Monday, January 09, 2006

Upper Progress, Lower Worries

Thanks to everyone who commented and emailed about the AR upper post. I now have a few more options to explore, and as someone pointed out, that Olympic upper was a fixed handle jobber, which I don't want.

As it now looks, I have a line on a Daniel Defense upper and a Knights RAS kit to put on it, and I won't even mention how great a deal I'd be getting on the pair, but its phenomenol. You'll all be jealous. Even if the very sight of an AR makes you throw up in your mouth a little bit, you'll look at the finished product and say "Awesome..." after a somewhat stunned silence.

And I'm buying my lowers and a mag kits this week. I needed to put some scratch together fast, so I did what everyone does who needs money fast - I turned to eBay. Now my beloved airsoft M4 is gone; gone to make way for a newer, shinier, real-er M4gery. But at least the airsoft version shot full auto. I am a bit worried about all the things I've heard from my local FFL's - "no, we won't receive these lowers for you, and you should know the DOJ is taking all of our records about who is getting them. Would you like to drop a grand on a Bushmaster Carbon15 with completely sealed magwell for CA? No? Then get out."

Turns out some tool was selling lowers at the gun show with the mag kits held in by toothpicks. Thanks, bucko - now the rest of us are in a tighter situation than before. I should still be able to get one. I think March is when the changes happen.

And I'm already getting accessory happy. Is that bad? I'm making plans to buy a Surefire M900A to put on a gun that doesn't exist yet. I look at my Trijicon sight everyday and imagine it sitting on my rifle. I can't decide on the Ace SOCOM stock or the Magpul. What grip do I want? THIS IS A DISEASE!

Somehow, I think I wouldn't be this excited about this project if it weren't for the fact that less than 1% of Kaulifornians have one, and after this round of DOJ restrictions they'll be completely unavailable, and I'll be better armed for the zombie apocalypse. I think if I lived elsewhere, I'd spend my money on something else, like a really nice custom 1911, or a nice hunting rifle, or a competitive firearm of somesort. But since an AR is such an odd rarity in CA, I can't resist the temptation.