I bought a 7.62x39 saiga for that and converted it to a pistol grip/folding stock configuration and still have it. I don’t regret that purchase at all.Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer
I bought a 7.62x39 saiga for that and converted it to a pistol grip/folding stock configuration and still have it. I don’t regret that purchase at all.
I know for me, I wanted what I was comfortable with. I carried an M16 and M4 on deployments, so buying an AR just made a lot of sense.
Also, I’m young enough I didn’t know there even was an AWB until I started to get into gun forums.
Last edited by Whiskey; 03-29-2023 at 06:22 PM.
Wiley Ray Hubbard memorialized the cheap SKS /steel case ammo trend in “Choctaw Bingo”
SKS are mentioned starting about 4:00 in:
Wanted an AR starting around 1983/84 after shooting an M16A1. Finally got an Eagle Arms CAR-15 in 1988 but it didn’t run worth a dam. Swapped it for a Colt SP1 lower with an M16a1 upper via a large hole/small hole conversion pin. Ran great. Was always interested in AW guns in the 80s and 90s just didn’t have the funds.
Several of the shops in the area had AR’s or HK91s, M1As etc. there was one shop that specialized in AW and had everything AR’a, Valmet, Styer/ Maadi AKs, FALs, DAEWOO, UZIs, HK 93/94, Galils and AUGs. One of the regulars was a lieutenant in a suburban Police Department, who was one of the early competitors in the soldier of fortune match, I remember seeing him at the range with an AUG and a Benelli M1, super 90 with a Tasco Propoint. I picked up an 18” M1 Super 90 with rifle sights in ‘88 but never got around to putting a red dot on it. Finally scratched that itch with a Beretta 1301.
Pretty cool stuff for the late 80s / early 90s. I also remember one of the Ranges I used to shoot at being frequented by carloads of Korean shopkeepers with all sorts of cool assault rifles. This was pre-Rodney king but those guys were the first thing I thought of when I saw the roof Koreans during the LA riots.
Around ‘92 I put an action arms ultra dot red dot on my SP1/A1 via a carry handle mount and weaver rings. I couldn’t afford a real in point at the time, though I eventually got an early Comp M.
Unfortunately I swapped the A1/SP1 for an M4 style Bushmaster right before the 1994 AWB took effect because the M4 was the new hotness. It function and shot fine, but in hindsight I wish I’d kept that old A1.
I’ve had a bunch of other pre-ban and post ban guns over the years, including pre-ban HKs, an SAR48 (FAL) etc but the only thing that has shot as well as ARs have been the AUGs.
The reasons listed so far as GWOT-influence + post-AWB-impact + video-game-influence + marketing, make sense.
For me, none of those had a huge impact. Didn't get my first AR-pattern rifle until a few years post AWB.
Tried a friend's AR, think it was an RRA (), at the range and was instantly hooked.
Some things that appealed to me were...
* The inherent accuracy the rifle is capable of if configured right
* The convenient optics mounting platform for rifles with a top rail
* A "mostly standard" spec for ease of finding parts almost anywhere
* The modularity and ease of swapping out parts to customize and reconfigure a rifle for different roles. I REALLY appreciated that as a LH shooter living in a mostly RH world. No gunsmith needed for most things, which for me was quite a revolution compared to my old-school firearms. The money some people sank (including me, once) to customize an old-school R700 and all the hassle sending it off to a name-recognition gunsmith, was pretty crazy. Don't do that much anymore.
Heh. My first "real" gun(IE I bought myself) was a Mosin. My dads was an SKS. My Grandfathers was an M1 Carbine. All bought for the same reasons. They were cheap and ammo was cheap. I'm the only one who has had mine long enough for it to not still be cheap. Dad had his SKS stolen in a home burglary, Grandpa traded the carbine for a hound, then traded the hound for a Lee-Enfield and a case of ammo. Then shot all the ammo to see if he could cut a tree down with it. Then traded the Enfield for a hound.
I worked in a gunshop before and after Y2k, in Central Florida (which is kinda rednecky, if you're not familiary). So height of ban years (everyone assumed it would get renewed), but with one moment of hysteria (computers can't do 2000!), and the "ABC" years (only buy Armalite, Bushmaster, or Colt).
While I wasn't there for the AWB start date, they and other gunshops back then told me that they could barely give away G3s, FALs, etc. prior to the ban coming online. As soon as the ban became a thing, there was a run on those guns that nobody really expected. Before that, everyone thought the guys that had "assault rifles" were kinda weird.
During my tenure there, other than Y2K, I'd say sales were generally pretty flat, no real spikes or dips. There was a pretty healthy market for things "preban" and also being an Army/Navy store we got a lot of decomissioned guys selling off gear and I had (probably still have) a good collection of mags they departed the service with.
Does the above offend? If you have paid to be here, you can click here to put it in context.
I've heard it said many times that extended, multiple, developmental cycles are the best thing that can happen to a design and I can't think of a design that has benefitted more from this phenomenon than the AR. We're at a place now where the standard is the AR, and it's a real reach to find a need or use case that can be filled by a semi-auto rifle that isn't well-filled by an AR.
I was just a dumb little kid starting to get into guns when the AWB hit. I've got an uncle who was the "gun guy" of knowledge back then. My family, we owned guns, we hunted, but he was a shooter. So I asked him, "what is an AR chambered in?" I was expecting hear something like .338 Win Mag, something substantially more powerful than deer rifles. When he hit me back with ".223" I about fell out my chair.
My major thought was I'm being intentionally lied to and misled. So of course I got much more interested in all the "assault rifles". The import ban made all the other rifles more scarce while the AWB made all the rifles more desirable. I remember being hot for a iron-sighted dissipator, because anything cooler than that was waaaaaay outside my budget.
The AR was easier to get optics on when flattops started showing up, then the wars hit- vets wanted to keep shooting their issued platform, and us civilians wanted the guns that our guys were using. Then the ban went away and a decade's worth of demand was only going to be solved by a design with capacity for manufacturing. Nothing else could mount optics or railed handguards as easy as the AR.
All this demand pushed quality, ammo design, gas ports, materials, coatings, recoil systems, fire control groups, and everything else so far so fast that it became hard to justify wanting a rifle and not wanting that rifle to be an AR.
While our "what is an AR" question has become similar to "what is a 1911", even the newest, coolest designs that also borrow from the AR-18 are still heavily AR-15 themselves. It'll take something really whacky to knock the design/platform off of its pedestal.
Per the PF Code of Conduct, I have a commercial interest in the StreakTM product as sold by Ammo, Inc.
My first centerline rifle was a M1 carbine made by General Motors in 1943. Stolen in college.1😒
That one was given to me by my dad and in his last few years of life implored me to use my investigative skills to track it down and recover it. Being that it was 25 years gone, wasn't gonna happen.
The first centerfire I bought on my own was a Norinco SKS paratrooper model, sans bayonet, modded along the line to take AK mags. Whoever did the mod SUCKED and if you had a loaded 30 rounder in it recoil would cause the mag release to do its job. I had 10s and 20s that worked just fine.
Anyone else ever see the experimental Benelli Super 90 sights that appeared to be two rear pistol sight notches that you looked through (no front sight post) to the target? 1988 was when I saw it, I believe.
pat
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