Shot an AR-15 .223 and a 308 winnie rifle over the holidays. Originally wanted a regular rifle for hunting but after shooting the AR I'll just get a 308 version for hunting instead.

Today i roasted a succulent beast and ate the meat straight from the bone, then ate the delicious marrow.

(01-03-2017 05:34 PM)DJ-Matt Wrote:  Shot an AR-15 .223 and a 308 winnie rifle over the holidays. Originally wanted a regular rifle for hunting but after shooting the AR I'll just get a 308 version for hunting instead.

Have you thought about something like a 6.5mm Grendel?

It runs on a regular ar15 lower.

Broke up with my girlfriend after she said her friends were giving her too much shit about me. Banged a hotter, taller, more feminine version of her today.

Killed two ducks today.

A woman at work (3-letter agency office) turns out lives in deliverance country. She has chickens and two ducks, both drakes. Apparently, they were raping the chickens--pulled feathers, etc.
I love duck. It's delicious. After couple of months of talking her into it, she relented and allowed me to kill them.

Now, I'm a city boy. I've never done anything of the sort. All my hunting trips resulted in abysmal failures. This was the first time a killed a living creature. I didn't even get to shoot any hajjis during my deployments.

The act of killing is not hard. Slice the throat, collect the blood, separate the head from the body. That's all it is. This was my first time, so there was a slight ping of conscience. But I've seen taliban butcher men like sheep, so it didn't last. Afterwards is when the work started. I heard someone say that you don't need to scald the ducks to pluck the feathers, like you do with chicken. What liars they were... The feathers on the belly might have been easy, but the wings are a bitch! And down feather! I gave up after three hours. I'll just burn it off in the kitchen. Butchering was easy, I'm familiar with that. The only thing to mind was to get the innards out of the bird whole, so the bile bladder would not break.

Came home tired AF and made czernina. And had steak with wine.

She thanked me. Took no money.

Did leg day until I could barely walk, told a bunch of anti-Trump posters to "Build the Wall!", then came home and ate a shit ton of hot links with homemade BBQ sauce.

Today was a good day.

(01-03-2017 05:34 PM)DJ-Matt Wrote:  but after shooting the AR I'll just get a 308 version for hunting instead.

That's what I initially thought. I got LMT LM308SS, and put Nightforce 4-16 scope on it.

It weighs 12 lbs empty. Not something you want to lug around as you go through the brush.

Plus, a lot of hunting ammunition is designed for bolt action rifles that semi-auto won't be able to digest. Keep that in mind.

AR-15 is acceptable for coyotes, but that's about it.

A 4-16x scope is major overkill unless you're regularly hunting at 400+ yards or varmint hunting. Those big scopes ain't light and neither are the chunky scope bases/rings people use.

A S&W M&P10 rifle + Leupold FX-II 4x33mm fixed power scope + aluminum rings is almost exactly 9 pounds empty. With a low power variable, you're still looking at only about 9 1/4 pounds total. 8 1/2 to 8 3/4 pounds is doable without compromising the safety of the rifle but not worth the time and money to do, in my opinion.

I would definitely hunt with an AR-10 if it was legal in NY. I do fine with my bolt actions but it would be much easier to take awkward shots from a tree stand with an AR-10 or similar pattern rifle. It would be way nicer for stalking and driving too. But NY is gay as fuck. I'll probably just get another Marlin 336 in 35 Remington, put a micro red dot on it, use that for ground hunting and stick with my scoped 308 bolt action for stand hunting.

That may be true, but doesn't answer the ammunition problem. A lot, if not most, hunting ammo is too powerful for automatics.

I think we're talking about a bit of gunnie mythology here. There's no inherent fragility in modern semiauto designs, especially not in AR pattern rifles. They are very robust.

The only way you would have a problem with commercial SAAMI spec 308 Winchester ammo in a semiauto rifle in terms of pressure is if the manufacturer fucked up and overgassed the gun (not uncommon in budget brand ARs). That would batter the gun and eventually damage it if not remedied. But any gun sold as a 308 Winchester should be able to handle commercial 308 Winchester ammunition or the manufacturer would be risking a major lawsuit.

If we were talking about military surplus 7.62x51mm rifles, a lot more caution would be warranted. But we're talking new commercial guns here. They don't have military spec 7.62mm NATO chambers, they have SAAMI spec 308 Winchester chambers.

