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Thread: How do you keep your AR's at home

  1. #1

    How do you keep your AR's at home

    How do you keep you AR pattern rifles at home? For me, it is my defensive carbine. I have the current luxury of not having kids, and as such keeping my pistol/carbine readily accessible. My handgun has no manual safety, always has a round in the chamber, always in a holster--whether on my belt or my nightstand. The before mentioned condition for my pistol gives me a warm fuzzy feeling of being safe to me and others, and yet readily accessible/reliable should i ever need to use it for it's intended purposes.

    I keep my AR with a seated loaded magazine, and safety off. Leaving me with charging the charging handle to get it into action. That does not give me the cozy feeling of reliability--there is a chance that a round will not be chambered if the magazine is not quite seated fully. I was wondering how the rest of the world deals with this issue: giving an extra strong tap on the magazine before charging the charging handle or just keeping it with a round in the chamber, and on manual safe.

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    My situation is different, since I have young children, and also live on a military installation with some level of access control, and a correspondingly nonexistent crime rate. But even when I was a single guy living in various civilian communities, my ARs were always cleared and in the safe. Handgun was the primary, and I'd typically have a shotgun in cruiser ready stashed in the bedroom, just in case.

    My reasoning was basically that it was much more likely that I'd be burglarized while I was away, and I'd rather lose a $150 shotgun than a $1500 AR. Conversely, I have difficulty imagining a home invasion scenario that I couldn't adequately solve with a pistol and shotgun, especially keeping in mind that there's no guarantee you'll have time to access anything other than your pistol anyway. If a major riot breaks out in the streets nearby, I probably have time to upgrade my weapons posture as things develop. If I have time to access the AR, I have time to insert a mag, load/press check/etc. I suppose if I lived in a crime- and gang-ridden urban area, I might view things differently...but if I really felt an AR was required, it'd be in Condition 1 and I'd be wearing it on the sling around the house!

    regards,
    Dave

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    Member JHC's Avatar
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    Not owning a defensive shotgun presently I keep one AR (BCM mid-length, LW barrel upper on LMT lower, DD fixed irons and TL3 light) with a magazine of 75 grain TAP seated, chamber empty. Its easy enough to confirm seated mag and forcefully charge the gun - so I don't think that's a major weakness to Condition 3 for a stashed AR.
    “Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais

  4. #4
    Member JHC's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave J View Post
    My situation is different, since I have young children, and also live on a military installation with some level of access control, and a correspondingly nonexistent crime rate. But even when I was a single guy living in various civilian communities, my ARs were always cleared and in the safe. Handgun was the primary, and I'd typically have a shotgun in cruiser ready stashed in the bedroom, just in case.

    My reasoning was basically that it was much more likely that I'd be burglarized while I was away, and I'd rather lose a $150 shotgun than a $1500 AR. Conversely, I have difficulty imagining a home invasion scenario that I couldn't adequately solve with a pistol and shotgun, especially keeping in mind that there's no guarantee you'll have time to access anything other than your pistol anyway. If a major riot breaks out in the streets nearby, I probably have time to upgrade my weapons posture as things develop. If I have time to access the AR, I have time to insert a mag, load/press check/etc. I suppose if I lived in a crime- and gang-ridden urban area, I might view things differently...but if I really felt an AR was required, it'd be in Condition 1 and I'd be wearing it on the sling around the house!

    regards,
    Dave
    I think that is pretty solid reasoning too. I used to have 12 ga pump for that purpose too. But it got cannibalized to fund a very expensive 1911 along with quite a bit of the herd.
    “Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais

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    After re-reading the original post, it sounds like you're asking the question more from a mechanical standpoint...so setting aside what I posted above, if I did chose to keep an AR in the role you describe, I'd prefer it to be Condition 1 (loaded/chambered/on safe), and stored in something such as an electronic lock single-gun vault with the muzzle oriented into a bullet-safe backstop. I'd agree that the risk of inducing a malfunction during loading, although slight, is real...and under extreme circumstances it's at least possible that one might shortcut the press check.
    If you decide to basically stick with what you're doing, I'd leave the safety on, and just check the hammer spring as a maintenance item.

    HTH, Dave

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    Member JHC's Avatar
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    I choose NOT to load the magazine to full 30 round capacity to make charging slightly easier. It could be an obsolete old habit but I don't load them with more than 28 rds.
    “Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais

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    Quote Originally Posted by JHC View Post
    I choose NOT to load the magazine to full 30 round capacity to make charging slightly easier. It could be an obsolete old habit but I don't load them with more than 28 rds.
    It may be an old habit, but certainly not obsolete IMHO!

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave J View Post
    It may be an old habit, but certainly not obsolete IMHO!
    See I wasn't sure about that. After learning in the '70's to only load 20 rounders with 18, then 28 in a 30; I've since read Pat Rogers articles that modern 30 rounders are GTG with 30 but I've never even tried to reconsider.
    “Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais

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    Site Supporter JSGlock34's Avatar
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    Whether storing in Condition One or Condition Three, I'd have the manual safety on. The safety should be coming off only when you are on target and ready to fire. There is virtually no time advantage to keeping the manual safety disengaged.

    As for seating the magazine, a good 'push-pull' before putting the rifle into the rack should take care of any seating problems.
    "When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man."

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    Site Supporter Jay Cunningham's Avatar
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