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It's. Welcome to another edition of Old School Guns, a podcast that tells you exactly like it is. And this is episode number 222-22-22. So that's what's going on with all that. And as always, if you have any questions or comments, you can email them to me. Kb m a k e l@aol.com K b m a k e l@Aol.com or you can put them in the comments section on podbean. Not too many people do that, but it is there, and you can do that. Okay, let's talk about some of the obvious things first. The first, most obvious thing that's been going on is someplace that, you know, we know about, but we never think about it, and that's Greenland. There's a big. It's. It's become the predominant international issue right now is, you know, how do we look at Greenland? What. What really is it? How important is it? And. And how has that changed? You know, Greenland has always been really important, starting in the Second World War, you know, First World War, not so much because there really weren't air. The aircraft, you know, couldn't fly around the northern Atlantic or anything. So Greenland was just kind of a place. Second World War, you know, hey, we could, when we had to, you know, ferry aircraft over to England, well, they would, you know, kind of go kind of hop and skip and jump up the coast of Canada over to Greenland, maybe even Iceland, and then, you know, stop over in their final destination in England. You know, I mean, it was a. It was a very convenient place where you could refuel planes and do all kinds of stuff. The next thing we had to do was keep the Nazis out of there because there were Nazis all over it. Because, remember, by this time, by, you know, like 1940, even before the United States entered the war, Denmark, the powerhouse of Denmark, was out. They were occupied by the Germans. So consequently, Greenland was kind of, I must say, up for grabs. But somebody had to defend it. Somebody had to take control of it. And that was effectively the United States. We took control, and we actually have defended Greenland. Not that tremendously vigorously, but we've defended Greenland. It's been in our sphere of defense since 1940. And I mean, you and I, as US taxpayers have been paying the bills for all that. The people of Denmark, who right now, there are 9 million people in Denmark, which is a lot less than some of the big metropolitan areas in the United States. Face it, they don't have the cash. They don't have the people they don't have the resources. They can't defend a Greenland. They just sort of claim it. And you know, I know they run the, the dog sled teams, the, the serious dog sled teams which go up and really show a kind of a, a presence patrol or a sovereignty patrol I think they call it. You know, they arm them with US model 1917 rifles because they run into polar bears and other things occasionally. But I always found it kind of comical that they're using hundred year old World War I surplus rifles. That doesn't really speak a lot about the military prowess of Denmark. And it's not that they're not good people. It just, I'm sorry, you're, you're tiny, you know, they're just, there's not many of you. So consequently, you know, somebody has got to step up or else China and Russia will be in there. Because one of the things that has changed is, you know, the world is going through kind of a mini thaw. Everybody knows that. They've tried to blame it on global warming and climate change. You can't do that. It's just a cyclic, probably a cyclic thought. And as more Earth in Greenland, which isn't very green, it's mostly white because it's under ice. There's, there's minerals and natural resources and petroleum and all these really good things up there that have never been developed or exploited for the good of the people that live there. And I guess most of the people who live in Greenland and it's got a tiny population, 57,000 people and they're, they're kind of this, this hodgepodge of Inuits which they used to call Eskimos, but Inuits I think is the most politically correct term. You know, some European settlers and they're just kind of there and they live in the southern part, not being, not being stupid, they live in the southern part which while it's no tropical paradise, probably a lot nicer than living at the northern end of Greenland. I just, just my guess. But you know, it's kind of a barren looking place when you look at it. It doesn't have a lot of forests or anything. It's, it's a, it's a pretty tough environment and, but now it's got rare earth metals which is now something that everybody wants, needs and is endeavoring to control and develop. And it's also got, you know, the petroleum which is something that, you know, fuels economies. You know, you just, you just have to have it. And the Chinese, the Chinese and the Russians are there and when you look at, when you look at the North Pole projection of the world and you see how vital Greenland is to North America, then