The AR-15 Is More Than a Gun. It’s a Gadget

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/02/ar-15/all/

by jonnycoder • 13 years ago

44 113 13 years ago

_delirium2• 13 years ago

Interesting read, thanks. I was completely unaware of the whole customization/hobby/gear subculture around the AR-15.

hga23• 13 years ago

Indeed, it's well illustrated by the caption "Is the iPhone in this picture, taken at this year’s SHOT Show in Las Vegas, an AR-15 accessory, or is the AR-15 an iPhone accessory?"

And other gun designs are taking more and more advantage of this. The dimensions of the rails are standard so I can e.g. put sights like the holographic EOTech you can see in the first photo on my originally designed in Switzerland, parts from Europe and the US and assembled here "semi-automatic assault rifle".

jonnycoder5• 13 years ago

I'm a software developer but my hobbies extend into shooting & building guns and woodworking - activities akin to tinkering and assembly. As somewhat of a non-political article, it's nice to see a mainstream showcasing of why we love our AR15s instead of just being called names (whacko, redneck, etc).

D9u10• 13 years ago

It's not just the AR-15. Check out the sub-culture of the Russian rifles. There's AK47 & SKS modification nuts as well as others.

speedyrev5• 13 years ago

My only problem with this article is the comparison of the M16 to the AR15. They share some parts but not lower receiver. The M16 is a military rifle with the ability to go full auto. The AR15 is a customizable civilian rifle that only shoots once per trigger pull. AR15 does not equal M16

jlgreco4• 13 years ago

My impression is that an AR15 lower receiver and an M16 lower receiver are sufficiently similar such that an AR15 lower receiver blank could be machined into either one.

Of course even if that is the case (I'm not so sure it is), the guns are still wildly different things in practice and under the law.

RyJones10• 13 years ago

You can modify an ar15 into an m16 with a drill press to add the hole.

RyJones10• 13 years ago

Considering the difference is one hole, a pin, and some parts, there isn't much difference. If you look up the lightning link, you can make an ar15 full auto without modifying the lower, provided you can use tin shears and a saw blade (or other source of thin, flexible metal)

speedyrev5• 13 years ago

That mod doesn't make it a M16. It makes it an unsafe, illegal AR15.

speedyrev5• 13 years ago

Yes, you could modify it, but it is by law different. In fact, try it and you go to prison. They are still not the same.

_delirium2• 13 years ago

Sure, they're legally different, but the article as I read it covers that: they describe the M16 as an automatic-fire, military variant of the AR15. Isn't that accurate?

RyJones10• 13 years ago

You are correct that outside of being an SOT it is illegal to make the modification; I am merely pointing out that the difference is trivial, not core.

stephengillie2• 13 years ago

By modifying it, we're talking about disassembling it, drilling a hole through a piece of metal, and reassembling it.

You're telling me that the instant the hacker reassembles the gun, she'll be placed in prison?

speedyrev5• 13 years ago

The M16 was the military designation of the CAR15. The AR15 platform is the semi-auto evolution of the rifle in the civilian market. I know I'm picky, but it's still different. There is one cloudy statement of the difference, but thereafter the author equates the two.

gcb0• 13 years ago

> Why would normal, law-abiding Americans want to own > a deadly weapon that was clearly designed for military use?

riiiiight. because all the other firearms are designed to open cans and turn off TVs.

dmix2• 13 years ago

Also an AR-15 is an assault weapon as opposed to what the military uses, which is called assault rifles. Those are fully automatic and much more powerful.

Assault rifles are already banned and the AR-15's you can buy in gun stores don't fit into that category, unless legislators invent things to be considered military... like "military grips" which is basically a pistol grip. Which often doesn't make the gun any more lethal.

RyJones10• 13 years ago

In the US, the AR15 used to be (for ten years) an assault weapon. It still is in some states.

If you ask combat veterans of OIF/OEF how often they use anything other than semi auto on issued M4/M16 rifles, you'll find the frequency is almost zero.

hga23• 13 years ago

Unless you define "power" as rate of fire, in this case as noted elsewhere an option for 3 round bursts, there's absolutely no difference in power. You shouldn't put 5.56 NATO rounds in a .223 chamber, that's likely to result in excessive pressure, but besides that the details matter only to those wanting the most in accuracy.

In fact, not being limited by the Hague convention, we civilians and stateside police can use rounds that are loaded with much more effective expanding bullets.

