Aero Precision Inc. floated this on their Facebook page a few days ago. Here’s the video where they dumped a bunch of dirt on it, shook it out and fired it. Would operate with? [h/t ENDO] Read on . . .
There was a very brief Lockdown of the Day™ at Michigan State University yesterday. About 1 p.m. students and staff received a text message warning them of a man with a gun and instructing them to “secure-in-place immediately.” About ten minutes later, another text was issued saying that MSUPD found a person using a “training weapon” and no threat existed. It turns out the MWAG was an ROTC cadet who was handling a replica drill rifle in the parking lot, and who later took the inert piece of wood into the building. MSU police Chief James Dunlap said his department will review MSU’s Air Force ROTC’s protocol when handling rifles outside of ROTC events. “We are trying to determine what their (ROTC) protocols call for, but certainly it wouldn’t be for an un-uniformed person in a lot with a rifle,” Dunlap said. Great. Now those folks will have to put on class A’s just to move a practice rifle around so they don’t panic the bunnies. “Where’s your reflective belt, soldier?”
A group of gun control activists gathered Thursday outside Visa’s Washington office to protest the credit-card company’s “affinity” program with the National Rifle Association. The NRA, like hundreds of other organizations, has an associated Visa card which kicks back a small percentage of the dollars spent on it to the affiliated organization. An NRA web page indicates that “over $20 million” has been raised to date through this system. Representatives from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence met briefly with Visa officials to hand off petitions signed by more than 5,100 people and press their case. Lori Haas, whose daughter was shot at Virginia Tech, was part of the protest, and said after the meeting with the Visa folks, “They listened, but made no comments of any substance. No commitment.”
Apparently, even the thieves are proper in the UK. Unknown burglars broke into a home in Flitwick, Bedfordshire on Wednesday, and after rummaging around and stealing some jewelry, they found the victim’s locked guns and ammunition cabinets. They removed a bolt action rifle and a self-loading rifle, both of which had silencers. Finally, they also stole two firearms certificates before leaving the house. In case you’re unaware, firearm certs are the piece of paper that you get that says you’re allowed to own a (specific) gun. So presumably, they have paperwork that on first blush would indicate they were the lawful owners of the stolen weapons. Pretty handy, that.
Jury selection began today in a New York case that’s being billed as the “first person in Chautauqua County charged under the SAFE Act.” Benjamin Wassell is charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor under the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act after he allegedly sold modified guns, which were illegal under the SAFE Act, to an undercover officer, even after being told the officer was a felon. But here’s the kicker: at his arraignment last April, “people from across the state attended … to show their support of Wassell and their opposition to the SAFE Act.” Regardless of whether the guns were “illegal under the SAFE Act,” they were guns, and he sold them to an admitted felon. So while I appreciate the sentiment, I think those folks are backing the wrong horse.
Richard Ryan makes a short video of a Daniel Defense MK18 SBR in full auto mode. Note that second muzzle brake flash. That’s the guy that always ends up next to me at the range.
Remember that being out of shape is about a thousand times more likely to kill you than some bad guy in a dark alley. Get in shape, and workout like an operator, with MBest11x. Most assuredly not safe for work.
Jameson. ‘Merica!
In defense of our NYFirearms group, it’s never been a question that Benjamin Wassell was being charged for selling to an admitted felon. It has nothing to do with the unSAFE act. It was illegal BEFORE they passed that garbage bill in the middle of the night.
Then why are you “supporting” Wassell? Save it for a pure SAFE case.
My point is that most do not support him (myself included). Just because a small group do, doesn’t speak for the rest of us New Yorkers. Protesting the unSAFE act and supporting him are mutually exclusive. If the facts of the case are true, then he will be deservedly convicted.
On the flip side, there are people who believe everyone should be able to own a gun regardless of legal past, including the authors of this blog. An opinion that is not universally shared. Some of that thinking comes in to play on this case.
Ugh the whining. It burns! Seriously? ROTC can’t practice in their own parking lot? Who even considers that!?
Sure – Rot-cees get their own parking lot, then every student association will want one, from the local SDS Chapter, to the Professional Association of English Majors. :sarcasm:
If they want to practice, they have to put in into a context that your average college student will be able to understand and won’t find threatening. If they want to practice, they have to have a crowd of people form a simulated parade route for the Rotcees to walk through. Average college students naturally feel threatened by a lone individual holding a gun shaped plank of wood, but when they see a would be soldier pretending to be a war hero on parade they feel warm and safe all over.
If he could shoot the ejected shells in the air, that would be the coolest.
If you are out of jail and off parole, then you should have your full rights back. Gun rights and otherwise.
I hope that they get some jury nullification going in NY.
The problem is you can’t tell people about jury nullification. Because if the judge or the lawyers ask you “do youknow of any way you could not issue a verdict” or somesuch and you know about jury nullification, you have to say yes (otherwise you’re committing perjury). That usually gets you thrown out of the jury pool.
You could nullify while still “issuing a verdict”… the verdict is “not guilty”. They don’t get to ask why you came to that conclusion.
