kBob
Member
Interesting piece in the current Guns & Ammo dead tree edition where in the resident retired Smadge talks about digging the magazine of your AR into terra firma to stabilize the gun when shooting.
He points out that while many are religiously offended by the idea of resting a rifle on its magazine while in use that the Spec Ops community he was associated with did it, taught it, and encouraged it.
He goes on to berate those that repeat the old myth that doing so is bad.
I know exactly why thousands think this is a bad idea.
Cleaning rods.
Yes cleaning rods are to blame.
In my experience there was at least a decade in the early years of the service life of the AR rifles when cleaning rods caused folks to believe, with all their hearts that resting an M-16A1 rifle on its magazine was evil incarnate.
You see if you were on a US Army rifle range as a new trainee during that time chances were that the first time you rested your magazine on the sandbags at your firing position a cleaning rod spranged off your steel pot with a surprising and awful sound. The next time you did it a cleaning rod poked you sharply between the shoulder blades and if you dared a third attempt to create a mono pod out of your magazine a cleaning rod would sing through the air and leave a bruise across your buttocks.
Those cleaning rods were cruel in that way. They forced NCOs assigned to duty on rifle and marksmanship committees to hold them while those cleaning rods punished those too lazy to hold such a vital part of their rifle as the magazine out of the dirt.
Thus the "Don't you abuse that magazine by using it for a shovel, maggot!" became sacred text to a generation of draftees and "Modern Volunteer Soldiers" of the '60's and '70's. They in turn passed it on to their children and unto the grandchildren.
Now some folks do think it a good idea to not put stress on the magazine for fear of inducing stoppages. The old Smadge at G&A points out that with good mags this is not an issue......I could point out that from 67 to 76 the only magazines available to most AR users were the very GI issue ones a lot of us blamed many of the AR's ills on and I believe the Smadge might have been in preschool during that time, but he is correct in that a magazine that might fail from use as a mono pod is not a good thing to have anyway. Anyone else ever spend and evening under canvas arguing over "Colt verses Adventure Line" like Ginger v. Mary Ann or Jennie v. Samantha?
Any how, assuming you read this far through kBob Babble, how say yea?
Is using the magazine of an AR as a mono pod a good and useful thing or is it asking for failures and maybe the wrath of the cleaning rod PTS moments?
-kBob........................AH! Cadre in the Wire! With CLEANING RODS! AH! AH! .....oh, sorry.....
He points out that while many are religiously offended by the idea of resting a rifle on its magazine while in use that the Spec Ops community he was associated with did it, taught it, and encouraged it.
He goes on to berate those that repeat the old myth that doing so is bad.
I know exactly why thousands think this is a bad idea.
Cleaning rods.
Yes cleaning rods are to blame.
In my experience there was at least a decade in the early years of the service life of the AR rifles when cleaning rods caused folks to believe, with all their hearts that resting an M-16A1 rifle on its magazine was evil incarnate.
You see if you were on a US Army rifle range as a new trainee during that time chances were that the first time you rested your magazine on the sandbags at your firing position a cleaning rod spranged off your steel pot with a surprising and awful sound. The next time you did it a cleaning rod poked you sharply between the shoulder blades and if you dared a third attempt to create a mono pod out of your magazine a cleaning rod would sing through the air and leave a bruise across your buttocks.
Those cleaning rods were cruel in that way. They forced NCOs assigned to duty on rifle and marksmanship committees to hold them while those cleaning rods punished those too lazy to hold such a vital part of their rifle as the magazine out of the dirt.
Thus the "Don't you abuse that magazine by using it for a shovel, maggot!" became sacred text to a generation of draftees and "Modern Volunteer Soldiers" of the '60's and '70's. They in turn passed it on to their children and unto the grandchildren.
Now some folks do think it a good idea to not put stress on the magazine for fear of inducing stoppages. The old Smadge at G&A points out that with good mags this is not an issue......I could point out that from 67 to 76 the only magazines available to most AR users were the very GI issue ones a lot of us blamed many of the AR's ills on and I believe the Smadge might have been in preschool during that time, but he is correct in that a magazine that might fail from use as a mono pod is not a good thing to have anyway. Anyone else ever spend and evening under canvas arguing over "Colt verses Adventure Line" like Ginger v. Mary Ann or Jennie v. Samantha?
Any how, assuming you read this far through kBob Babble, how say yea?
Is using the magazine of an AR as a mono pod a good and useful thing or is it asking for failures and maybe the wrath of the cleaning rod PTS moments?
-kBob........................AH! Cadre in the Wire! With CLEANING RODS! AH! AH! .....oh, sorry.....