DanBlake• 13 years ago

The assault weapon rhetoric is politically defined. A AR-15 is nearly the same weapon as a Mini-14, which just looks like a normal hunting gun. The features that define a 'assault weapon' were just made up from some committee. The stupid thoughts on that are, if you add a bayonet lug to the gun below, it becomes a assault weapon.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zCHrsykW3qw/UPh-QOaG7jI/AAAAAAAAAH...

jff5• 13 years ago

"Assault weapon" is a term invented by Brady et al. because they wouldn't be taken seriously if they said "scary black gun". Assault rifle, battle rifle, these terms have meaning. Assault weapon is not a real category.

Zak3• 13 years ago

[Military M-16s and M-4s] are fully automatic and much more powerful [than civilian AR-15s].

This is slightly misleading. The military weapons fire the same ammunition: the same bullet, at the same velocity. In terms of kinetic energy of the bullet, the weapons have the same power. The fully-automatic capability of the military weapons simply allows many more shots to be fired in a given amount of time.

ceejayoz4• 13 years ago

There's a reason most combat troops aren't using bolt-action rifles or shotguns.

powertower3• 13 years ago

I'd hate to defend against an assailant with a bolt-action rifle in my hands. Not only can it take 5-6 shots to take someone down (depending on what drugs they are on, were the shots hit, and the caliber and velocity of the bullet), but I'd imagine that in that specific moment of shock and panic were your life is in danger, it would be kind of difficult to properly operate a weapon that requires more actions over a simple trigger pull.

The only thing that makes an AR15 and similar weapons “assault weapons” is that the general public believes that semi-automatic weapons are the same thing as fully automatic weapons, and they look scary.

epmatsw• 13 years ago

Hunting is a pretty solid and common use for a weapon that wasn't designed for military use.

jonnycoder5• 13 years ago

Common bolt-action hunting rifes are based on a design that was created for war.

speedyrev5• 13 years ago

Flint locks were deadly weapons designed for military use. Why not want the most modern weapons? There is an entire sport shooting class for these modern weapons. It's also the preferred weapon for varmint shooting such as helping cattlemen clear ground hogs from pasture land.

rdl6• 13 years ago

From what I've read, the M16 wasn't that popular in early Vietnam use -- it might have been preferred to the M14 for size, but the AK-47 (AKM or Chinese equivalent, usually) of the enemy was more highly regarded than either. More reliable mechanically, and still more lethal (and less likely to be deflected by light cover) than the M16's 55gr bullet.

nhebb• 13 years ago

I was in the Army in the mid-80's, when most of the NCO's and officers were Vietnam vets. The critical importance of keeping your weapon clean was stressed because the M16 was prone to jam. The vets said the AK-47, on the other hand, could be dropped in the mud and still keep on firing.

protomyth• 13 years ago

If it is gear used in a hobby (and shooting is a big hobby for a lot of people), it will have modifications / upgrades sold. Cars and gaming being two big examples.

hga23• 13 years ago

A few corrections or comments:

McNamara and company forced the AR-15 on the Army (the Air Force was already buying them for guarding planes and the like, a much less demanding duty) because the small arms procurement part of the Army at the time was utterly corrupt, preferring inferior US designs like the M14 (too much operating stuff out in the open, otherwise a great improvement on the M1 Garand) and the M60 machine gun (details on request). They biased tests by e.g. replacing screws holding a rifle together with springs while they had custody of them before the official tests (or at least I've read that about the trials that selected the M14, the AR-10, original big brother of the AR-15, was said to be sabotaged that way).

The NRA never, ever, supported the "assault weapons" ban, with the sole exception of one off-script or trial balloon radio interview with Carleton Heston (take your pick, he and other Western actors cut commercials to support the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968). This was much noticed in the community because Clinton's AW ban was the first piece of Federal anti-gun legislation that passed without the NRA's approval, however grudging.

"Accustomed to taking down trophy bucks with a hefty .30-caliber round, they ridiculed the AR-15 as a “mouse gun” and feared that its smaller .223-caliber bullet would only wound an animal, instead of taking it down with a single, clean shot."

A bit of an exaggeration, higher energy narrower than .30 caliber (7.62 mm) rounds have long been used to take deer sized animals. Prior to recent tremendous developments in bullet technology .223 was iffy except for smaller critters, it was in fact derived from the .222 Remington, a target and varmint shooting cartridge, at least in the US.

Any correlation with the expiration of the 2004 "assault weapons" ban and the civilian market's response is bogus. It was sufficiently weak that the only effect was an increase in the cost of magazines, and since it had been our issue rifle for a quarter century there were plenty used ones to be had. Otherwise you could buy one as long as you were willing to forgo e.g. a bayonet lug.... I think the big event was 9/11, and the feckless domestic response, e.g. Bush telling us to go out and buy stuff to support the economy. Many people realized they were on our own, at least in terms of initial response, and plenty of subsequent events like hurricanes emphasized that. E.g. there's the saying that "When seconds count, the police are minutes away". After a hurricane for many it will be more like weeks.