of course, everything Trump says makes sense. But it's still a big deal. You know, as the world changes, our national security plans and priorities have to change with them. And now Greenland is at the forefront. So hopefully the, the Danes, who I like, I served with Danes in Bosnia, I thought they're great people, but. And you don't like to rub it into them. You know, they're a pip squeak country. They really are, and there's nothing wrong with that, but they just got to realize they're not going to keep. The Danes, aren't going to keep the Russians and the Chinese out of there, and only the United States can do that. And the rest of NATO isn't going to keep them out of there because, you know, look at, every time you look at those pie charts of NATO and who contributes what and what the list of the members are, there are so many pip squeaky members of NATO that, you know, they actually even make the UK which is a, you know, really a fallen power. The uk, France and Germany are really just shadows of what they were even 30 years ago. I, I think I've said it before, the British Navy has got more admirals than they have fighting ships. And that's even included down to like the small ones. Really small ones. There's like 40 some Admirals and I think they have like 25 or 30, maybe they have 35 ships total. That's it. That, you know, the ones that mount guns and can do damage. I mean, supply ships and other things, they may have a few more of those, but, you know, so theoretically, in time of war, I guess it could have an admiral in charge of every one of their fighting ships. So Anyway, it's ridiculous. NATO's military posture is ridiculous. And we keep pumping it up. We, we keep helping them. You know, we develop the F35 that they're all buying like crazy. We pay for the, you and I, as US Taxpayers, pay for the development of that. Now granted, we, our air force buys them and it helps also, but we make it available to these other guys and, you know, it helps keep them more modern, at least some, some credibility. But they, they just do not spend what they're supposed to. And now they're trying to tell us we can't have Greenland because, you know, it'd be wrong to take it. But they're not, they can't defend it. They can't defend it. So therefore we should get it. We should absolutely get it. And of course the biggest domestic thing is ICE terrorism in predominantly Minneapolis. So the ICE terrorists are there and you know, Minneapolis is a real shithole and everybody knows it. You know, from the George Floyd riots to everything else, everybody knows this place is just a libtard playground where these weird people and they're professional agitators, you know, they, they don't care if it's hunting pro Hamas George Floyd ICE raids. They're going to show up and they're anarchists and they're lucky so far because this business of shooting fireworks at federal law enforcement, you know, that's, I can only say that if they shot back, I would understand. I mean, if they, they decided we're going to fix bayonets, these people shooting fireworks at us, which are projectile weapons that can burn and do all kinds of bad things, yeah, I'd go ahead and, I'd go ahead and fire back, see how they like 5, 5, 6 in return. But I'm not there and I don't make those decisions. But you know, it's, it's absolutely just horrible to watch all that. And then there was the, the stupid woman who was manipulated into, you know, interfering with ice and even to the point where, you know, she got shot and killed because she hit an ICE agent with her car. And what these, what these rioters don't understand because I refuse to call them protesters, because a protester is a person who has a right to protest and can go down to the street corner, hold up their sign and not interfere with traffic and everything, but they could be in public and they can have their sign and express their opinion. That is a protester. What we're seeing are rioters and they're engaging in some sort of low level combat against ice and that's why they're getting arrested. That's why I love the videos where the ICE guys just knock them right on their butt. You know, just shove them and knock them right over. And you know, it's not, it's, it's, it's maybe not the greatest thing in the world. But I tell you what, they have a right to defend themselves when somebody's up screaming in your face. Yeah. You know, you've got a right to, to set them back, tell them that, get out of the way, stop interfering. And if they don't, you can knock them on their backside. So anyway, the, the more disturbing trend is there's been a picture of one guy and of course he's, you know, overweight with an AR15, what looks like a silencer, what looks like a, a PMAG inside it. And he's like, I'm here to defend my neighborhood and my community. And of course this guy's obese. The, the, the funny comments are he, he must be a member of me Seal Team 6. He's a member of Meal Team 6 because he's obviously been at