Some Notes on Individual Small-Arms Selection

[rah45]

I found this link through an Arctic Patriot blog, Buy A Gun Day 2012. It seems to be very educational, and hopefully will stop any more serious arguments about why your caliber/rifle is better than the other guy's, and how he'll be dead 34.5 seconds after WROL starts because his rifle will misfire/be too heavy to bring to bear/bite him/run away or his caliber will miss/not kill with the first shot/not penetrate certain "cover"/refuse to travel in the intended direction/take lunch breaks at an inopportune moment.

http://mountainguerrilla.blogspot.com/2012/01/some-notes-on-individual-small-arms.html

SOME NOTES ON INDIVIDUAL SMALL-ARMS SELECTION

(I read a lot. I average anywhere from 8-10 full-length books a week, in addition to a host of websites and forums that I check daily.  Amongst the several hundred other books that I own, two that sit on my bookshelf in the living room are, by many in the ?survivalist/gun/patriot/militia/threeper? community, considered the go-to references for selecting firearms for the challenges of the future.?J.M.)

When you consider the amount of vitriolic debate that goes on amongst gun enthusiasts, considering caliber selection and firearms selection, in regard to the ?ideal? survival firearm paradigm, it?s no surprise that someone wrote a book to help narrow the selection. Between the hundred year-old debate on the weakness of the 9mm Parabellum, versus the manliness and obvious lethality of the .45ACP, and the current, equally absurd arguments regarding the Kalashnikov platform versus the AR-15/M-16 platform, these conversations go on, and on, and on, ad nauseum. So, we have two notoriously famed books, considered by many to be the ultimate references on the subject: Survival Guns by the late, famed survival writer Mel Tappan, and Boston?s Gun Bible (BGB) by ?Boston T. Party,? of the ?Free State Wyoming Project, in attempts, decades apart, of solving the dilemma of ?what is the perfect firearm??

(I never got the opportunity to meet Mel Tappan, as he died when I was a very, very young child. I have met Boston, in passing, at the range, although I haven?t seen him shoot, as he seemed far too busy telling the shooters how to shoot, instead. So, my implied critique of their work, in this article, is not intended as a personal attack.)

Boston, to his credit does state, in the book, that BGB is ?a catalog of one civilian?s experience and opinions.? Unfortunately, he then goes on to demonstrate that, he knows exactly nothing about personal combat. After explaining his lack of professional credentials in the military or law enforcement, he asks, ?So, what? Did you learn to drive from Al Unser??

How is this a demonstration of ignorance? Driving your personal vehicle, in daily traffic, in accordance with the rules of the road, is not at all comparable to racing a Formula One racecar around the track at Indianapolis Speedway at 200-plus miles per hour. The skills necessary are similar, but the level of expertise required is not at all similar.

On the other hand, shooting a roomful of MS-13 home invaders, confronting a barricaded active shooter at your local shopping mall, or repelling an armored, jack-booted swarm of Stasi-wannabe storm troopers at a VCP, requires not only the same skill sets, but at the same level, as those required by a Ranger Regiment gunfighter kicking in a door in Khandahar, or an SF soldier clearing a cave complex in the Hindu Kush. Ultimately, while many of the political and philosophical arguments laid out by Boston, and Tappan, for that matter, are inarguable, their dogma surrounding firearms selection is flawed, due largely, to their lack of real-world experience.

There is a reason that this type of manual is not being written by veterans of Special Operations units. It?s simply not necessary. The arguments concerning caliber and weapon selection are, ultimately, nothing more than gun tabloid marketing nonsense. An 18Bravo, Special Forces Weapons Sergeant learns to operate, maintain, and train others to operate, a broad variety of individual small arms from around the world (as a personal example, over the course of my career in SF, I worked with the M9, P35 BHP, 1911A1, Glocks, SIG-Sauers, Makarovs, Tokarevs, and several variations of different revolvers; Uzi, Skorpion, M3 ?Grease Gun,? Thompson, M12, PPSh41, MP5, and other sub-machine-guns; and HKG3, FN/FAL, M14, AK-variant, M1/M2 carbine, Enfield .303, and 1903 Springfield rifles, amongst a host of others). When conducting UW or FID missions, an 18B will learn, quickly, that the caliber of individual small-arms really does not matter. The manufacture and model of the weapon can make a difference, but ultimately, the only thing that matters is the man holding the weapon and his level of training.