That Hello Kitty rifle is real, there are some very nice modern gun finishes that come in many different colors, like DuraCoat which was used for that one and which the article has a photograph of a SHOT Show advertising display for it.

I can't speak to the author's emphasis of all this coming from the gaming "and others who had fallen into the post-9/11, SpecOps-inspired 'tactical lifestyle'" ... but I'll note there wouldn't have been a 1994 "assault weapons" ban if these weren't already popular guns. I personally know they were popular in the '70s, and as Cam Edwards put it, "The AR was designed in 1957 and sold to the public beginning in 1964. Perhaps we should go ahead and ban that newfangled rock and roll too."

Obviously, the "NRA’s dire warnings of an Democratic gun grab should Obama win the presidency" were accurate, if the timing was a bit off. And Sen. Joe Manchin is a poser who doesn't know the difference between a magazine and a clip, unless his shooting experience up to now has been with single shot rifles and double barreled shotguns.

sarvinc4• 13 years ago

I'd just like to add that the M60 is a dog and always has been a dog. The 240G and 240B were and are superior in every way. It's been a long time but I remember, in Ranger school, discovering the that gas piston (hazy on the actual part) would fit in backwards.

hga23• 13 years ago

Yes, I've read that was perhaps its most lethal flaw. You could assemble part of it backwards, and you'd only discover this after firing a round, at which point it would jam. Also had a soft sear that would go round perhaps after 20,000 rounds, after which it would continue firing without your pulling the trigger. And the idea of having to use an asbestos mitten to change barrels.... Everything I've read says all the competing designs, FN's MAG which the 240 is derived from, the German MG42/MG3, and the Soviet one, are vastly better.

ZachPruckowski• 13 years ago

>Obviously, the "NRA’s dire warnings of an Democratic gun grab should Obama win the presidency" were accurate, if the timing was a bit off

I don't see how this is true, unless we massively redefine "gun grab" from "confiscating private firearms that are currently legally owned" to "limiting the production and/or commercial sale of some types of firearms and firearm accessories".

hga23• 13 years ago

Obviously you missed e.g. NY governor Cuomo and Senator Feinstein calling for outright confiscation, along with many less prominent Democratic politicians (and probably a few Republicans as well). Or various laws that have been introduced to do that, like one in my home state of Missouri.

And "gun grab", at least in the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) community, includes lessor things that confiscation. NY state's "no new 10 round magazines, and it's a crime to load more than 7 rounds in the ones you have, worse if you're outside your house", might not precisely match the words "gun grab", but English isn't a precision language. For example, NY state residents wanting to buy new guns face very constrained choices right now.

ADDED: Constrained in that most semi-auto guns come with > 7 round magazines. Manufacturers or 3rd parties will have make new ones limited to 7 rounds, and if you want to buy one, you'll have to get that SKU, or find a cooperative out-of-state dealer who will swap magazines. Read Emily Miller's adventures in getting her preferred gun model into D.C. for an example of this; there the limit is 10 rounds.

benjohnson• 13 years ago

A long time Democrat senator in Washington State recently introduced a bill that authorized yearly police inspections inside the home of gun owners - directly in violation of the 4th amendment in the Bill of Right.

That's worse than a 'gun grab' in my opinion.

reader5000• 13 years ago

Interesting, the NRA cult trying to infiltrate the "tech" community with this novel yet absurd "lol guns are for nerds because they are customizable" line.

Although there are admittedly a lot of neckbeard libertarian types that this argument would appeal to, I think most "hackers" are interested in building things that are productive and beneficial to society, and do not impose massive societal costs. The marginal social cost of household gun ownership is in the range of $100 to $1800 per year. http://home.uchicago.edu/~ludwigj/papers/JPubE_guns_2006FINA...

DamnYuppie2• 13 years ago

First that is a very narrow minded stereo type.

Secondly you attempted to support your stance by research that was done on only 200 counties over 14 years ago. This paper is nothing more then corollary drivel dressed up as research. Their findings are easily debunked, gun ownership has been steady or increasing the last 10 years and homicides have been in decline. Feel free to peruse http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/crimestats.

jonnycoder5• 13 years ago

Since this portion of the comments went political, I will post this comprehensive list of Gun Myths I saw posted on reddit.com/r/progun: http://imgur.com/a/WiikM

jbooth4• 13 years ago

As a liberal who shares your derision of neckbeard libertarians...