I’ve heard this argument before and it’s beyond me why it’s an argument…
You’re under no obligation to explain your verdict as a jury/juror. But, if for some reason you were, “I didn’t feel the prosecution had sufficient evidence against the defendant.”
And, if during jury selection they ask about your knowledge of jury nullification, you can always lie. As long as you didn’t wear your “I heart jury nullification” tshirt to court, I’m sure you’ll be fine.
I’ll just leave this here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqH_Y1TupoQ
Absolutely lie. What’s worse, helping the people who call themselves government aggressively prosecute someone for a victimless crime, or a little white lie you’ll never get prosecuted for?
I’d like to know where that operators’ gym is so I can go learn to work out like an operator. I’m tacticool, but not quite up to operation ready operator standards yet. He’s got both of the right flags in the background. HIGH-LARIOUS. The Clean-Jerk-Beer was the best part.
On the subject of ROTC drill rifles – my old high school marching band had a bundle of 100% inert gun-shaped drill objects (white reinforced plastic barrel is a pretty good indication of functionality IMO, unless you’re Defense Distributed) that they used sans uniform in the school parking lot on lunch, after school, during off periods … being marching band kids, they were damn into it. Guess what? No lockdown of the day(^tm), ever. Weird, right?
“operator”? Is that the skilled ego overloaded talent in the hospital, his target, one of his tools,____??
I’m not sure if your sarcasm filter isn’t turned on or if mine isn’t working properly …
The Aero Precision lower interesting and I would consider buying one, but I wouldn’t make a NFA or other limited gun out (like a registered assault weapon in a ban state) of it.
The skeletonized lower would be great for me. I have a spinal cord injury from service that limits me to lifting 5 pounds, and making a sub 5 pound AR isn’t easy. This would go a long way toward that.
That’s a need that I’m sure is not often considered. I hope someone can get there for you, Doug.
I picked up a Daniel Defense rifle recently at Cabelas that was SCARY light, their rails are expensive but they sure can cut the pounds down. I bet you could make a near 5lb rifle with irons and nothing at all on it, but picking and choosing the parts will be the killer in both price and pounds.
Wouldn’t the recoil of any gun deliver more than five pounds of force to your body? Maybe it’s only lifting that is the problem?
If you have to have the absolute lowest weight, why wait for the skeletonized lower to maybe go into production some day for god knows what price. Probably very high because of all the machining work. When you can already by polymer lowers like FMK’s? You can often find polymer lowers for $40 or $50 and FMK says theirs is 4.3 oz. There is no way the skeletonized AL lower will be significantly stronger and lighter then the solid polymer. Tell me if my numbers are right here, standard lower = 8 or 9 oz, polymer lower = 4 or 5 oz (solid polymer not the hybrid ones with steel reinforcements), skeleton lower = 30% less than standard = 6 or 7 oz…. Polymer is still lighter, available now, and will be cheaper, just a thought. YMMV.
http://fmkfirearms.com/firearms/ar-15-lower/
That Aero Precision video is one of most useless videos I have ever seen. I shows nothing, it proves nothing.
Yeah, you’re not the first to make that observation. For what it’s worth, they’re not actually manufacturing that lower yet, the Facespace post was purportedly to gauge interest. If they put it into production, I’d assume they’d redo the video.
When I was in ROTC we landed two Chinook helicopters at Autzen stadium at the University of Oregon. We let out about 60+ cadets with M4s (yes real M4s) and then marched in formation to the ROTC Building. The looks on the few students near Autzen was funny as they had no idea what was going on. The looks on the students faces as we walked down agate street was priceless!
We also used to run around Alton Baker park with rubber ducks in Eugene. One group had the cops called on them who showed up and acted like asses, but eventually left the cadets alone.
Some people need to develop some skill at critical thinking. It might help people to prevent turning something simple like carrying a rubber duck into an incident. It is sad that “academic” institutions seem to do so poorly at critical thinking and research when they should be the experts at it.
Fellow ROTC!
It’s how I lettered in small bore marksmanship.
And alex jones has been using video of you rotzee guys deploying from those shithooks ever since to prove that russian soldiers are training with fema to set up death camps. You guys made alex a millionaire.
The only landing I ever did was a hard one. Lots of injuries on that one. I was lucky. Not a scratch.
Any landing you can walk away from is a good one. Choppers have the glide path of a greased anvil. And the choppers we had in the day all had their heavy, hot, flammable stuff above the people.
Alex needed something to get his website up and running!
Lol! The Afgan jumping jack! Add the “MCA” and the Village People will live again!
Man, I hope operator goes the way of the zombie soon. The only operator I want to hear about is Lily Tomlin,”One ringy dingy….”
Just need to do a few thousand more tactical presses on my systems then I can move on to rotating out the CR123’s on my night-ops gear in accordance with SOP before doing my final inventory on the BOX. Then I’ll probably change my patches. I’m thinking of going with the black multicam US flag, but I’m kind of feeling INFIDEL tonight.
I am so doing that to my Lowers! That would look awesone when cycling!
