I'm afraid I've gotta disagree with you there (slightly). If cleaned
regularly and properly maintained, the AR15 is a reliable rifle. The
direct gas impingement system makes regular maintenance much more
difficult than what it takes to keep an AK-47 running, which is why HK
designed a gas piston system for the M16 for their 416 rifle.
I've never owned an AR-15, but my friends who have universally report
that if they don't clean up the carbon deposits in the receiver every
200 rounds or so, reliability can suffer. They also report that
cleaning the deposits (which supposedly have a diamond-like hardness) is
very difficult and time consuming.
Now, in normal circumstances, this doesn't seem like it'd be a big deal,
but when you're fighting zombies, this changes the circumstances a bit.
As anyone who's seen a zombie movie knows, you can't just stay in one
place. You've gotta stay on the run and keep moving, which can make
regular and thorough rifle maintenance problematic (if not impossible).
Don't get me wrong, the AR has some really good attributes (light,
accurate, good ergonomics), and its a great range/target rifle, which is
probably why so many civilians love it. It doesn't seem to do well
unless you pamper it, however, which is probably why so many soldiers
hate it.
So yeah, if the zombies were coming, I'd grab my SKS with 20 round
detachable mags. Approximately 1250 rounds and counting with no
failures of any kind (and only one full dissasembly/cleaning).
cheers,
brandon
McGinnes wrote:
> I was digging through my email and I found this:
>
> http://zombiehunters.org/ <http://zombiehunters.org/>
>
> I love the idea of combining humor and preparedness.
>
> BTW: The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks is a must read. I do have
> one bone of contention with it though. Mr. Brooks says the AR-15 is
> unreliable and therefore not a good zombie rifle. I couldn't disagree
> more. Yes, there were some reliability problems with the M-16 at the
> start of the Vietnam war, but the cause of those problems was
> identified and fixed. The rifle is light, reliable and accurate (a
> must when fighting zombies) and the ammunition is light, flat
> shooting, low recoil, and has enough power for zombie debrainification
> out to several hundred yards. It was cheap and readily available up
> until a couple of years ago, but that is another story.
>
>
--
------------------------------------------------------------
Brandon Chase
US Channel Finance
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
500 Eldorado Blvd.
Broomfield, CO 80021
phone: 303.547.3535
internal extension: 41862
brandon.chase@...
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