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Posted: 8/26/2016 6:14:14 PM EDT
| I want to turn one of my ARs into a close quarters/home defense gun and am looking for suggestions of items to put it, light, foregrip, sights, etc. Thanks. |
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A really bright light with a momentary button. 200+ lumens.
A decent red dot. Aimpoint pro, trij MRO, etc. Irons are preferable to cheap Chinese optics. Vertical foregrip is sort of a personal choice. I would start with the BCM or tangodown shory/stubby. A sling is a good thing as well. Inexpensive nylon or blue force. Check EE for everything above and save yourself money for ammo. |
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11.5" pistol with a white light and iron sights. Don't use the rear sight, just look over the top of it and frame the target in the wings of the front sight. getting into the "tube" of an optical sighted AR at inside-the-house ranges sucks +1 on this. Sounds like MRW knows what he/she is doing. Generally---on any home defense AR pistol or rifle--keep it ultra simple. And a clean profile. Nothing hanging off of it except a light. Especially no front pistol grips. So nothing to snag on stuff. I also don't like slings because of that. I don't recommend optics unless you are going to train like crazy in their use in the intended environment. Very few will do that so I would say leave them alone and use iron sights if you have the chance or just the profile of the weapon itself as a short range sighting tool. It's not often that any precise aiming is going to happen in the dark anyway, which seems to be when stuff happens most often. Others have different experiences and preferences. Do what makes sense for you. |
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You'd be surprised with a little practice how far you can hit a man sized target at with looking over the sights. Room to room type fighting is very rapid paced. A bright green laser IMHO would be more helpful that an optic. Laser zeroed at 50 yards will be good for 0-100 yards snap shot.
You want a laser that you can see with your flashlight on. I'd prefer a laser that the beam in emitem from the 12 or 6 o'clock position of the bore. That way the poi is a little high or little low of poa. Just my .02 |
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Anything from 7.5-16" long, the shorter barrels you should put a "flash can" on. Muzzle breaks need not apply. Even if you put a suppressor on there it's not going to be hearing safe inside a room. Suppressors aren't a bad idea if you can swing it. Optics look at a RDS Light there's a ton of options. Cheap end is a Surfire G2, magpul light mount, and a Primary Arms tape switch endcap if you want a tape switch instead of a push buttom Foregrip is a personal choice if you want one at all Sling, 1 or 2 point of your choice Might want to consider something like a ready-mag. I know they're not in vogue now with the AR flavor of the month club, but if you need it in the middle of the night what you have on it is all you might have. Some argue that 30rds in 1 mag is enough, but I prefer to have a spare mag no matter what. I'd probably build it as an AR pistol with a 10" or 11" barrel to be completely honest. Small and no SbR requirement |
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When you don't buy cheap shit, you can leave your red dot on for 6-12months at a time. Quoted:
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Short barrel, iron sights, suppressor, loaded mag. You don't want to be flipping sights, turning on dot, etc. KISS when in panic mode. When you don't buy cheap shit, you can leave your red dot on for 6-12months at a time. My Aimpount PRO is on 24hrs a day 7 days a week, and has been for years, the only time it gets turn off is for battery changes once a year. Get a good quality light and sling. |
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I don't understand wanting a sling for this set up. Is there something I am not considering?
I'm doing an SBR for this purpose right now. I would think a flashlight would be a must. I just had to pull out my Glock (with Trijicon light up irons) last night because I heard a loud noise in my back yard. At that moment I was really wishing I had a flash light on it but didn't. Ended up being the neighbors dropped something in their back yard. They work late. A fast acquiring optic or irons will go on my SBR. Maybe a RMR |
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A sling keeps your weapon on you if (when) you trip, are rolling around on the ground with somebody, or you need both hands for something. (holding a phone, dragging people, plugging holes in family)
It also makes it impossible for somebody to take away and shoot you with your own gun. The "it gets snagged on things" comment gets regurgitated a lot, but that's dumb. Think about it: when was the last time you walked down your hallway and got your arm caught in the door? Does your shirt get stuck on kitchen cabinets? Pants get ripped off by a doorknob? Probably not ever. If you aren't comfortable wearing one, or prefer not to, that's fine.. But it's not going to get snagged in a damn thing. If you are going to be a dynamic ninja switching strong/weak side shooting, you would have already addressed that in training and made your equipment decision. |
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A sling is a holster for a rifle, and should be used as such, meaning it's not holstered/slung while you're using it I see someone who has never been taught how to use a loop or a hasty sling to improve his shooting.  Ya might want to look that one up on the interwebs, pardn'r.