the table a whole lot. But you know, fools like this are going to get themselves killed just like the fools who are interfering, using their cars to try to block ice. And I'll just play in a game. The feds are not playing games. And if they think somebody is threatening them, they are going to respond in the way that they are trained to respond as that, as that dope female found out when she rammed one of them with her car. You know, I mean she got, she got shot in the face. It's not a game. They are not playing around. It is not a game. And I don't know why they think that this is some sort of sport. It is not a sport. So you know, don't confront telling these people and it won't do any good. And frankly, I think most of this is just performance art because even they're not stupid enough to get firearms and confront federal agents, the National Guard, the local police. They're not going to do it because the minute you, first of all, if you show up there and you've got a weapon, they're going to tell you put it on the ground and take, they're going to take it away from them. And if they don't cooperate, bad things are going to happen. And if somebody tries to raise a weapon or point it at them or makes moves on this weapon that may be hanging around their, you know, with their two point sling hanging over their shoulders, they're going to get shot. That's just all there is to it. These people need to go watch Cops episodes, the, the rioters because the police do not fool around if somebody has got a weapon, you know, so when people are always talking about, well we know we'll just confront this or confront that, understand that, you know, they're not going to let you just stand there with a weapon and threaten them. The minute you touch that weapon, it's going to be a real problem. And in fact, if they see the weapon, they're just going to tell you put it on the ground. And they, they will make you do that and surrender the weapon. It's just the way it works. So ICE protest versus rioters. Yeah, there, there are very little. The, the, the other thing that's just so amazing is the people that they're actually defending. You know, these people who are getting arrested by ice, some of the criminal records are horrific. I mean, you wouldn't stick up with that guy if that guy were just a normal US citizen and got arrested for doing what they've done. Nobody care about him. People say, yeah, that's good, you know, send him to trial. If he's guilty, put him away. You know, defending people who have done some of these heinous things is just ridiculous. And you know, I understand that there are people who've snuck across the border who just kind of want to work. But you know what? They're thieves. The average illegal. If the only crime they've committed is coming across the border, I'm sorry, you're still a criminal. You're stealing from us. You're stealing jobs, you're stealing social services, you're stealing infrastructure. You use the roads, you use all this stuff that we've built here, you're stealing that because you haven't paid for it. You're not here legally. You have no right to use it. Legal immigrants have a right to all these things because they have gone through in some ways a very arduous process, but they've, they've gone through it and they've done it. Illegals just come across the border. You know, I saw a news report and this is a couple of weeks back. This is when they were, they found out that there's all kinds of illegals driving big rig trucks on our freeways. And of course, you know that has to be, you know, don't. You can't be little Bo Peep about this. You know that, that is gotta be a way a. Human trafficking networks, all that kind of stuff. Drug movements, all that kind of stuff. They're using the illegal drivers to do this. But shithole states like California give these guys a license. And one guy had a license and it had his picture on it, but it was like no name given. So you don't have any idea who this guy is. You got his picture and he's got a license. And I guess in California that's all you need. But anywhere else that's, that's a complete no go. Plus they found out and it's been several. The ones I can think of are from India. They can't read English, they don't know English signs. So they've killed people on the road because they've done weird maneuvers trying to make like a u Turn on a four lane freeway and people go careening into them because people are driving at 70 miles an hour, 75 miles an hour, getting from point A to point B. And they don't expect a big rig to try to do a bat turn in the middle of a four lane freeway because the guy's lost or he can't read the signs. So they're actually, I think this is good. I have not seen it because I don't get out much, but I guess they're going to truck stops and they're just saying, hey you citizen, are you this? Are you that? Can you read English? Can you understand English? And if they can't, they pull their license right there. I think that's the