The real concern is bullet geometry, not power. A blunt round nose 308 round like you got on the old Remington Core-Lokt bullets might not feed well in any semiauto rifle that doesn't use a single feed magazine.

Old vs new

Certain soft point designs can also get mangled on the feed ramp; my AR-180B was terrible about chewing up the Black Hills 223 Remington soft points I used for varmint hunting, for example. The exposed lead tips would get totally chowdered on the feed ramp every time. No big deal as long as I shot them once I chambered them. They were just ruined for feeding from the magazine again.

There is other stuff to worry about if you reload for a semiauto rifle, but that's outside the scope of this discussion.

So yes, I agree you do have to take a bit more care in selecting ammo but it's not because the ammo is too powerful for the gun. 308 Winchester is 308 Winchester, this isn't like the 45-70 Gov't or 45 Colt situation where there are two tiers of ammo power available, and if you pick the wrong one you're going to blow up your gun.

For what it's worth I've owned three semiauto 308 Winchester rifles, two Springfield M1A Scouts and a DPMS LR-308, which all saw significant round counts. The only problems I ever had in those guns were with shitty berdan primed surplus 7.62x51mm that was underpowered, which often short cycled the guns. Commercial 308, Lake City surplus, Lithuanian surplus, reloads at commercial velocities... the guns all ran like sewing machines.

Jumped in frozen pond for the first time.

Did you save the child?

Joined the local HEMA guild. Gonna be a witcher in no time!

(01-15-2017 10:20 PM)MOVSM Wrote:  

(01-03-2017 05:34 PM)DJ-Matt Wrote:  but after shooting the AR I'll just get a 308 version for hunting instead.

That's what I initially thought. I got LMT LM308SS, and put Nightforce 4-16 scope on it.

It weighs 12 lbs empty. Not something you want to lug around as you go through the brush.

Plus, a lot of hunting ammunition is designed for bolt action rifles that semi-auto won't be able to digest. Keep that in mind.

AR-15 is acceptable for coyotes, but that's about it.

Pro 'roo hunters down in Australia seem to use .223 to the exclusion of almost anything else. They're big animals, but with small heads and torsos so a smaller gun still does the job.

I think a lot of hunting advocates tend to err way too far to the side of caution when picking a chambering for certain animals. Shot placement is always the main factor, but there's no shortage of people claiming it's irresponsible to shoot a deer with anything less than a 12g slug.

Great. Doesn't help much if you blow the back end out of it and it staggers away to die over the course of a week.

Top advice from Weambulance, as always. Personally if I had access to AR configuration rifles I would take every opportunity I could to take them out into the field, weight be damned. A proper sling setup negates most of that weight anyway and you get handling-hours and cold-barrel first shot practice on the rifle you'd want in your hands if the shit ever hit the fan.

We need to lobby the BATFE to make an allowance for explosive rounds, for humane hunting.

(01-18-2017 11:16 PM)spokepoker Wrote:  We need to lobby the BATFE to make an allowance for explosive rounds, for humane hunting.

We need to lobby to get rid of BATFE. ATF should be a convenience store, not a government agency.

Not today, but a few days ago. Had my first real hard sparring in boxing(without headgear, like a dumbass). Getting punched in the nose isn't fun although it was nice to finally fight.

Went to the gun range yesterday and tested out a Sig Sauer 9mm. I decided to buy a Glock 19 as my first gun. I'm purchasing one within the next two weeks.

Today I bought a new dehydrator and I'm making two pounds of beef jerky. Jerky is the best protein bar out there.

I went to a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu beginner's class and sure as got my ass handed to me. It was great.

(02-15-2017 11:06 PM)Cobra Wrote:  I went to a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu beginner's class and sure as got my ass handed to me. It was great.

Awesome! Keep it up mate.

I held myself accountable for my actions infront of my old boss discussing a potential return to the most labor intensive job I've ever worked.

I hope I get a call back. If not I'll find my own way.

I went to BJJ today and made one guy tapped from a Bow And Arrow choke.

Ended the session by getting triangled though.

I replaced the clutch plates in my motorcycle, in a parking lot with limited tools.

Did a double red blood donation. Since I'm a universal donor, I thought it would be good for people who really need it.

Wanted to surf the web all day and get drunk. Got to work (self-employed) and earned some income to support my family instead.