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Quoted: I see someone who has never been taught how to use a loop or a hasty sling to improve his shooting. Ya might want to look that one up on the interwebs, pardn'r.Quoted: Quoted: A sling is a holster for a rifle, and should be used as such, meaning it's not holstered/slung while you're using it I see someone who has never been taught how to use a loop or a hasty sling to improve his shooting. Ya might want to look that one up on the interwebs, pardn'r.I certainly don't use a hasty sling or loop to stabilize the firearm when house clearing. Have you? Do you wear your shooting jacket too? This conversation is about HD or CQB, not highpower or an Appleseed shoot |
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Build a 10.5" pistol and you are better off. Short overall length which fits thru smaller door openings, etc. The longer 16" carbine doesn't as well.
Iron sights - spending up to $450 will not make it effectively more accurate under 21 feet. For that matter a bright green flashlight with very narrow beam will light up a target enough to identify it and also use that as a sighting mark. It's a 2moa weapon being aimed at a 18moa center of mass target - it's extreme short range use. Handgun range. And handguns have traditionally come with open sights, the competition venues are pushing longer range shotts and red dots to sort out the sheep and the goats for ranking purposes. That's not your problem. No sling. Infantry taught me to discard the snagly thing with it's noise, constantly catching on stuff, etc. If you are grappling then FAIL. They not only drag you into their melee with no choice, your defenses weren't sufficient nor was your response. Slings are nice for LEO/MP going IN to a house, you are defending there already and you are NOT going to holster your weapon to detain, handcuff, search, etc. That target should be prone on the floor incapable of further motion - or fleeing out the door. Find the most vertical grip you like because you are holding the gun tight - even with the tube over your shoulder - and your wrist angle is much different than the one developed for the M16 in prone use. Since it's mostly indoors no extra tube covers or dress up. Shoot with your nose to the charging handle over the sights and you will be good to go. The problem with most suggestions for equipping an AR for home use is that all that extra money above and beyond a simple KISS build should go to perimeter alarms, window security film, a seriously secure door and framing system, large dog (or guinea hens) ad infinitum blah blah blah. If they even noticed you, then targeted you, then got into the door at all, you didn't do enough. You failed. The gun is your last ditch answer and for all that, in extremis, a lot of humans save it for themselves and family. Ask Germans in Berlin when the Russians walked into town 1945. Shuck the accessories and use the money for exterior security and ammo for practice. |
No longer wears a red dot. Unless you have 5+ acres to check with the same house gun, a sling isn't need IMHO. You should be able to open a door while keeping your rifle leveled. If you can't, look at short bbls/cans, lightweight FF rails like ALG, rubber pistols grips like Ergo, or a gym membership. In order of priority (IMHO) 2-400 rounds of function testing/range practice (more on that later), good ammo (77gr varmint stuff), good flash light (SF, elzetta, SL), weight/carry (10.5/can, LW rail, rubber grip), optic (aimpoint/eofail, etc). At the range practice with your rifle the way it would be used at home. So when the SO and I take our house guns to the range, we lean them up against the bench with magazine in and no round chambered, then turn and pick them up and shoot two or three targets five times each. We set up at twenty five feet, which is the longest shots that will be made inside our home (long hallway leading from living room to family bed rooms). Last thing, if you don't keep a round in the chamber (we have kids so AR is amber) look at an extended charging handle. LMT, BCM, RAPTOR, etc. |
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My Aimpount PRO is on 24hrs a day 7 days a week, and has been for years, the only time it gets turn off is for battery changes once a year. Get a good quality light and sling. Quoted:
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Short barrel, iron sights, suppressor, loaded mag. You don't want to be flipping sights, turning on dot, etc. KISS when in panic mode. When you don't buy cheap shit, you can leave your red dot on for 6-12months at a time. My Aimpount PRO is on 24hrs a day 7 days a week, and has been for years, the only time it gets turn off is for battery changes once a year. Get a good quality light and sling. Honestly that's too much, mine only start dimming after 2.5 to 3 years. |
Here is my BR AR (on the bed)...