The AR-15 is a cool gadget. If you don't think guns are cool pieces of mechanical engineering, I suggest going to the range and firing a few.

DamnYuppie2• 13 years ago

While you are there shoot a Glock, Sig, and a nice bolt action rifle.

I honestly have never known anyone who didn't tone down their anti-gun hate after having gone to the range with a knowledgeable, capable, and safe chaperone. I have taken several and everyone always had an enjoyable time, just stress the safety aspects consistently!

a_p6• 13 years ago

I used to think that the most dangerous thing about the AR-15 was that it had the capacity to hold 30 round magazines. I don't have a good opinion of 100 round drums, because they jam too easily.

Then I learned about the Slide Fire [1], a stock that legally gives the AR-15 full auto capability. The loophole is that the stock uses the gun's recoil to pull the trigger again, instead of the gun's internal mechanism doing it.

A good analogy to computers would be an interface that does not allow clicking a button to send multiple requests, but allows a script to click the button much faster than a human would.

[1] http://www.slidefire.com/

nthj• 13 years ago

> I used to think that the most dangerous thing about the AR-15 was that it had the capacity to hold 30 round magazines

Yep. I'm gonna feel so much safer when I'm murdered with ten 9mm bullets instead of seventeen.

Oh wait, not so much.

a_p6• 13 years ago

An automatic rifle is much more dangerous than an automatic handgun, because of the physics involved. When a bullet enters yours body, the rapid deceleration of the bullet creates a shock wave that creates a micro-cavity in your body that lasts for milliseconds. This micro-cavity does enormous damage to your internal organs. That is why rifles (which fire bullets with much more kinetic energy) are so much more dangerous than pistols.

In general, you are much more likely to survive multiple pistol wounds than you are multiple rifle wounds.

Sidenote: Rifles used in the Civil War and modern rifles fire bullets with roughly the same kinetic energy. Improvements to gunpowder have allowed smaller bullets to be fired with larger velocity.

jbooth4• 13 years ago

So, the military teaches troops to almost never use full-auto on their rifles.

Why is having full-auto mode so much more dangerous? Seems that in a mass-shooting situation, the person's more likely to blow the whole clip and be out of ammo.

a_p6• 13 years ago

In a firefight between two militaries, it is not more dangerous. The danger is that the regular police that only carry sidearms would be seriously outgunned.

hga23• 13 years ago

And spend most of that ammo up in the air vs. on target.

Look at the case of criminal negligence where a young boy was handed a Micro-UZI to shoot and the path it traversed ended up shooting him in the head.... Or the various combat veterans in this discussion attesting to the limited utility of full auto in an AR-15 pattern rifle. Or the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode where one of the kibitzers was shouting "Short, controlled bursts!" ^_^.

jff5• 13 years ago

Full auto is frankly a stupid feature. It wastes ammunition, it's inaccurate. There is a reason soldiers rarely use fully-auto except in specific circumstances. Bump firing, which is what the Slide Fire does, is even worse because it throws your accuracy to utter hell--look up the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_fire)

Oh, and most rifles with removable magazines can accept 30 round magazines, it's not a magical AR-15 capability.

jonnycoder5• 13 years ago

Here is some more perspective on high capacity magazines. Regular 9mm Glocks and Berettas such as Glock 17 and Beretta 92fs are designed to hold 17 or 15 round magazines, stock. The FN 5.7, the same gun used in the Fort Hood shooting and also reported to be in use by Secret Service, and legal for citizen ownership, has a 20 round stock magazine. The California legal version requires a 10 round magazine.

rdl6• 13 years ago

This is a great book about the AK-47, the big "alternative" to the M16: http://www.amazon.com/The-Gun-C-J-Chivers/dp/0743271734

The Author, C.J. Chivers, writes an interesting blog for the NY Times where they attempt to ID munitions from the battlefield in Africa, Syria, etc. http://cjchivers.com/

jewbacca• 13 years ago

> Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s famously statistics-driven Pentagon was itching to replace the M14, an Army-designed gun that, despite its successful use in World War II.

With information from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M14_rifle:

The M14, while "developed from a long line of experimental weapons based upon the M1 rifle" (a semiautomatic rifle which certainly saw widespread use in WWII), did not enter production until 1959. Compared to the M1, the M14 was fully automatic rather than semi-, had a much larger magazine size, shot a different bullet, and was actually significantly lighter -- so even knowing nothing about how the actual mechanism and whatever other properties of a gun that impact its performance were changed, it's safe to say it's not the same gun, and this is a factual error.

