Danger Rane

That's a fine rifle! Sorry this came about as a result of your Dad's poor health. Thanks for sharing.

Some great information already put out by others, but I will elaborate on what the Tab means for those in the Regiment (I.e. scrolled). If you are in a combat MOS you (11B/11C) you will not make it past E4 without it. If you are support personnel you will have a hard time making it past E6, not impossible but not real common. Interestingly enough, only support personnel assigned to the Ranger Regt are waiverable to attend the school, and you will see many cooks, mechanics, riggers, and supply personnel with a Tab. If you are a young private you are smoked and Tab checked consistently enough everyday that you look forward to going to the stupid school and getting it done so you can move up from being the new guy. It has nothing to do with getting into the Ranger Regt, but it is a right of passage for the youngsters to knock out before they progress up to a leadership position. I personally think the Regt guys have a bit easier time in school than the rest because they often do training cycles and deployments that are substantially harder than Ranger School and even the youngest private will know the ins and outs of Infantry tactics like the back of his hand. That being said, the Regt is sending E3's who are going through the school with and on par with O2-O3's. The scool IS a suckfest and is designed to push even the biggest badass past their physical reserves by combining 62 days of constant physical exertion, and food/sleep deprivation. On top of that you are graded on how well you lead others while they are suffering the effects of said circumstances. You can fail patrols, meaning you either sucked at the leadership role or could not pull your guys together to accomplish the mission (which means you sucked at the leadership role) you can also fail by getting negative peer reviews from your classmates (a practice that I think would be great in the real world too). If you fail patrols or get peered you do not advance to the next phase, you insert with the next class when they start the phase you failed. If you fail that phase a 2nd time than you can be sent back to the beginning of the school (a day 1 restart) if you have an honor violation (cheating) during any phase of the school it is the cadres discretion to kick you out of the course completely or start you back at day one. It is possible to fail and recycle each of the phases and get through to graduate, but man that would really suck. Before these girls I have never personally heard of anyone getting day 1 recycled more than once and being allowed to continue the course. It's possible that it happens on occasion but everything about this group has been interesting, including the fact that they have had a General Officer as one of the walkers on their recycles. While I personally think the whole social experiment has been a joke, I won't take anything away from the two ladies who stuck it out to the end after numerous recycles. They have achieved what 99.9% would never even attempt. While I don't necessarily agree that this in anyway lessons the significance of the Tab for those that already wear it, I do feel bad for the young men to follow, as their's will never be considered the same after this.

At the risk of offending quite a few, I will say that when push comes to shove I would not want anyone already pondering their retreat standing shoulder to shoulder with me. While it is wise to have contingency plans in place, mentally giving up the fight before it begins is something else. As noted by others, we have had generations of heroes before us that have sacrificed everything to maintain the freedom that has allowed our country to become the greatest nation in the world. They did their part, and someday we might have to do ours. If you are not on board with that then head on out to these nicer/easier places, but please divvy up your guns/ammo to the rest of us on your way out :)

Since you are in Spring Hill you might want to look into Strategic Edge out in Chapel Hill. It's about a 20 min drive depending on what part of Spring Hill you are in. Lots of good shooters out there that are helpful and Tony (the owner) has several handgun and rifle course you can sign up for. I'm not at a point to be able to provide certification in anything but I would be willing to meet up with you and take you out there to work on some fundamentals/manual of arms type stuff.

Looks nice!

If it is literally new from the factory be sure to break it down and do a really good cleaning/degreasing, particularly of the moving parts assembly and the gas regulator/piston area. There is not usually anything real noticeable like blobs of cosmoline or anything like that, but the corrosion preventative they use at the factory turns into quite a gummy mess after a couple mags. The gas regulator once reinstalled after degreasing should be in the 12 o clock position for normal use. The other position is to aid proper cycling when used suppressed. As noted above, the reciprocating charging handle can take some getting used to but it is self correcting. It is easily switched to either side for shooter preference. I've seen this hit and tear thumbnails off of several guys' support hands, so be cognizant of it and watch new shooters to the gun closly or it will bite them. Some guys like to switch out the flash hider, as the original issue had a bit of a tuning fork "twang" to it with each shot (particularly on the 16/Light) New the rifle should come with a torque wrench for the barrel screws (barrel is easily switched out at the user level). If it does not have it be sure to get one as loose or stripped screws were some of the biggest issues with these during initial fieldings to the SOF units. If your Google fu is strong you can find a couple companies making after market trigger modules for these which might be worth looking into. On that note, even though at first glance the trigger module on the SCAR looks very similar to an AR lower, it is not the SN# controlled part, the receiver itself is. So you can order a trigger module and have it shipped right to you. I was fortunate enough to be on one of the Early User Assessments for the SCAR several years ago. We shot the crap out of them for 6 weeks straight and even did some dunk test shooting with them that had most of us expecting a catostauphic failure in our hands, but they kept chugging along like no body's business. After the initial operational fielding of both heavys and lights it was decided that the light was not enough of an improvement over the M4 to be worth replacing all the M4s in the SOF inventory but the majority liked the heavys over the M110 and various versions of the M14/M21, so the heavys have stayed in use and increased in numbers while most of the lights have been collected back up or turned in as they wear out. At the end of the day they are both great guns, though a bit over priced in my opinion considering the amount of plastic on them. I always figured the high commercial price was FNs way of recouping the 5-6 years of R&D that SOCOM put them through. Enjoy your new gun! Feel free to PM if you run into any issues.