best thing in the world because everybody drives on those roads. And there have been a lot of young people, you know, 16, 17, 18, 19 year olds who aren't around now because illegals have, have just crashed into him. In a lot of cases it's been a dui. But they, they caught one guy and he's been like arrested three times for DUI as an illegal and yet he's still wandering around free. You know, I, I just can't, I can't understand it. Can't understand it at all. But now getting to gun stuff, which is always the best, it's always best being in gun stuff, I love it. That, that $200 tax on suppressors and short barrel rifles is gone, at least for now. And let me tell you how this is gonna be, you know, at a certain point, at some point in our future, and maybe it's going to be 10 years from now, maybe it's 12 years from now, you know, when Democrats get back in charge, they're going to reimpose that tax and it isn't going to be 200 bucks, it's going to be $4,000 or whatever. So I would suggest that if you're going to do it, do it now. Get the suppressor, get the short barrel rifle, you know, just, it's just paperwork. And actually it's really cool. There are some. Since there's no tax, then why do you have to do the paperwork? And there's actually a couple of organizations suing, saying hey, shouldn't even need to have to do the paperwork, which would be very good, which would be very cool. The next, next thing is if they really want to do something, if they really want to do something, the, at the BATFE or whatever they call themselves now, since we're in charge, since sane people are in charge, we need another machine gun amnesty. And I think that there just needs to be one. We had one in 68, 70. I think it was a two year old amnesty period or one year amnesty period. I think we need an amnesty. Why not take it? Democrats will never give it to us. So let's, let's do it. There's got to be a lot of things out there that people inadvertently have that they inherited or whatever else they don't have paperwork on or maybe they've lost the paperwork. You know who. There's all kinds of stuff with that. So let's, let's go find our, our stuff and get an amnesty. And our lawmakers need to, I don't even think they have to pass anything. I think the government could just declare, I think the ATF could just declare an amnesty. So I think an amnesty is the next thing. Why don't we have one of those. Okay, that's enough on the kind of the broad stuff. I've gotten a lot of comments about my, about my Comments on the M16 AR15A1 versus later models. And I do have to tell you that yes, I take a rather controversial, my take on it is rather controversial, but I'll explain why. And so here is my controversial stance. The more I have shot these rifles and I have, I have a lot of time on A1 style rifles, A2 style rifles and M4 style rifles. And I have to say that the best all around rifles are the A1s. And of course if you don't know what an AR15/M16A1 is, and I'll use those terms interchangeably, the important part is a 1, a 2, m 4. That's the important one. The, with the military models are have either fully automatic or burst fire. But the A1 is the pencil barrel triangular handguard fixed carry handle rifle. Sometimes they have a for a forward assistance, sometimes they don't. The earlier model Colt SP1s do not. Some of the later recreations of early AR15s and, and early M16s do not have the, the thing. And that's, that's something that I'll address later on because there's a question about that. But anyway the, the difference is the A2 has got the more adjustable rear sight. It also has, you know, some differences. Heavier barrel, longer buttstock, flash suppressors a little different filled in at the bottom. What are the other things? Yeah, that and of course in the military model it has a three round burst which everybody criticizes. But you know it's, it's really A non sequitur. It doesn't really matter. So anyway, that's, that's the A2. And of course the M4 is the 16 inch barrel rifle round, usually round handguards. Now it's got all kinds of handguard options that have got all kinds of M locks and all, all these other things on it and a adjustable buttstock. But I find that speaking as what I am now, which is a civilian user of such weapons, that I really like the A1 the best. And here are a couple of reasons why. Number one, the sighting system is simple and it's especially simple for shorter ranges. I'm talking about really 300 yards meters in. And once you get it dialed in, it does not fall out of adjustment. There's no real external knob that you can twist with your hand that would goof it up. So. And the elevation adjustment for battle site zero is, is done on the front sight. It does have a. You know, it is a little primitive. I mean it's, it's not as nice in some ways as the M1 Garand rear sight, M14 rear sight, but it's perfectly usable and it's absolutely outstanding. And like I said, once you get it dialed in, man, it's in. So I