as a "handle" to drag you by the BG.
-Can tie up your legs and hamper mobility.
-Harder to use the carbine as an impact weapon if needs be.

2. Drop the carbine and draw the handgun.
Pros:
-This means the carbine is unslung which makes it easier to change shoulders and fight with the carbine as an impact weapon.
-Slings cant be used to drag you down.
Cons:
-You may have to move away from the tossed weapon. Odds of geting it back "up" are slim then.
-If you drop it in mud, snow, sand it may just make clearing the malfunction later worse.

3. Hold the carbine to the chest with the weak hand and shoot one handed with the strong.
Pros:
-Same as above but you add keeping the carbine with you to them.
Cons:
-Pretty obvious, you can only shoot one handed and bolth hands are full.

 

[GAB]

Lever action Gab?
I do a good impersonation of .458's 44-40's and 444 marlins. Ya walk downrange slowly like a bulldog and punch the target really hard.

Mine is a bolt action.

I had a friend loaded up some fast moving 180 gr. Shot a 3 point in the front shoulder, he never used it again on deer. I don't remember but I think it was for camp meat (hunting bigger stuff). Not much left according to him...

Said, it went down like it was hit by a truck. Lot of brush so he picked the 458 for the trip. Said he picked the least potent that he had brought along.

180 gr out of an "06" is pretty rough on something not weighing 100 lbs.

Regards, Gary

 

[Tgace]

One of the things people like about the AR system is the ease in which you can customize the platform. There are countless products and attachments that can be added. That being said its easy to go overboard and allow form to outstrip function. Personally, I have a full size 20" A2 with a fixed carry handle. Id love to get a shorty upper, flat-top, vertical foregrip, optical sight, light setup. Problem is I shoot the darn thing 1-2 a year as I get all the shooting that I do at work. So its an issue of "what I want vs. what I can justify spending".

I could easily wind up spending $1000+ on top of what Ive already spent on my AR to get here.

 

[Tgace]

These threads have some excellent information on this topic. Its worth the effort of registering to see the photos if its a topic you are really interested in...

http://www.selfdefenseforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9596&page=1&pp=25&highlight=fighting+carbine

http://www.selfdefenseforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2076&highlight=hand+carbine