Dark Burnt Bronze even…
Simple jig modifications and I can do it over and over and…
You get my point.
Matt, you have outdone yourself.
That gym video is hysterical.
That operator video was freakin’ hilarious. I have no idea what the point is.
Air Force got rid of their glowbelts.
http://www.brokenandunreadable.com/broken%20and%20unreadable%20336.jpg
I like the skeletonized lower. It’s probably not very functional for hard use (gravel is one thing, but drop it in the mud and you might see issues), but it could definitely be useful for demonstrating operation and assembly. Also, it really demystifies the operation of the AR platform. It could be an excellent tool to show non-gun people that there’s no hidden black box of death trapped inside of your AR-15 waiting to be unleashed, in fact, it’s just a couple of metal bits and springs.
From the information in the article, the Wassell case kind of sounds like BS. I mean, presumably the undercover officer was not an actual felon. SAFE Act provisions of the case aside, if someone tells you they are a felon, even if they’re not, you can be prosecuted for selling them a gun. If someone is a felon, but you have no reasonable cause to believe that they are, you can’t be prosecuted for selling them a gun. Strange. Also, it seems that without the government setting up the deals, no crimes would have existed. It reminds me of when alphabet agencies announce they stopped a potential terror attack, and then you read the article and find out that they themselves planned the scenario, recruited the attackers, supplied them with the fake explosives, and then arrest the attackers prior to them carrying it out. Good job guys, way to stop the crime you created.
I think if you showed a stripped lower like that to a non-gunny, they would be flabbergasted that it’s a ‘firearm’.
Aero Precision Inc. = gimmick is as gimmick does.
Other than making it possible for folks with disabilities, as indicated in a comment above, I can’t see any good reason to skeletonize an AR lower, other than, “Because we can” which may be good enough purely for entertainment value.
Off topic:
Here is an article about homemade submachine guns in Brazil. You might want to use it as ammunition against the gun grabbers’ argument that gun control is going to disarm criminals.
You appear to have forgotten the link.
That video was operator as f**k. It had mean laughing hysterically.
I’m sure this skeletonized lower will undoubtably make the AR ten times more reliable than it already is…
Everyone knows optimal operate of the AR hinges upon as much forgien debris being in the weapon as possible.
Ditto. Modern manufacturing methods and computer FEA have given use the ability to “skeletonize” just about anything. But there are good reasons that some things should just remain solid….
I make it a point to throw a handful of dirt in my lower receiver with the bolt open to make things more “grippy” in the chamber for better accuracy.
I often defecate in my lower receivers, but I don’t really know why.
When I first saw this I felt the same way as both of you, RockOnHellChild and PeirsonB. But I am thinking we overlooked something. I think in an actual one to one dirt test with a standard lower this will actually turn out to preform better.
You are right the AR-15 is not very happy about dirt inside it, and the standard AR’s solution to that is to be sealed up, as best it can, to keep the dirt out. You might think, then, that this lower is a jam-o-matic but, because it is SO open, dirt can get it, but there is nothing to keep the dirt in after it gets there. Even very caked in dirt or mud should all be blown out by one cycling…. It’s almost like a self cleaning AR instead of a dirt resistant AR. As long as it still has sufficient strength after being skeletonized it might actually be more reliable then standard. Just keep your fingers clear.
If you’re lubricating the bolt with good grease, as you should be, dirt, gravel, or what else is going to get stuck in the grease.
Hell, just the powder carbon will gunk up the grease…
No getting around that.
And, the AR is not self cleaning, I assure, it shits where it eats in fact.
The first versions of the M16 didn’t come with dust covers, but they were added for a reason.
The lower, skeletonized or not, does not keep dirt off the bolt. The upper and the dust cover do as you said, RockOnHellChild. You can only do one thing about the direct impingement gas system “shitting” on your bolt face, and that’s buy something else. Carbon or dirt on the bolt and carrier is not a function of, or prevented by the lower. But if dirt entered the skeletonized lower, recoil shaking the lower, and the hammer being cocked by the bolt should push anything, within the lower, out of the way that happened to get in there. Without side walls to keep dirt in the lower, it should just fall out during cycling, hence “self cleaning lower”. You don’t have to tell me there is no hope for the AR DIG system.
Dude, I’m not saying this to be a dick…
I like the AR just fine and I’m not following your logic on this lower with holes in it thing…
When the BCG is in battery, dirt can stick to the bottom of the BCG, dirt moves freely through air. Holes won’t stop it, they will only help it.
When the BCG is cycling, moving from battery into the buffer tube and back into battery, dirt can get all over the grease on BCG, dirt and small debris can travel through the air.
This will make it easier for dirt to gunk up your grease, IMHO.
But hey, man, if you think this is the cat’s meow, get you one and have a ball. I, for one, think holes in the lower will be detrimental.
“We are trying to determine what their (ROTC) protocols call for, but certainly it wouldn’t be for an un-uniformed person in a lot with a rifle,”
A. It was not is not a rifle.
B. Nothing about that comment is certain.
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