really like that. Other things I like about it is it's lightweight, especially for having a 20 inch barrel, really is lightweight. And it's easy to maneuver. It's not overly long. It's not, you know, the buttstock is a little bit shorter than on the later A2. It just, it just. The rifle maneuvers very, very well. And I had a lot of experience with the M16A1 when I was in mechanized infantry running in and out of armored personnel carriers. And I will tell you that, that it was a very handy weapon. You know, a lot of the earlier weapons like M14s and FNFALs were criticized by armored troops because hey, you know, you're some. When you're going out the troop hatch of these, these things and doing some of this stuff kind of squeezing in and out of these, it's, it's a whole lot easier. And when you're stowed in the back, it's a much more compact weapon. So, you know, it was very, very good for mechanized infantry. I like the fact that it's got a 20 inch barrel. To me, a 20 inch barrel is the gold standard. And I will say that because it is short enough so you can do cqb. I realize it's not the perfect platform for that, but you can do it. Plus you can shoot out to 300 meters and hit a man sized target comparatively easy. If you are prone or prone, supported or firing from a supported position, foxhole supported or even just regular foxhole position, you can hit a 300 meter target. You know, it's not a, not a big deal when you go out beyond that there are some ammo and rifle and sight limitations that, that kind of complicate that, but you can go out and hit at long combat ranges. Now as a civilian user, I've covered the potential legality, ethical problems with shooting someone who. You can identify a person out there, 300 meters, but you don't really have their intentions. Are they constituting a direct threat to you? All those things, all those things are something that you know you have to work out for yourself. So I, but I do like, I do like the fact that it can shoot to a distance and I do like the fact that it can be used up close and it's really, it excels really well up close. I also like the fact that I understand the, the flat top and you know, you can put all kinds of stuff on there and magnifiers and aim points and all that. You can put a decent optic on the carry handle of an A1. I've done it. As a matter of fact. I've got one laying around here with a copy of the, the old Colt 3 power, which is a great little scope. And I actually have a. In my stuff, it's packed away, but I bought one of the Barska scopes a couple years ago just to have. Just so I can, if I need to whip it on one of them, I can pretty, pretty decent. And now you can go high end, go to Brownells and they have a, I think it's like three bills. They have an AR scope also that fits the carry handle in basically the configuration of the first ones that came out with the ars in the 1960s. So that's very nice. I actually have a ACOG on my A2 and the only reason I'm mentioning that here is because a lot of people say, well, if you mount anything on the carry handle, it's up too high. If you're shooting prone, it's not up too high. As a matter of fact, there are guys who will tell me that my carry handle mounted optics are too high when they themselves have had to put risers on their AR optics to get them to get them up so they can actually see through them. So you know, is it, is it ideal? Is it a perfect solution? No, but for Me as a civilian user, it is totally fine. Totally fine. So I like that. I like that quite a bit. I also like the fact it's optimized for the ammunition that I'm really going to use. And that is the 55 grain. Most A1 style rifles have the 1 in 12 twist, which means you got to use 55 grain or lighter. I will also say that you there are like PSA, you can buy an A1 style rifle that has a 1 in 7 twist. That to me seems like a really good option. I didn't do it though. I just bought one and I didn't do it then I'll tell you why later. But you know the 55 grain, you, you go into Cabela's Bass pro shops, any of these places, you, that's what you find and you find a lesser amount, you can still find reasonable amount but a lesser amount of the M855 clone ammunition, the SS109. Now you know I'm not trying to penetrate a steel helmet at 600 yards. So I don't really care about it. I really don't. I don't think it's going to give me any, any advantage to use that ammunition. So therefore I'm not going to re redo my rifles or choose a different rifle to use ammunition. That really doesn't do much for me. And here's why I don't like it. Out of similar barrel lengths, it has less velocity and I shoot 5.56 to gain velocity. That's why I like a 20 inch barrel. When you shoot it out of a 20 inch barrel you get, let's just. They advertise it, it's about 3200ft per second. Somewhere between 31503200ft per second. The other stuff comes in just over 3000. Okay, so you're losing about 150ft per second on that. Does that matter? Well, it might matter. Wounding