I wo I would! The issue I have with the BMC and others is the funky "Bat Wings" behind the knobs, and the size of the knobs is awfully small! Normally, you should never need anything but a normal charging handle, but combat experience has shown me just how bad things can get with the AR system! If you've never stuck a broken case in a chamber and then had the bolt try and charge a live round in on top of it, getting the bolt back can be a very rough challenge under ideal conditions, try it when the bullets are flying both ways, and you only other option is your side arm and the 5 mags you have with it! I have had the M-16/m-4 go hard bent on me a few times, thank the gods for the over sized/ambi charging handles! I had one so bad, I had to shove a cleaning rod down the bore and then lean on the rifle against the armored door of a Hummer and then while pushing as hard as I could, have my buddy smack the charging handle with the butt of his rifle, it worked, and I was back up and running in a few seconds, but damn! If that had been the standard charge handle, I would still be there trying to get that sucker open!
IMO don't bother with a free floated hand guard if you're running more than 4lb trigger. Plastic handguards cost like $20 weigh like 250 grams for rifle length. A free floated rifle hand guard is going to cost at least $150 for one that isn't shit and will weigh about 5x as much as plastic.
@hot diggity Thanks for the sling info! I'm going to try it on the CETME C I'm currently building. Had to make an order from RTG today anyways so it worked out perfect! Side note: I've always wanted to take a MAT 49 for a test drive, but haven't come across one yet. @Ura-Ki and @3M-TA3 OK you've talked me into trying one. I've looked at the Raptor SD-SL. I'll try it on my suppressed .300 blk out. This is another item that I was hoping would pop up. I'm not convinced that a person needs to spend $200+ for a hand guard. I honestly cannot see or feel the difference between the high dollar hand guard and a $60 dollar one.
"Must have"? Not really anything. The firearm is designed to work, and work well, from the factory. "Nice to have"?? - 2 stage trigger. Makes for a much smoother shot. Especially nice, if you're trying to get some range out of your AR-10 or AR-15. - if you have a scope, some peep-thru mounts, or, - regardless of the optic, some of those 45 degree iron sights. Batteries fail, and sometimes the target is closer than the scope will be useful for. - if you want to eschew the carry handle/rear sight, a BUIS (back up iron sight) is nice. You can co-align it with your holographic sight, too. That way, if you've kept the front sight on the barrel, and your holographic site goes screwy on you, with the flip of a lever, you're back in business, with an iron sight. The government was issuing a new one of these to anyone deploying to Afghanistan or Iraq, for years.....so there's plenty of new, or nearly new ones on ebay.
As to the hand guards vs free-float tube, unless your building a high zoot super precise system, none of that stuff is all that practical! One of the funniest things I have seen is all the accessories everyone seems to want to add to their handy dandy little Carbine, which ended up making a mess of it and dosnt really add performance to it! In the Air Force, we stripped everything off ours except the laser designators and optics, nobody ran any of that cool guy crap, we wanted them fast and handy and to keep everything as light as possible, it made for a much more useful rifle, easier to maintain, and had nothing you didn't need! Those Key-Mod rails and all that is a serious waste it time and money, those hand stops and vertical grips are useless excuses for poor training, and the lazy man's solution! I much prefer the old school triangle hand guards, or at the least the old school M-4 waffle round guards, light, handy, grippy and zero snag, besides the retro cool, they really do work very well, and keeps things super light! My little CAR-16 forgery weighs in just a fuzz over 6 pounds empty, that's LIGHT for an all alloy AR with it's SOCOM barrel!
I'm telling you, Last panic I dumped the goods on the chronic un-prepared. The sheep continue to eat the same grass
I left something off, need less than a 3 to 4lb trigger, a good trigger with as little creep as possible and a scope. If running irons I wouldn't worry about free float hand guard. I already know a good 2lb trigger will knock off at least 1moa to my shots compared to a "sport trigger" with some creep and a 4 to 5.5lb pull. I don't know how much difference a free floated hand guard will make but I'll find out. I guess I could take the plastic hand guards off and do a quick and dirty test using a 5rd mag on a rest too see if it makes enough difference to make a difference.
Both good platforms the AK is great in the field as you NEVER need to clean it. The AR is more accurate but more technical than the AK platform. Either way the best thing is to keep it simple you'll be fine.
I've been running Smiths everywhere as well. Night videos of these are basically a black rectangle with gunshots in the audio. Very, very, happy with them. Only issue is I have a SilencerCo Omega 300 on the way. I can use the proprietary ASR system (I'm comfortable with the cam lock) or direct thread with the adapters they include. The ASR flash hider is also a three prong, but NOTHING kills flash like a Vortex! The can has a standard 1.375x24 HUB interface. I wonder if there are any adapters between that and the Vortex out there?
I'll be curious how well the SD feature works. Do understand that the SL designation is for "slim" meaning the levers are shorter. IMO the standard ones are what you want and what makes the Raptor so fine. The SL option might be the best option for you. Ideally you would want to at least handle one before you spend the money.
The two greatest designers in history. There is a picture somewhere of the time they actually met. Stoner had to travel to Russia as Kalishnakov was not allowed to travel abroad. While Stoner made a fortune on his design, Mikhail only got a pat on the back and a small govt stipend.
Hmm, seems I may have mis-remembered the details. This article says that they met in DC. I think it was a Guns and Ammo or some such mags article I read that IIRC said they met in Moscow. Maybe that was a different time. IDK Mikhail Kalashnikov Meets Eugene Stoner (Famous Photo)
For some it would be actually shoot and put in time to train. Working at ranges, it is astounding the lack of skill out there. KISS....Keep It Simple, Stupid...A lot of AR's with a ton of stupid attachments.