Starting point is basically a Colt AR6720, which as far as I knew when I built this wasn't available at the time so I bought a complete Colt LE Carbine lower and built the upper assy out of parts (Colt sourced from Specialized Armament, unless otherwise specified, and yes that's expensive but not cutting any corners for home defense). Today, GR Tactical has Colt AR6720's on their web site for $799 and I'd just buy one of those as my base if I was building another. Didn't want to fool with NFA, so barrel cut to 14.5" and BCM A2X flash suppressor permed by ADCO. Kept the FSB and went with a 7" rail vs a longer rail over a LP gas block because the FSB is more robust in tight quarters. Daniel Defense M4 7" rail. Those are discontinued. Actually they were then, but only recently at the time and I managed to find one. At the time, the lightest free float rail on the market. Today that would be the BCM KMR (the magnesium alloy one not the aluminum "alpha", although I believe the latter actually edges out the DD M4 on weight as well and I'd use it if I was in a hurry, the Alpha's being generally available while the magnesium ones in any given size are out of stock most of the time so you have to be both patient and vigilant to get one). I have a KMR on a BCM rifle (pic latter in this post), and like it a lot. At present the above carbine just has generic low profile ladder rail covers where nothing is mounted on the DD rail. The KMR rail that I'd use today is a keymod and you can see the Noveske rail covers I'd go with on a new home defense build today on the BCM rifle below (well, sorta - the camo makes them hard to pick out). The stock is a B5 Sopmod Bravo, which is currently my favorite carbine stock. I like the butt pad as compared to the generic Colt M4 stock that came on the lower. I don't remember the make of the pistol grip, but I hate the bump on A2 pistol grips. My current favorite is the Magpul Miad you see on the BCM rifle below, with the oil bottle insert. Pat Rogers' tale of "filthy 14" has convinced me that cleaning is a waste of time just keep it wet, so nice to have an oil bottle on board. Currently I like Slip 2000 EWL30, but that has changed over the years (starting with GI LSA back in the 80's) and it wouldn't surprise me if it did again. Inside is a Geissele SSA trigger, which is still my favorite. Mag is a PMag Gen 2. I have some Gen M3's but the ready mag happens to be that one just now, loaded with Mk 318 Mod 0 sourced from US Armorment. That is my "serious" load because it has good terminal performance (according to the ammo gurus), is barrier blind, is 5.56 pressure vs .223, has close to the M855 trajectory (doesn't matter on this weapon but I have others where that does), and is pretty much the only load meeting all those criteria that I can consistently lay hands on. Zero on both the T2 and BUIS is 50 yards (read all those old Molon threads for the merits thereof). The optic is an Aimpoint T2. Originally it had an H1 or T1 micro (misremember which, but unless I invest in NV goggles no need to pay extra for the T1 vs H1). I upgraded to the T2 basically for the built-in covers, and redeployed the H1/T1 to another application. The reason was the covers, because it is on my to do list to camo it. It is in a Larue QD mount, which has a lower 1/3 cowitness with the irons. I don't find that it really gives me any trouble with cheek weld with either the Aimpoint or the irons, but I have a long thin face (look at Andy By-God Jackson on a $20 - I look like he was an ancestor or something - Scott's Irish genes). BUIS is the Troy flip up with tritium inserts. The front site post is a Trijicon tritium one as well. Light is a Surefire X300 with a tape switch that snaps over an M1913 rail, in an offset mount that gets as close to 12 o'clock as the FSB will allow (Haley Strategic, IIRC). I haven't adopted the newfangled hold with your support arm out straight like the 3-gun guys tend to do (not going to work on a carbine with a 7" handguard anyway). Position of the tape switch is so right-handed I can operate it with my left-hand fingers and left-handed I can operate it with my right-hand thumb. The carbine class I took (TDI Ohio) was big on transitioning and taking right-hand corners with the carbine held left-handed (so the weapon & the eye you are sighting with goes around the corner first, not last). The other ambidextrous setup would be to use a vertical fore grip with the tape switch on the front edge thereof, but I'm not keen on those (YMMV). The stylish way is to use a tail cap button with your hand far forward on one of those little angled fore grips, and the light where your thumb can operate the tail cap switch, but I haven't figured out how you can make that setup ambidextrous (but I could be missing something, being a student not a master). On the BCM rifle below, you see a Surefire mini-scout light (but the same switch setup), which is probably what I'd go with if I was building the home defense carbine today. Sling is a Blue Force Gear Vickers. TDI was big on those and they work well with the transition technique they teach. On a camo carbine, I'd go with an OD or Coyote one, according to whether the camo pattern was green-dominant or brown-dominant. On the other side there is a QD sling swivel mounted to the rail towards the muzzle. So here is the BCM rifle, built from a 20" KMR upper ordered while they were throwing in free BCG's, mated with a blem complete BCM lower assembly from GR Tactical. 
Paint job on the BCM rifle is per the "Book of Pat (Rogers)" method with the color scheme modified to get as close to AOR2 as I could (for squidlyness). Nothin fancy, just rattlecan. The tape switch is black because it is the soft rubbery sort of plastic paint doesn't stick to, and unfortunately Surefire doesn't make them in other colors (although the lights themselves are available in FDE). Painting a bunch of mags is on the to do list. Currently the base plan is to put the same camo pattern on the home defense carbine, but I'm mulling changing the color scheme to something more "inside the house" looking (i.e. brown-dominate ranging from beige to the dark reddish brown of cherry-finish furniture), or maybe a grey-dominant urban but I live in a very green suburb so not sure what that would accomplish. Anyway, that's my suggestion for a close quarters/home defense AR. |
| If I had the cash just laying around and wanted a dedicated house gun... SBR .300 blackout 8.5" with a can. Some sort of light and a good set of iron's. Shooting subs with a can you're not going to go deaf and blind. Shooting almost any sort of weapon in a confined space isn't any fun at all, especially in the dark. |
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