They're accurate, they're customizable and they're fun to shoot. Why you're going to see more AR-style rifles in the woods this fall.
Jul 2, 2007
Black Rifles in the Woods
It probably won't surprise you to hear me say that, as a culture, we're pretty conservative-and not just in the political sense. I was out shooting sporting clays last summer with my superb clays gun, a Winchester X2, when one of the shooters behind me stepped up, looked at the blood-red anodized X2 featuring a black stock with a Cartman "Respect My Authority!" sticker from South Park, and said jokingly, "I think you missed a turn there, buddy! Guns are all about fine hand-rubbed walnut and blued steel."
I said that was surely true, but sometimes guns are just about breaking clays, and my X2 seemed to do that just fine, Cartman sticker and all. Over the years, I've heard diatribes against stainless steel, plastic stocks, scopes (my grandfather thought scopes were "cheating"), red-dot optics, laser range finders, polymer-framed pistols, magnum cartridges, ultra-magnum cartridges, short magnum cartridges, obsolete cartridges that waste shelf space, new cartridges that duplicate old ballistics, newfangled semiautos, old-fangled lever actions, and on and on. This is no big deal, we're just grumbling against the passage of time.
So sometimes, when we see an X2 with a cartoon sticker on the stock or a black rifle on the opening day of deer season, we sniff loudly. But again, it's just grumbling.
For a lot of men and women coming back from The Sandbox, either this time or the last time, the word "rifle" will always bring up an image of the M-4, and it's a positive image, the gun that saved their lives and their buddies'. And just like my father and his buddies saw the perfect companion for the hunting field in the surplus rifles of WWII (see "The American Rifle," page 30), today's veterans see the AR platform as a gun they can believe in.
Varminters were the first hunters to seize on the AR. But the AR platform is so versatile that it quickly moved to bigger game. Companies like DPMS began expanding their excellent AR lines into cartridges like the .243, the .260 (see sidebar, page 60), the .308 (the original chambering of the M-16's granddaddy, the Eugene Stoner-designed AR-10 back in the mid-1950s) and even the Remington .300 SAUM. That's not to mention the fact that the other black rifle, the AK-47, came in a dandy whitetail-size game cartridge, the 7.62X39, which sports pretty much the same ballistics as the much-venerated .30-30 in a light, easy-to-handle, virtually indestructible package that's perfect for thick-cover deer work.
And the evolution didn't stop there. I recently talked to the guys at Cobb Manufacturing, who are building spectacular AR-platform guns in .30/06 and other long cartridges like the .270 and 8mm. Other manufacturers are going in a different direction, turning the AR into a fast-handling brush gun pushing a .45 caliber to .45/70 ballistics.
And here's where the AR platform becomes seriously cool. You can add any number of "top ends," the upper receiver, bolt and barrel units, to a "lower end," the serial-numbered lower receiver that carries the fire-control unit. You can have the lower just like you want it-add a drop-in custom trigger from JP Enterprises or Timney or Chip McCormick, pick whatever style of stock and pistol grip best fits you and your shooting style,‑then add as many uppers as you want. This way you can have one of the new .450 brush guns and a long-range prairie-dog popper on the same lower.
So how do we keep from getting trapped in our own paradigms? I think the easiest and best way is to be open to new experiences. Here's an idea: During the off-season, check around your area and see if there's a 3-Gun or carbine-precision rifle match, then just go watch. I think you'll be impressed at the level of shooting. Or better yet, get one of those "black rifles" and take it to the range yourself. We were once a nation of riflemen (and -women), and I think anything that brings us closer to that ideal can't be anything but good.
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