at close range, it probably is not going to make much of a difference. Is it enough of a difference to make a difference? The answer is probably no. But when you go down to 16 inch barrel, I want all the velocity I can because now I'm going to be losing velocity and I don't want this. I don't want necessarily a rifle that's going to shoot 2700ft per second using a 62 grain bullet. If I can get that up to maybe 2800 with a 55 grain bullet then I'm probably going to be a little happier. But you Know the, the shorter your barrel, the more drop off you're going to get. That's why I like 20 inch barrels that 3200ft per second and we use that and understanding people have chronographed it all over the place and your mileage may vary, I guess is the way this put it. But I want the most I can get. That's going to give me the most I can get. You kind of need to use a, it's a military term mostly used by like the Air Force or the Navy. You have to weaponeer your ammunition. I mean, what are your distances? What are you trying to achieve? If it's, if you're trying to shoot accuracy and targets and you want the tightest group you can, well then you're gonna shoot match ammunition which is going to give you that result, which is a tight group. If you're looking for defensive purposes and the ranges are, you know, comparatively short, you know, maybe out to 100 meters. Now, 55 grain is hard to beat and the, the other is, is probably sufficient. You know, the SS109M855, they're going to be sufficient. But I think I prefer, just because of the barrels I have, just because of the way I've got the gun sighted In, I prefer 55 grain. The only exception to that is an A2 I have, which I have, you know, kind of experimented with the 75 and 77 grain bullets. And it shoots very accurately. It is, it is awesome with that. But that would be, that would be something that's really more of kind of getting into that. And I hate the term dmr, but it's kind of getting into that DMR realm where it's not the rifle I'm going to have on my back, so it's the rifle I'd have to go over and select and carry out with a specific purpose in mind. Not something that I would just generally use. I also like 55 grain because I own one of the, the anathema to an AR rifles, which is the mini 14, which is something I'll cover in another, another podcast. But 55 grain shoots very well in the mini 14 also. So that's, that's kind of what I, that's kind of what I go with. So I think that's the way to, the way to have it. So is the A1 obsolescent? And I would say that, you know, obsolescent obsolete or very subjective terms. It is not the most modern. However, I will also say, you know, it Is tried proven technology that's out there. And, and I will tell you this. I. I hate. You know, it's not like I'm the. I am not the paragon of. Of all knowledge, obviously, and I nor, nor do I claim to be. But I can tell you that in 1978, I bought a Colt SP1. I took it to the range and uniformly every shooter told me that that was a piece of shit. They were sitting there. It's not accurate. It's. It can't shoot. The funniest one was can't shoot cast bullets. Well, okay, well, you know, who's doing that? You know, it's unreliable. Well, every time I took it to the range, it never jammed. I mean, it was a totally reliable gun. The only top problems I had with it was that varmint bullets which were available back then, Some of them had a very blunt nose that would hang up on the feed ramp. So, you know, if, if you didn't know what you were talking about, you could point to that as a, as a reliability problem. But that was actually an ammunition problem. But with proper ammunition, it was absolutely reliable. It was lightweight, fun to shoot, and shooting at gongs. It was great. I mean, it was great. Which to me, even back in those days, late 70s, early 80s, I knew that, you know, square range, let's shoot and see how tight a group we get that that wasn't reflective of the real world. And there were just a few people who were trying to tell us that. And there are a few people who were, you know, propagating the myth and the lies and all the rest of it. You know, back in those days, if you had an AR15, it was considered garbage. The same gun now which will probably sell for $2,000, which collectors will climb all over each other for, were considered trash. And Colt knew that those guns were good. The US Military knew the guns were good. They never put out anything to disabuse people of. Of the stupidity they were saying, which could have gone a long way. I mean, Colt could have sold a lot more SP1s if they told people, hey, this is really good. If they'd even done a simple mud test, you know, they could have done a mud test versus an AK47. They could have done that and shown people, no, this actually does better in the mud. They could have done all kinds of tests of how it is easier to hit a target because of the flat trajectory. They could have done all these things. They, they chose not