Scout and Recce Course Gear and Gun AAR, by GuerrillaLogistician
Let me begin by saying I have a shit ton of money buried in multiple AKs, and I have two ARs with family. The ARs were purchased a long time ago and are running fine. I think they are great rifles so I am not a guy who thinks one is better than the other. I just have preferences not rules on this subject as I think most people should. So, the last REECE class I couldn’t find blanks that weren’t prohibitively expensive or the lead time to get them was out of the range of the class, so I decided why not run an AR. Luckily from playing airsoft, I knew what magazines worked in most of my gear, and after SCOUT last year I decided it was time to pull out some other kit (more on that later). When I got there my friend had a rifle for me with no optic. That really didn’t bother me as I run red dots, but Patriotman had a loaner with an optic. I hadn’t been a fan of PRISM optics even though everyone loves Trijicon. I never got one, probably due to the cost. So, I figured out what better time to figure out why I didn’t like something than by really giving it a go. There is a long-winded article here about the experience. Now that I have the cash of COURSE the damn thing is unavailable.
I stand by what I wrote, and I want one for a SCOUT style observation rifle. Being back down in the jungle/sub tropic I have been debating going with a 3x. In NC and any place with open space with less dense wood lines the Primary Arms ACSS aurora 5x seems to be a great optic for this, at a good price. Maybe a variable would be better but my experience with those is non-existent. So, I still recommend it.
Next, the Franken Gun
I believe the rifle was a Palmetto State Armory M4 CARBINE LENGTH 5.56 NATO 1:7 NITRIDE FREEDOM RIFLE KIT with an Anderson lower. As many have experienced you can get good stuff from PSA, but sometimes you get a few issues. I haven’t had anything but good luck and reliability but I have seen a few issues, so the rest of this article is not meant to be a condemnation. The first thing I will say is if you build your gun yourself and are new to this have it looked over by a gunsmith who is competent. Out of the box it ran well for a few days and even shot well on the range. The blank fire unfortunately started creating issues with the rifle, specifically with a pin walking out of the front sight post. Overall, it was a relatively easy fix by some trained gunsmiths. Let me not restate this enough! If you are a prepper and you/your group have AKs, have a backup stash of parts like springs for your AK, and a bag of pins and springs for ARs because your new friends might need them.
The second issue was the castle nut not being screwed on the right direction or tightened properly. This was caught by me in the field, and it being backwards was caught by the gunsmith when he was fixing the front sight. He corrected that issue and staked it so it wouldn’t walk anymore. This wasn’t a major issue for class, but it could have been a failure in the field at the wrong time. Patriot man obviously slapped this bad boy together in a hurry, and I can’t fault him for the upper having issues. Before you guys go crapping on him for this it was an honest mistake and goes to show you even with issues the rifle can run. Even better if anyone is competent, they can fix it quickly as well.
PM NOTE: I built it the night before class, so I was fairly rushed and didn’t notice. Still doesn’t make me feel any less stupid, so feel free to make castle nut jokes the next time you see me.
During the rushed assault on the landing zone for the REECE course I was guiding people through the woods as I had scouted the area. I heard the sound of an AR magazine hitting the deck, so I told the guy next to me I thought his mag dropped. Being an AK guy my guns magazine doesn’t sound like an AR mag hitting the deck, nor do they generally hop out. He told me he thought it was my gun, and I realized why yes, my NOT an AK had dropped the magazine. I picked it up and figured holding my AR left-handed meant I hit the button with my gear. Come to find out it wasn’t properly screwed in so it stuck out over the receivers protective rib. Again, a very simple fix I could have done if I had caught it or knew what to look for.
