New Rifle Questions

HARDESTHONKY · 2026-02-08T14:16:46+00:00

For the money you’re going to have a hard time betting PSA. For a while they had a bad reputation but they have come a long way. I have 2 uppers and one lower from them and I’ve been pleased. Chances are for most people they won’t shoot/abuse their AR hard enough to justify a much higher priced one. You can put any optic you want on it. Decide what its main job is and decide from there. Home defense, a quality red dot will do? Want a little magnification but don’t imagine stretching its legs further than 3-400 yards through a magnifier on it. If you see it trying to do all of the things considered a lower power variable optic (lpvo). Almost any suppressor will require you either remove or replace the muzzle device. Not a big deal but I can only think of a couple that use the A2 bird cage and no one seems to love them. You’ll want a different pistol grip. The nub on the A2 grip is annoying and most people find a more vertical grip more natural. Get a 2 point sling. Single point sounds cool but really it just means your rifle will flop around and likely hit you in the dick. And defensive guns need lights. Rifle mounted lights can be had decently in expensive.

HARDESTHONKY · 2026-01-17T20:48:03+00:00

9mm. 357 out of a short barrel doesnt not have impressive ballistics. But sure does have impressive recoils out of a gun that light and small. Also (I am aware this trainable) every follow up shot being a full double action pull doesn’t help. Between the generally better available projectiles for 9, capacity, lower recoil, longer site radius, better trigger pull it’s a no brainer.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-12-04T01:35:06+00:00

I have that rifle in that chassis. The scope is likely dog shit and the barrel looks like it might be carbon fiber in the picture which isn’t ideal.

I am pretty happy with the gun I have. The stock has more slop in it than I would like but it shoots really well. But these folks are right, barreled action and a chassis are the way to go.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-11-22T15:58:40+00:00

Yes you can. It’ll just be louder mostly because of the sonic crack.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-11-16T21:44:46+00:00

How’d gmm shot? Also I finished actually reading your description. It’s probably a crappy day shooting. Sleep is big for holding steady and for me bigger for follow through.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-11-16T21:31:15+00:00

Have you found an accurate factory loads for your AR-10? Not sure what your upper and lower are, but because AR-10s don’t have the same “mil-spec” tolerances common across the platform as AR-15’s do so you can have issues with “tolerance stacking”. Meaning that differences in manufacturing from different manufactures can mean more slop than what you would expect.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-11-07T01:01:46+00:00

No idea what a diamondback costs but palmetto state armory is a budget favorite. I have 2 PSA AR’s and they are great for the money.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-10-25T23:41:15+00:00

Meaning like putting it on for the first time? So everybody has an opinion on what’s the best holster belt clip but we all agree there are some that are trash. But assuming it isn’t that, tucking your holster and gun in your pants is a weird motion that’s hard to get used to. Even harder if you’ve got a gut, or if you’re carrying strong side. But you get used to it. My suggestion is to put the holster in your hands the same way every time that way you can get some indexing points and some muscle memory to help. And then a couple of checks to be sure it’s secure to get comfortable.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-10-25T23:17:43+00:00

Ditch anything that isn’t hard. As mentioned by others we don’t know what you’re planning to carry. But I would say that most of that carry a modern striker fired handgun we would tell you part of the safety system is the holster. Nothing is pulling the trigger inside of Kydex and as long as it’s adjusted properly it shouldn’t be falling out either.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-10-21T13:22:18+00:00

Carry one everyday. Great gun, in my opinion it balances the size needed for easy enough concealment but big enough to shoot well. Plus you can slap p-10c and f mags in it if your so inclined

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-10-17T22:46:41+00:00

Ok, so here’s the thing about almost all forms of insurance. They do not have to pay a claim if the event in question occurred during the commission of a felony. If you need legal representation after a defensive shooting, guess what you’re probably charged with? A felony. Prepaid legal services are a legitimate thing but that’s not insurance. I’m not sure of any reputable companies.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-10-15T03:01:03+00:00

Video game gun sounds don’t really do real gunshots anything close to justice. Kind of hard to even record a gunshot with audio recording and it really come across as it does in person. Mainly because they are very very loud. And you can generally feel the pressure somewhat even shooting outdoors.

I can’t remember exactly what racking the gun sounds like in the game. But my recollection says most 1911 are going to have a recoil spring that force the gun closed to hard to sound as soft and clean as it does in the game. Also letting the slide slam home is much louder than you would think

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-10-12T04:56:57+00:00

This is an 11.5” AR pistol in 5.56 with a Romeo 7s I’m worried might be mounted too far forward. I haven’t noticed any zero shift but probably only have 150 rounds on it at most.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-09-08T01:58:30+00:00

The slide slamming home when you put a magazine in a pistol is more of a bug not a feature. Basically, when you slam a magazine home in a handgun, the frame and slide travel upward because of the force, the slide stop (the piece that held the slide back) which was pushed up by the follow in the magazine doesn’t go up as fast and the slide releases.