to. But, but, you know, that's fine. Guy like Me comes along and I can figure it out and a lot of people can figure it out. So it's not obsolescent. Now if you really are, you can also get. I just have to say one thing about mounting optics. They also make these things called gooseneck mounts which they fit on the top of the handle and then kind of curve down and over the top of the hand guard. You can mount your, your optic and it's kind of co witnessed with the sights. Now that's, and that's a reasonable, that's a reasonable thing too. Is it? State of the art? No. Is, is Delta Force or SEAL Team six going to use equipment like that? No, but it is, it does make your, it does give your AR that capability if you want it. That's, that's just the way that is. And I've never really used the gooseneck because I just never, never really found a use for that. So, you know, now part of that is I have a flat top M4 style. You know, hey, I put my eotech on top of that and I'm good to go. So there was no real reason to go with the gooseneck for the other guns. So anyway, that's, that's that ah, the, the big bugaboo that, that still brings up controversy is the forward assist. Now on modern ars we've all accepted forward assist. As a matter of fact, you can still find some that don't have it and it's not a big deal for civilian use. Not a big deal. I've used forward assist a couple of times on my military M16s that I was shooting when I was on active duty and it's not what they describe, they would always describe that. Hey, you know the worst thing you could do, you get it, you get a round that won't chamber and here you're crunching it into the dirty chamber with a forward assist. You know, you're pushing that bolt forward and locking it. So when you fire it, hey, what's gonna happen? Is that round gonna, is the empty cartridge gonna stick in the chambers? You know, and there's all these horrible things that are going to happen if you use the forward assist because it will, it will really mess up the gun because it'll, it'll have a, an empty cartridge case stuck in the chamber. The only time I've ever used it was actually it was magazine related where the bolt would stop for whatever reason and half chamber around. I'd pop that thing and it would close. I'd pop that forward assist and it would close and I was, I was back shooting. And you know, that's again in a lot of shooting of M16 rifles. That's only happened to me a couple of times. And I attribute that more to maybe the magazines were incorrectly loaded. Because when you're on a, on a qualification range in the military, the army especially, I don't know about the Marines or the Air Force, you don't really load your own magazines. You may be on the detail that loads of magazines at the bench, but, you know, so maybe these things were incorrectly loaded. You know, maybe it was. Maybe there was something there. Maybe the magazine was goofed up. That's probably, probably the most plausible explanation. But anyway, I've used it a couple times and I found it came in handy. So I liked it. So if I hadn't had it, if it had been an SP1, I would have, I would have had to have dropped the magazine, applied remedial action by, with, by drawing the bolt to the rear, ejecting the offending cartridge, put the magazine back in, hitting the bolt release and hoping everything went well. So, you know, not a big deal. But I think the, the forward assist, it doesn't really add any measurable weight that anybody can care about. Doesn't snag on anything. So getting upset about it doesn't really, doesn't really do much. Yeah. And you look at, not so much with the M14 because of the roller they put in the, the bolt. But you know, with the M1 Garand, it's, it's fairly commonplace to. You put your eight round and block clip in. You have to just pop the back of the rod, the, of the charging handle, the, you know, the handle that's on the operating rod, you have to just pop the back of that real quick just to get it to release and go forward. Just. Just the way machines are sometimes. So it's not uncommon to have to do that. I think I kind of gone over barrel length 14.5 to 20, realizing that 14.5 is a military length and they can do that because they don't have anything. Now we, we can do that too because we don't have to pay the $200 tax. But we also have ones that are welded and pinned 14.5 with a slightly longer flash suppressor. So it comes out to that 16 inch deal. So. And that's good for states that don't recognize, you know, class three things. But you can still own an ar. So, you know, that's all, that's all good. I don't like Losing five to six inches a barrel. I just don't. So, you know, go back to my earlier comments on that. So that's where I am with the AR15 now. I'll talk a little bit about the 8A1. That was about the A1, the A2. The A2. I thought I was very impressed with the A2 when I first saw it. I mean, it felt like a rifle. And I'm, I'm kind of an M1A guys, M14 guy. So it felt really good