While I certainly agree with you, it will probably not happen until such a time that these attacks become more the "norm" than the exception. As others have stated, the Armed Forces really freak out about the forces actually being armed. Many reasons for this but not the least of which is that the majority of the current Officer corps is a bunch of risk averse pussies that are more concerned with making their next step up the ladder than they are concerned with the well being of the force. There are actually forces currently deployed to war/conflict zones that are not allowed to be armed, and others that are armed (mainly for weapons accountability) but are not allowed to carry ammunition until their leadership deems it necessary.

Haha, well played!

I have the Tuffy stock. It is a black composite that doesn't look super sexy but is fairly functional for my purposes. The only thing I don't like is the extremely short length of pull. I'm not sure if it was originally intended for use by little people or what but it is way to short for the average adult male. The wood stock versions that I've fondled have closer to normal LoP, so I'm not sure what the deal is with these Tuffys. That being said I originally purchased this for my wife to use on slithery things as needed, and to use in teaching the kids, but like most guns I've bought for them I end up shooting it the most. I have 81 rounds through it right now. 55 of those are .45 Long Colt. 5 were 2 3/4 .410 slug, which I won't buy again as they cost as much as my .45 rounds but can't compare in accuracy. 10 were 2 3/4 #4 Shotshells, and 11 were 3" #4 Shotshells (The last of which was a 20' headshot on a turkey). Despite the short LoP I've had a lot of fun shooting it, and recoil with everything we've shot is minimal. One neat feature that might be specific to the Tuffy stock is a compartment in the buttstock that holds 5 additional rounds. Really enjoyed the gun so far, sorry yours is having issues. Let us know how this works out, I'm hoping they make it right for you.

I'm interested to hear how this turns out. I have one of these as well, but no cracking that I've noticed thus far. Do you have the wood or plastic stock?

I may have an LMT stashed away somewhere, I'll PM you if I come across it.

Is he wanting a full blown carrying handle or just the sight ability it affords? If he's just wanting the sight ability you might look at the LMT Tactical Rear Sight. These were developed for SOF around the time they went to the MK18. Prior to that they were cutting the handle portion of the issued carrying handles off and just using the sight portion. You can find them for $90-120 online.

Sounds like your theory of it being too tight and causing binding or blocking the follower is plausible. You might try putting the flashlight back on and tightening it down as it was and loading the magazine tube to see if the follower catches at the same point as you load it. If it does you might try attaching the flashlight mount with some thin rubber (old bike tire tube) as a "shim" to fill the gap, creating friction between the mount and tube, negating the need to tighten the mount down so tight. Just a thought. Let us know what you figure out.

That's nice! Haven't seen these before.

Nice looking rifle! Looks like it shoots nice too!

Have you looked into Raven Crest Tactical? I've had their Nemesis for about a year and am very happy with it. It might be a bit heavier then what some prefer (15.16oz) but I really like the weight of it in my hand. And the dual action is still going strong despite my child-like fascination of opening and closing it 5 or 6 times every time I use it.

What's your definition of small? I have a Barnett RAZR that is a tack driver. I have 145 shots on it thus far with no issues to report.

Have you looked at the Kel-Tec RMR30 Carbine? Not sure how easy they are to get just yet. I have their PMR30 Pistol and have been very happy with it. There are reportedly some issues suppressing the PMR (haven't tried it), but I haven't heard yet if these issues carry over to the RMR as well. Has anyone out there been able to get their hands on one (RMR)?

The target stand is great......but I'm most impressed by your detailed build plan! Thanks for sharing, great post.

Is he making something for all three of the claimed shooters?

Another MK9 owner here. As stated above its a little heavier (not great for pocket carry) but it shoots great, to include one handed. It has functioned 100% so far with a round count of about 1,300. About 250 of that was misc defense loads. I just recently shot some 147grn "NATO" through it and probably will never buy them again. Even with the weight of the MK9 they rocked my world a bit more than I would want in any situation.

While the situation described by the OP does sound a bit suspect, there are some of us that use deer corn for purposes other than illegal baiting. We routinely have turkey and deer walk through our backyard and I like to put corn out in a couple spots so they slow down long enough for my family and I to enjoy watching them for a bit.....or until my 3 year old starts banging on the window yelling "urkey!" I have been able to get a turkey each season this year, but we just wait until after I've gotten one to start putting our corn out. There's only been a few deer so I haven't wanted to shoot any of them yet. As much as I like shooting and eating God's creations, sometimes it's also just nice to sit back and watch it. Two days before the Fall Turkey season started we counted 39 within a bow shot of the back porch, boy that was a sight....and a ruckus!

If you haven't already, check out the rest of the videos from Mat Best on his YouTube channel MBest11x. He has some hilarious rivalry videos between the SOF guys. There is also a lot of eye candy so it might not be safe fore work. Mat's a great guy and gives a lot of time and money for Veteran suicide prevention amongst other things.

Great looking build, nice job!

Academy in Cool Springs has a couple varieties of Aguila .22LR. The cheapest I saw was $3.99 for a box of 50 Lead, or $4.99 for 50 jacketed. They are not in the back with the rest of the ammo. They are right up front at the customer service desk. They had several thousand of each.