The fact that, as someone who has never even seen an unholstered gun outside a museum much less shot one, and has no domain knowledge outside of movies and a single decade-old video game, I could spot this error from a mile away, makes me skeptical about this article. I know this seems like useless nitpicking, but it reminds me of reading mainstream articles about relatively esoteric high tech subjects: in domains I know better, these articles are often so nakedly full of holes and errors that they totally waste whatever argument the author is working towards. So whenever I spot easy errors on topics I know little about, it puts me on higher guard for what else might be bullshit that I don't recognize.

That said, this is a fascinating article, and even with skepticism it has adjusted my perspective on the debate.

D9u10• 13 years ago

There are 2 distinctly different "M1" rifles. The 1st type is known as the "M1 Garand" which fires a Winchester .308 (7.62 mm NATO) round.

The 2nd type is known as the "M1 Carbine" which fires a smaller, .30 cal. round.

The M14 fires the 7.62 mm NATO round, the same as the M! Garand.

hga23• 13 years ago

A correction: the M1 Garand, designed before WWII, as issued originally fired .30-06; .308/7.62 NATO is a 1/2 inch or so shorter round, using much improved powder and a 147 vs. 150 or maybe 152 (Wikipedia) grain bullet to achieve the same exterior ballistics as M2 Ball I think. I've read that shaving off 1/2 an inch of overall length (the case was quite long because our powder in 1903 wasn't as good as the German's) allows decreasing the receiver length by about an inch ... but I'm now ashamed to realize I never measured them when I had my Garand and a couple of M14 semi-auto investment cast receivers "just in case" for legal grandfathering.

However, the gun will fire any round with .30-06 or .308 dimensions if the pressure profile is a good match. I had my Garand refurbished and rebarreled in .308/7.62 NATO, and it was quite reliable. The Navy started doing that sort of thing the earliest that I know of, with a sleeve fitted into the chamber (!).

D9u10• 13 years ago

After a couple of hours doing online research, I've found very little supporting evidence for the claim, made by others, and myself, that there were indeed M16A1 select fire rifles which carried the "Mattel" brand name, which, on the ones I've seen, had the logo stamped into the lower receiver group, specifically, on the magazine well.

It was early November, 1982 when I graduated OSUT at Ft Benning, GA, USA (1st Platoon, Echo Company, 7th Battalion, 1st Infantry Training Brigade, AKA "Sand Hill,") and I distinctly remember being quite disappointed that the rifle I first checked out of the Armory had a "Mattel" logo on it. We quickly compared our rifles, and there were some with the Mattel logo, and some with other markings, but we all had a good laugh about "toy" rifles.

Back in '82, in OSUT (One Station Unit Training)all weapons were kept in the Armory, under lock and key, and we'd check a rifle out of the Armory for target practice, do some shooting, then clean our assigned weapons before checking them back into the Armorers, who would raise holy-hell if you had not thoroughly cleaned the aforementioned rifle.

For those who doubt my (and other's) assertion(s) regarding the "Mattel" logo, I had no camera while going through boot camp, and doubt that any of the other recruits had carried a camera while training. Our company Commander was Captain G. Tronsrue, a West Point graduate, as well as an Airborne Ranger. He's on Facebook, and I've conversed with him there. He said that he remembers my name, and that only a few other "Echo Outlaws" had contacted him via FB.

What a walk down memory lane!

hga23• 13 years ago

Heh, I smell a hack at least slightly in the spirit of this article.

I'm not familiar with working on finished (anodized?) aluminum; did the stamp appear to have been applied after the original finish? Were these perhaps refurbished lowers, allowing an armorer perhaps unenamored of the design and/or round to apply the stamp and then properly refinish it? (Were M16s refurbished in such a way?)

D9u10• 13 years ago

I couldn't tell you how the marks got there, only that I wasn't the only one who saw M16's stamped with the Mattel logo. I didn't consider the logo thing to be important at the time, it being boot camp, and all that. We weren't "issued" a specific rifle the way we were the rest of our TA-50, we'd go down to the Armory and sign out a rifle, and that rifle wasn't always the same one you used last time. Ft Benning (Sand Hill) was the only place I saw the Mattel stamped rifles, and I highly doubt that an Armorer there took the time to add the logos as a joke. These were old rifles, definitely used condition, but I still qualified Expert using them.

From what I've been researching, Mattel had a short contract during the late 70's to manufacture M16 rifles for the US military. Unfortunately, I have no credible verification of said contract. Perhaps someone will dig a bit deeper to get to the bottom of this aspect. As for the Mattel Marauder, replica, I had never even heard of it until today.

The AR-15 Is More Than a Gun. It’s a Gadget

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