to me when I hefted it. I like the sights on it. I liked a lot of what I saw on did. It didn't strike me till a little bit later that it was essentially a step in the wrong direction. It was kind of a step back, which it seems that we've done now with the M7. We've taken a much larger step back. I think that it's a. It was regrettable in some ways. It, it was the throwback to wanting a rifle, rifle that would perform extremely well on KD ranges, which the M1 Garand. Well, you go 1903 Springfield M1 Garand M14 did, which the M16 A1 really did not. It was not great for KD ranges, but the A2 is great on KD ranges. And that's what we. That was the capability they wanted. That's what they got. So I don't think that it was a particularly wise choice to make, but they did it. And, you know, it came back to bite us later when we started putting people in body armor. The longer buttstock made it a very clumsy, cumbersome ensemble to try to deal with. And you know, that's, that's just the way it was. I mean, that's just the way it was. It. They needed that adjustable buttstock, but they did not put it on until the M4 came along some years later. And it was, it was driven home to me in Bosnia when I would, I would have my flak jacket. We didn't have the body armor that we have now. We had flak jackets. I had my flak jacket on and all my stuff, and I couldn't. I couldn't get a cheek. Well, to see through the sights of an M16A2. I couldn't do it, you know, so what I would do is I would cheat. I would actually open my, my body armor move or my flak jacket move it out of the way, kind of get the, the end of the buttstock in underneath the, the flap of the thing. And then I could, could Get a weld. But of course I was negating the, some of the protective properties of the flak jacket. So it, you know, it was, it was not a. It was not a great deal. It just wasn't. But with the M4 adjustable buttstock that really, that simplified a whole bunch of that and it made it a lot easier whether you had a flak jacket initially or you had the, the later body armor, very, very good. You could, you could fire your weapon. And so it was great. We kind of went away from some of the traditional shooting things like, you know, kind of turning your, if you're firing off hand, kind of turning your body about 3/4 towards the target. Because if you did that, you moved your plate away from where the bullets would be coming in your front plate. So we kind of adopted this triangular shooting positions and probably didn't do a very good job with all that. I mean, that's, you know, kind of let people discover that all on their own. So. So we'll see what, we'll see what happens with the M7. I. It looks like it has an adjustable stock, but how it adjusts I. I don't really know. So we'll see. But you know, frankly, it's not going to concern me because I'm not, I'm not going to drink the Kool Aid and go for it. It's not something I want. I mean, it just doesn't, it doesn't fit with where I live. It doesn't fit with the threats. I see now it would be a fun gun to own and shoot and that's really all you need. But it doesn't really fit any kind of a tactical niche for me so that I don't already have filled with something else. So we just go with that. I mean, you know, it's going to be competing against 762 NATO rifles. And 7.62 NATO is still an absolutely outstanding cartridge even though it's almost 70 years old now. It is a fantastic, a fantastic cartridge. And accuracy wise, which is kind of a wrap that's on this M7. It's got manageable recoil. It's proven, combat proven. It does a great job. So anyway, those getting the gun to fit your equipment and your gear is important. And a lot of people have said that the A1 buttstock is really probably optimal in fixed buttstocks. So you can take that to the bank. And again, your mileage may vary, but the adjustable stocks are nice too. I just don't like the, the drop off in performance. I feel that when I have an M4 I shouldn't probably say this, but I feel like I have a shorter range gun than I do with a 20 inch barrel rifle. That's all there is to it. The M4 is a genuine carbine. Now it is extremely good at close range. It is extremely good at cqb. It is extremely good when you're getting in and out of vehicles, helicopters, all those things that I've done. It is exceptional for that. It is really a compact piece of kit that, that, that is very easy to maneuver around. It is easier and more compact than a, than an A1. But the A1 is just doesn't give up much, doesn't give up much to it. So anyway, those are my AR comments to address some of the questions or comments that came in after the last podcast where I talked about this stuff. Anyway, there's really no question and answers this time, so we will go ahead and just tie this one up. Remember, if you have any questions or comments, you can go ahead and email them to me K B M A K e l o l.com or the comments section on Podbean. But until next time, this is old school Guns out.