To their credit, both Boston and Tappan attempt to make this fact abundantly clear. Unfortunately, they both then go on to discuss the criticality of caliber in choosing a firearm. The reality is, outside of the special applications, heavy sniper system, caliber is largely irrelevant.

7.62x51mmNATO/.308 does possess slightly better ballistics at long-range than 5.56mmNATO/.223. If you plan on always engaging at 800 yards, that may be a factor. If that?s the case however, .300Winchester Magnum, offers even better ballistics at those ranges. For the realistic issue of guerrilla small-arms however, there are some significantly more important issues to consider.

Guerrilla re-supply in the potential future conflict will be largely through battlefield recovery. Thus, selecting a caliber that is in common use by the regime security forces is critical. The ability to pick up a dead enemy soldier?s primary weapon and utilize it will also be an important issue.

There is nothing wrong with owning a variety of firearms, even ?evil assault rifles.? If you like the AK-platform, or the M14/M1A, or the FN/FAL, or the HKG3, or the Galil, use that. Master it. Do not, however, get hung up on the supposed superiority of your chosen platform. Learn to run other platforms. Master them as well.

The same applies to personal handguns as well. 9mm, .45ACP, .40S&W; the caliber is ultimately irrelevant when the issue is purely anti-personnel lethality. Pistols are largely irrelevant as man-stoppers anyway, all claims as to the ?knock-down power? of the .45ACP notwithstanding. The only caliber selection issue that may arise in the future is battlefield recovery, which means choosing a caliber common in your area, or within the U.S. military. The argument can be made however, if you are picking up ammunition off dead bad guys, you can just pick up their weapon too.

The only important issue in weapon and caliber selection is completely unrelated to caliber and weapon engineering. The important issue is training. The ability to operate your chosen weapon selection at an expert level is far more critical than what that weapon system is.

Some personal thoughts:

I don?t have a problem with the AK-variants, for what they are: weapons that were designed (don?t buy into the Soviet mythology of a lone armor corps tanker tinkering in the mechanic shop to design a rifle from scratch) and mass-produced by a totalitarian regime for the use of illiterate, largely third-world peasants en masse. It truly is as robust as an infantry carbine can be, although nowhere near as invincible as the myth-makers would like you to believe. They DO malfunction. They can be destroyed.

The AK is not a weapon for riflemen. It is capable of ?minute-of-man? accuracy, which is more than adequate for urban guerrilla needs. It will not do for most alpine guerrilla personnel, due to its largely non-existent intermediate-distance capabilities.

The 7.62x39mm caliber of the original design of 1947 is not the man-killer it is made out to be in some circles. As a SF colleague pointed out once, ?We?ve killed a lot more little brown people with 5.56 than the little brown dudes have killed with 7.62x39.? It is a hard-hitting round and will do damage. The Russian adoption of the 5.45x39 caliber with the AK-74-variant is a telling manifestation of the improvement of the small-caliber cartridge over the heavier round, for the realities of modern conventional and unconventional warfare operations. Most infantry combat will occur at 0-200 yards, with the occasional need to reach out to 500-plus yards in some environments. Even the ballistic abilities of the 7.62x39 cartridge illustrate this. Roughly the equivalent of the ever-popular .30-30 deer rifle cartridge, the Russian round is realistically limited to 200 yards for consistent point target, first-round hits.

The 7.62x51mmNATO cartridge, which has been popular since its introduction concurrent with the M14 rifle, is a great all-around cartridge. While this round possesses 95% of the ballistic capabilities of the venerable .30-06, it has significantly reduced recoil and operates in box magazine-fed rifles far better than the older, rimmed cartridge. The ballistics of the round make it a consistent performer out to 800 yards, and in capable hands, hits have been recorded, under combat conditions, well in excess of 1200 yards.