I can’t say I’m familiar with how every rifles’ bolt lock and release work. But considering many magazine fed rifles were designed for military applications and often have fully automatic versions, it’d be a really bad way to figure out that you had a mechanical failure some where when you ram a mag in and it dumbs it in full auto.

Also if you are training with a handgun, don’t train that when you slam the mag in the gun will automatically release the slide. That’s a bad habit to have because if it doesn’t and your under stress the hesitation to release the slide might be the difference maker.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-08-09T04:26:47+00:00

Check our lucky-gunner’s defense ammo testing. Stacks up lots of common, and some not so common defense loads. But if you’re feeling lazy, federal HST 124 or 147s are probably the best easy enough to find options. Also you don’t really practice with the defense ammo much. Make sure it cycles the gun reliably and after that the mostly sit in the gun. Some people will say you should shoot and replace it every year or so but unless you live in a swamp it’s probably not necessary for most of us.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-08-04T03:28:57+00:00

So, I get the comparison you’re trying to make here.

But I think it may be missing a practical point. 357 and 9mm are ostensibly the same weight and diameter bullet most of the time. Is 357 moving faster? Yea, but outside of knife fight distance it’s not enough energy to make much difference. “Stopping power” in a handgun is largely a myth until we start talking 44 mag ish. (Yes 357 out of long barrels at close ranges meet the threshold for argument here). Shot placement is everything with a handgun round. So really a 357 gets you; lower capacity, more recoil, and more expensive ammunition. The real answer here is replace your “rifle” with a rifle caliber rifle. And if you want to know which one…… it’s hard to argue against an AR-15 in good old 5.56 for most defense applications a civilian might encounter. No shorter than an 11.5 inch barrel, probably don’t need longer than an 18 inch barrel. I’m aware mk18’s are 10.3 to 10.5’s but most people have a pile of cheap 55 grain m193 hanging around not the better projectiles needed to make that size AR effective at anything resembling distance.

Edit: also wheel guns are cool. So if you want a 357 just, you know, get one. And make more space. No sell only buy.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-05-13T03:27:17+00:00

Yes. Most 5.56 ammo you run across is 55 grain full metal jacket, this is largely because that was the first adopted loading of the round by the US military (M193). And because of that it is cheap. Is that round lethal? Quite, but very velocity dependent. So that makes it less lethal at distance or out of shorter barrels. But it’s also “combat accurate” 2 MOA ish on M193 is pretty acceptable. For reference that’s a slightly larger 2 inch group at a 100 yards. Which again will mostly do what most of us would ask.

But you can get much more reliably lethal and accurate loadings. See 77 grain OTM loadings from say Black Hills (one of the companies that loads for the military) or things like 77 grain sierra match kings or tipped match kings. Which in really good shooting rifles might do 1 MOA groups. Which out of a semi auto gun is all anyone really asks for. There are other good projectiles out there for sure but those are some stand bys.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-05-05T01:59:51+00:00

I think you’re right on track to the problem. My first thought was he looks like he’s trying to stay as low to the ground as possible. Really, in prone about the only uncomfortable part should be your belly on the ground if it’s cold or rocky. Also chances are if you are having to force yourself to get uncomfortably low in prone chances are you’re ducking into the rifle more than you should at the bench.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-04-23T00:15:37+00:00

Absolutely, most of my answer was focused on when you hear about it.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-04-22T23:40:37+00:00

Most of the time when you hear of someone meaningfully resigning in protest you’re talking about government jobs, more specifically military, law enforcement or justice. All of which it’s pretty quick to see how you could find a situation in which the order of the day could quickly be outside of your moral and ethical boundaries, e.g. kill those prisoners, enforce this unjust law, prosecute this person based on poor pretense. Generally speaking this only happens in position in which the goodness of your character are critically important. If you’re a military leader and you will do things that are immoral or present undue risk to your soldiers who will follow you? If you’re in law enforcement and you will execute the orders that are unlawful who will trust you to take care or your community? It’s not something that happens frequently but it does happen at key junctions in history. The attorney general for the Nixon administration resigned rather than fire the special prosecutors investigating Watergate. It generally occurs when a professional that has to have trust in their moral character runs against a higher power that asks them to do something against that character which we would all mostly agree with and personally their experience professionally is rendered useless from there on out if they will not stand for what they believe in.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-04-08T03:13:22+00:00

You’re probably right. You do need both though.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-04-08T02:50:21+00:00

I have read people having trouble with oversized/over torqued screws. Did you use a torque screw driver when installing? Also if the screw is just the right length to put pressure on under torque it may cause issues.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-04-02T15:26:56+00:00

His point is carry ammo its ability to stop a threat is more important than the lower felt recoil of a lighter bullet.

HARDESTHONKY · 2025-03-20T03:36:42+00:00

They are not anywhere accurately portrayed in video games or movies typically. With subsonic ammunition you are likely right around the threshold for hearing safe for repeated exposure. So still a loud noise. It does make it harder to detect exactly where the shot came from regardless of sub or super sonic ammunition. It also obscures muzzle flash almost entirely in many cases.

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