Another issue for a loaner gun was the lack of a sling. I am sure I could have put one together for the class or borrowed one, but Patriotman wanted this rifle abused, and by god abuse was had. I dropped the rifle a few times, put it on the ground a lot when writing down reports, and generally treated it like I would an AK. As the week rolled on it was abused more, and fixed one bit at a time. The AR platform took the beating just fine along with the optic, but a sling would have helped things. I noticed QDs being shunned not only by NCScout but others because of the quick detach in the woods tends to pop free at the worst time. Sling wise I don’t have a good recommendation, but I have always liked Vickers/Blue Force slings and have had them on all my AKs and even my M-16A2 when deployed. If you run M-lock you will have to figure out a way to sling your rifle without a QD mount which seems to be the most prolific style of attachment for Ars now days.
The last thing I realized about the AR, is that AR’s love running wet for the most part. When I was running my ARs I was told by a few gentlemen who lived and operated overseas, in less than fun environments that Automatic Transmission Fluid makes a great lube for ARs and AKs alike. I prefer it and its price. If you want to go further check out the school of the American Rifle has a great concoction that seems to have gotten lots of praise.
(Foot Stomp) The moral of the story is getting a gunsmith to once over your rifle, and hopefully have a competent gunsmith check new dudes rifles as well. Then take your gear out and run it as best you can. The rifles will run out of spec but can be a pain at the worst time if not fixed before you are in the field and need it running properly.
The Gear
I have a bunch of Russian gear and ran it for years for Airsoft pretending to be the bad guys. A lot of guys who are prior military love being VC, Germans, Russians, Iraqi’s and tend to be the fun crowd. Before some multicolored hair twitter fascist cries, this proves we are a bunch of Fascist just stop. A ton of us do it because we like to see what the bad guy ran, even though we absolutely hate the ideology of these groups.
For this event I was running the Tasmanian Tiger Chest Rig MKII which the Russians were known to operate. The nice thing is this little rig works well for AR’s and AKs it has two nice sized pouches on either side of a four mag system. This keeps weight down as you can’t overpack, but also has enough room for what a scout needs. Unlike the Russian issue RATNIK gear the mags are exposed to the elements. It has a Velcro system to hold the magazines in which it only partially covers the magazine. This normally works fine for running around in the woods for me, but in Airsoft you aren’t very often prone waiting to ambush people. What I learned though was interesting.
Two issues came up that don’t happen with older setups from WWII up until GWOT. First was the fact that your rifle will bang on your magazines, which wasn’t bad for the plastic Hex Mags, but the aluminum rang out clearly. This is the same issue I had with my other US made kits which only had an elastic band holding the magazines in. This isn’t an issue for a high speed door kicking, vehicle riding infantryman, but is downright crazy loud in the woods. Add to that while crawling around a lot of debris would get into the pouches and accumulate on the rounds in the magazine. I don’t know about you, but chunks of leaves in my gun isn’t something I am ok with.
The moral of this story is fully flapped magazine pouches might be better then what you are running right now. I love my HSGI pouches, but now I question if I need something different. I wonder if the slower reload time of a full cover flap might help prevent issues in rifle function. It might be worth going out and crawling around in the woods to find out if your magazines fill up with debris. This is something we all should be doing and hopefully my experience will push you to really get active with your gear and see if you have similar issues.
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On the note of non-QD sling attachments for M-Lok, I have had good luck with the non-QD magpul swivels:
https://www.amazon.com/Magpul-M-LOK-Traditional-Sling-Swivel/dp/B075NMQ4CS
They have been rock solid for me and I haven’t had one fail so far.
Thanks for the write up. Honestly shocked that a taper pin came loose. My experience with removing them on rifles has been that they tend to be in there VERY tight and need a lot of persuasion to remove. Guess it goes to show that anything can go wrong and we should make sure we can replace parts as they break or are lost, like you said. I know I will be giving taper pins an inspection tap with a punch and hammer from now on. The other issues seemed like builder inexperience, but everyone who does something is a beginner at some point and liable to make mistakes. Luckily they were fixed in a training environment and not when actually needed. Another win for getting out and training.
Great points on magazine carriers. Flaps are where it’s at.
For what it’s worth, I have built about a dozen lowers. This one was me just not paying attention and rushing. The taper pin was from a complete upper from the factory, which also really really surprised me