The drawback of the cartridge, as it was in the 1950s, is the weight, both of the cartridge itself and of the weapons that utilize it. While, in certain applications, this is not an issue, for the guerrilla fighter, this is a critical issue. Theorists can argue the importance of the ?one-shot kill? and the ability of the 7.62mmNATO round to kill with every round, but experienced warfighters acknowledge that the chances of regular, first-round hits on moving targets, hiding behind cover, under combat conditions is largely the realm of fantasy and Hollywood.

Far more important an issue is proven combat-lethality, combined with a light enough weight to facilitate carrying a large basic load. The 210-round ?basic load? of the Army for conventional-force infantryman is far superior to the 120-round basic load that was historically carried with the M14. Even accounting for the misses that will occur in combat, this allows the war fighter to kill more of the enemy than the basic load with the M14, with a lighter load.

As far as questions regarding the supposed lack of lethality in the 5.56mmNATO cartridge: I?ve never shot a bad guy, where I was supposed to shoot him when it didn?t result in said bad guy being dead afterwards. The only time I?ve ever seen the round fail to kill the enemy was when the only rounds to strike the enemy were peripheral strikes. Even these however, will stop a threat long enough to put a ?finishing? round into the guy if necessary. I have no doubts about the effectiveness of the 5.56mmNATO cartridge. With the development of new, improved offerings in this caliber, such as the MK262 77-grain round and MK318 improved 62-grain round, this caliber will find a new lease on life within the military and police, as well as within the civilian shooting community.

The AR-15/M-16 family of weapons, despite birthing pains during the Vietnam War, is a time- and combat-proven combat weapon. I have fired hundreds of thousands, if not millions of rounds, through this platform, in training and combat, and have never had it fail me. In swamps and jungles, mountains, deserts, and urban environments, I?ve never had the round or the weapon system fail me. I will, personally, stick with the AR-15/M-16 platform, for the foreseeable future, both due to my familiar expertise with the weapon, as well as my faith in its reliability and effectiveness.

If I had to choose a personal primary small-arm in 7.62x51mmNATO, it would not be the venerable favorite of American gun writers, the M14/M1A. While a competent and accuracy-capable weapon system, the reality is, it is large, heavy, cumbersome, and horrendously non-ergonomic. Further, a fact little heralded in the U.S. firearms media, during the Army Ordnance Board tests that resulted in the adoption of the M14, it was soundly trounced by the Belgian FN/FAL. If I had to choose a rifle in that caliber to run for my personal use in the guerrilla warfare paradigm, I?d actually choose the Belgian rifle. It is reliable, combat-proven (something the M14 cannot really claim, despite some use in the earliest part of the Vietnam War), and commonplace internationally (it was, after all, adopted by over 90 different nations, earning the sobriquet ?Freedom?s Right Arm!?). You can expect that, when the regime calls on the U.N. for assistance in putting down any potential future ?rebellion,? there will be some people in blue helmets, carrying FALs. The introduction of modern, U.S.-manufactured aftermarket accessories for this platform by companies like DS Arms others, has capitalized on the popularity of the modularity of the AR-15/M-16 by developing similar abilities for the FAL. While I am not a fan on accessorizing a fighting rifle with anything that changes the basic manual of arms of the platform (no Magpul BAD levers, ambidextrous safety selectors, etc.) due to the training issues if you need to pick up someone else?s rifle of the same type, the ability to build your personal rifle to fit you is definitely a desirable commodity.

These issues having been raised, do not mistake them as imprecations against other battle rifles. I would not refuse an AK-variant, or a HKG3, or an M1A, if that?s what I needed to pick up and run, in order to continue the fight. The ultimate weight of the struggle still resides on the shoulders of the individual fighter.

The same issues arise with the sidearm. The reality is, as has been determined over and over, ad nauseum, by the militaries of the world, the pistol is largely irrelevant in military/paramilitary combat. That having been said, as the man pointed out, that doesn?t mean it isn?t important to the individual soldier who suddenly needs a sidearm and happens to have one on his hip. I carried a pistol in the field from the first moment I was afforded the opportunity, and never regretted the extra weight.

