this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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I have a buddy who did gun repairs, he fucking hates AR-15s. If you want a gun that ticks all the boxes, get a 12 gauge shotgun. It's a cheap, widely available platform that has cheap and widely available ammo, it just fucking works, it's easy to care for, easy to use, pretty standard maintenance, and will kill what you need it to. They're lethal much further out than video games imply, because otherwise they'd completely wreck the balance of the game.
Edit: I asked him for his specific beef with ARs, this was his response.
They're a bitch to clean. There's lots of places that need to be cleaned that can't be reached easily, tons of little pockets and grooves you can't get into; requires a dental pick, star shaped cleaning patches, and a shit load of cotton swabs to get through.
If it's locked up, you can't knock on the charging handle or emergency kick the charging handle to clear it. You will not be able to field strip this rifle if it's jammed out of battery.
Aluminum gas blocks are apparently very popular, and they will corrode to failure at the gas tube port.
The extractor pin will often shatter in place, which causes intermittent failure while not looking wrong unless you know what you're looking for.
Yeah, with a 12 gauge shell of 00 buckshot, every pull of the trigger is almost like mag dumping a 9mm handgun in that direction. Very destructive very quickly at indoor distances, a little bit of wiggle room with the aiming m, and less risk of overpenetration than something like a rifle or a big caliber handgun.
A 12 gauge pump shotgun is actually the only firearm in my house(in the US), and I got it over 30 years ago. I kind of want to get a 9mm handgun, but it doesn’t feel like an immediate need given the shotgun.
No they're not. They tear down easily without tools. I can't think of a part that can't be cleaned easily. Maybe the gas tube?
There's a button called a forward assist for that specific purpose.
Milspec blocks are not aluminum, he's complaining about after-market, non-standard mods.
I've seen this on cheap BCGs. It's annoying, but it's easily fixable and won't render the gun useless. You'll just have to manually clear it.
I would guess they're talking about a very complete cleaning? But that's kinda true of any gun. Basic cleaning of an AR15 is not that complicated.
Eeeehhhh, never press that button. It's a joke the Army played on itself.
Yeah, that's why my last rifle doesn't have a FA button.
While you did answer the question, it is better to clear a jam by pulling back on the charging handle, possibly while also mortoring the buttstock. Hitting the forward assist is just as likely to make the jam worse. (This also counts for AKs, this isn't an AR only thing)
Some newer ARs don't come with forward assists anymore, sometimes to prevent people from making jams worse, but usually cause they're for sport and if your rifle malfunctions in a way that needs a forward assist, you can just take the L and get off the range to solve the issue.
Regardless, if you hit the forward assist, just make sure you're in a position that this might be the last round you can fire without doing some maintenance.
But you are correct, ARs are as popular as they are for a reason. They're reliable, easy to get parts for, and ammo (while expensive) is just about everywhere.
True. With my most recent rifle, I intentionally bought an upper receiver without one because I'm not usually in combat situations. Usually.
Thanks for the context. I was never interested in owning an AR myself, not to mention that it seems to me like they're way overpriced due to a lot of them being glam guns. He did it for a living for years, so I took him at his word.
That's where AR15s shine. You can build one pretty cheap and it's workable. Cheaper than any AK you can buy in the US.
If you want all the tacticool glam bling, you can do that, but it's excellent the without all that crap.
No problem. As an owner of a fully-custom glam gun, I recommend building a shitty one first to learn what breaks and what doesn't.
Your buddy may have an unfounded bias against them, as AR-15's are in general extremely reliable, and don't require much maintainence or cleaning for the most part, especially since most people don't practice all that much.
A shotgun is a great choice for defense though, and often is a better choice than an AR.
I only clean mine because it's white. It would run forever shooting the filthy, cheap ammo I buy.