Massad Ayoob - Deadly Force: Understanding Your Right to Self Defense

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This books primary aim is to dismantle the various urban myths that have attached themselves to the AR-15. Also, to make life a little bit easier for owners of the AR-15.

When it comes to using, repairing, building or debugging firearms, you need a basic level of knowledge or you wont be able to get the job done. What Im trying to do here is give you the one volume, the veritable firearms encyclopedia, devoted exclusively to building and repairing the AR.

You see, for a relatively simple industrial product, the AR-15 can be maddeningly difficult to assemble. This comes as a surprise to people who have assembled other, apparently more-complex items. For instance, bolting a header onto a re-built engine. There you face a rather detailed process, from cleaning and prepping the mating surfaces, to proper gasket selection and prep, plus getting the torque limits and bolt-tightening order correct.

This is all laid out in a manual the size of a phone book.

For the AR-15, there really isnt such a manual. Sure, there are factory manuals, tomes that never leave the manufacturer. And there are military manuals, which are either so simplistic or kept under lock and key at the head armorers office on base.

If someone tells you they know how to build an AR and their MOS, or military occupational specialty was not that of an armorer who worked in an air-conditioned building, they probably dont. Ive been to armorers classes that cover everything from bore cleaning and sight adjustment to machining a receiver from a billet of aluminum.

But unless youve attended those classes, theres been no one to tell you the details of these processes.

There are tips that make life easier. There are things you need to know that will keep you from hurting yourself. And because the mil-spec is so outdated in many regards today, theres a plethora of parts to install. One subject that leaps to mind is handguards. A military armorer will know of one, two, maybe three handguards, and they will install them using one of two installation methods. However, if you have a different handguard, the knowledge base of a military armorer will be of no use.

A police department may be even less help. A departmental armorer may only know the one particular brand and model of AR that department issues or authorizes.

So, in this book Im covering all the important details of as many different accessories as I can, of all the aspects of the AR that can be covered.

And because you really need to know the why, as well as the how, Im giving you background about the products where it matters.

For instance, if you install a chrome-lined barrel with anything other than a 17-twist rate, you will be mocked in many online boards and in some gun clubs. You need to know why these scoffers are wrong, and why you may not want to limit yourself to such a pedestrian barrel choice. There are different grades of barrel, but for most shooters, in most instances, the differences dont really matter.

A further example: an NRA High Power High Master. Thats someone who can tell you exactly how many clicks to adjust your rear sight to account for the wind-drift of your ammo at 600 yards. And can then tell you to undo two of them because the wind just changed. Such a shooter will gladly spring for a cut-rifled, stress-relieved stainless barrel that costs so much youd think it came in gold leaf wrapping. That top-tier barrel can boost a honed shooters score five or 10 points. When your score is already in the upper 90 percentile of possible, any extra points you can buy are worth it. A barrel such as that, installed with loving care by an experienced gunsmith, can cost you $500. Thats knowledge that really matters.

If you are just having fun, and occasionally entering the local 3-Gun matches, a barrel that cost all of $150 will be more than accurate for your needs. That nets you $350 worth of practice ammo in your budget if you forego the gold-plated barrel. You tell me: will $350 worth of additional practice ammo make you a better shot? I think so.

A word of caution. Hang around any AR forum or talk to experienced shooters at gun clubs or local matches and youll encounter a broad spectrum of opinions. Some will cling very strongly to their views. And some will have what appear to be solid credentials. Take advice where you can get it and make up your own mind.

One last example, and Ill let you get on to the fun part, the building part. If you were to talk to a Vietnam veteran about the M16, you will likely hear all kinds of truths like how the gun is fragile, unreliable, a plastic toy with bullets that tumble in flight. And so on. But are these assessments accurate? Well, yes and no. There were problems early on. Those problems got solved. There have been problems since, mostly due to loss of knowledge. Weve addressed and corrected them.

But to the Vietnam veteran, knowledge of the M16 is frozen in time. Like a football fan who cant let go of the past glories of bygone winning seasons, some find it difficult to move forward.

Oh, and if you come across a news story or a report from a Congressional committee about the M16, brace yourself for a tsunami of moronic info that threatens to take multiple IQ points off your score. Such stories should be treated as if they were implements of torture, meant to make you divulge the secret rocket plans.

New readers, the introduction should give you a sense of the snark youre about to encounter. Old hands are familiar with this, and I hope they still find it entertaining and useful. Pour some coffee, get reading, and prepare to deploy wrenches and accessories.

The AR-15 has been referred to as an Erector Set for adults. Designed as an industrial product, not a firearm (Ill explain the difference in a bit) it has ended up as the most user-serviceable firearm ever made. Which is one of those good news and bad news sort of things.

By industrial product I mean that it was meant to be built using standard parts as much as possible. For example, the roll pins that hold parts, and the springs that work those small parts, are normal items you can buy in bulk from a non-firearms manufacturer. Indeed, if you want roll pins, you can consult catalogs devoted to them in every size, material, diameter and surface finish you could want. And when you order them, your choices are by the box or the dead weight. Compare that to trying to buy a model-specific part, like the trigger pin on an M1 Garand, M14/M1A or Remington 742.

Thats the good news the industrial base to supply parts is so evenly distributed that there are no real bottlenecks. Well, none now, but for a while it was not so pretty.

The bad news is this: because so many can, many who should not, do. My start in this came in the middle of the 1980s. We had just gone through one of the first big semi-auto ban scares, during which a lot of people became proud new owners of an AR. Unlike the new AR-15s of today, those 1980s rifles had almost all been home-built. Back then, surplus really was surplus. The parts you bought at a gun show, or by mail-order (no Internet back then) were actual military intended production. The parts had been declared surplus or excess. They were sold as scrap, by weight, or shoveled into dumpsters and then fished out once the truck had left the military base (some of them looked it, too). Some were production over-runs, but those cost more.