For the guerrilla fighter, the possession of a pistol is even more important. Besides the obvious ability to continue the fight despite malfunctions of the primary arm, in the absence of supporting fires, there exists the very real need for the guerrilla to be able to go armed clandestinely, when the rifle would create too much of a visual signal, and result in compromise to security forces.

While I personally choose to carry a Glock (Model 19, since I know you?re dying to ask), due to the time-proven reliability of the weapon, I don?t think it?s some sort of magical Austrian talisman. I?ve carried the M9, the 1911A1, Sig-SAUERs, and even a Makarov on more than one occasion. Whether you stick to the ridiculous old notion of ?never carry a pistol that doesn?t start with at least the number four,? choose a 9mm Parabellum, or some off-the-wall cartridge like 7.62x25 or .454 Casull, the subject of caliber and model are largely irrelevant. At handgun distances, they?ll all make a hole. The only issue of importance is developing the ability, through training, of using the weapon effectively and efficiently, under combat conditions.

If you?re still hung up over the issues of caliber and model selection of your primary arms, you?re spending too much time on inconsequential non-issues. Quit worrying about which weapon to use, and master as many as you can, in the context of the likely combat paradigm you will be required to use them.

Nous Defions!

John Mosby

[JohnyMac]

Great article Rah. Thx for posting it.

It is tough arguing with the logic used.

[rah45]

@ JohnyMac: Yeah, I was pretty impressed.



To the Forum:

Just FYI, in an attempt to preempt any negative comments/thoughts toward myself, most or all of you know that my primary is an M1A, a rifle that he believes is not the first choice he would make. So, I'm obviously posting the article because I believe the information is relevant to us all, not for personal vindication.

Thanks.

[sledge]

LOL!  I'm not going to say too much about this article.  Other than to say I had to read it twice to see if my first impression was what he was actually doing.  If you take from the article that a shooter needs to learn to run his own weapon efficiently.   While trying as best they can to learn other weapons systems as well.  Then I think you've gotten the best parts of the article.

The possibility of an eventuality arising where I would find myself being a guerrilla fighter are pretty slim.  Almost to the point of being nonexistent.  ( I know some out there disagree and are eagerly awaiting that situation to arise.  Looking at the big picture, I personally, don't see the possibility of that occurring for several years after a tshtf event.)

I'm more interested in prepping for the possibility of trouble in my AO just in case it occurs.  So I chose my weapons on the basis of fitting the situation around me.  Plus I'm a member of the "illiterate, largely third-world peasant" class.  So an AK fits nicely into my scheme of things to keep it simple.  But so does a hunting rifle, shotgun, and revolvers.             

[rah45]

@ Sledge: That's exactly my point of view.  [URL=http://www.smileyvault.co

I'm no G.I. Joe - I've had no military or para-military training. I have a wife and daughter to protect. I'm currently not in shape for offensive operations. My mindset is to defend my AO, and unless a special situation arises, that is all I will be able to do effectively. So, I don't plan on bugging out because of my 5-yr old daughter (and newborn son, in 9 weeks!)...they couldn't keep up. So, I needed a weapon that would reach out and effectively touch someone from a defensive position, and that would also serve as an effective suppressive and offensive weapon if necessary - hence, the M1A. The weight and limited carrying ability doesn't matter as much if you're operating around your base of operations, which I am forced to do. Your situation and training will dictate your choice of weapon.

For the guys here who are capable of engaging in guerrilla warfare or are capable of bugging out effectively, those particular points in the linked post are especially for you. Enjoy. 

[crudos]

It's a good common sense article. But bears posting here when caliber-superiority complex rears it's head from time to time.

[1000meterstare]

The author refers to the 30-'06 as a "rimmed" cartridge.  It is not.  If he missed something that basic I doubt the credibility of the article...mebbeh I'm stating the obvious.  Dude should do his homework.

[rah45]

The author refers to the 30-'06 as a "rimmed" cartridge.  It is not.  If he missed something that basic I doubt the credibility of the article...mebbeh I'm stating the obvious.  Dude should do his homework.

I found that a stumbling block as well, but deemed the overall point of the article worthy enough to post here.