The Rifleman Series (Part 2)

8/14/2019 The Rifleman Series (Part 2)

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The Rifleman Series -- Part Two: What Rifle For a Rifleman?

Assume you were just born.

What would be really important to learn, once you reached a certain level of maturity?

That 401(k) accounts might be useful to retirement? The various competingprescription programs in Congress? Arguments about school class sizes? What agreat and progressive president Bill Clinton was? What?

Well, some of us think it is simple.

You should learn freedom -- about what it is, and most importantly, how we got it.Just as important, you should learn how we keep it, help it to grow, protect it, and -in too many instances - how we get it back again.

Stripped to the bone, it's really a simple story:

We have freedom because somebody fought for it.

We keep it because we are willing to fight for it.We lose it because we are not willing to fight for it.

We are fortunate that the people who fought and won it for us starting back in 1775also gave us a written guarantee (that is, the Bill of Rights) that we would have thetools to protect that freedom. But, of course, they couldn't guarantee that we wouldhave the sense or the will to do the hard work of defending Liberty.

It doesn't hurt to recognize how far we have slipped in the battle to maintainfreedom here in 21st century America. It's even more important to understand howfar the war on terrorism is going to further erode our freedoms. We have to havethe sense to know the fight is HERE, and NOW. Once we know that, then we mustbe convinced of the rightness of our cause, and have the firm determination to useall of the tools available to us in reversing 70 years of creeping socialism.


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If we can win the 'soft' fight in the political arena, we'll also win the 'hard' one byavoiding it entirely. Believe me -- you DON'T want to have to fight the 'hard' war.There's no joy in running for your life from people that want to kill you. Win the

'soft' fight by winning the political game, and there'll be no lying in the mudbleeding, no separation from home and family, no interrogation of your children bygovernment agents, no lifetime prison sentences, no public demonization of "thosedomestic gun-nut terrorists".

The first step in fighting and winning the 'soft' war is mental: knowledge,determination, even anger - at what they have done to our country, to ourfreedoms. You should be angry -- really angry -- at being required to live in a

world of both 'tolerance' and 'zero tolerance'. A world where at the same instant,'tolerance' means "love every socialist, UN flunky, drug addict foreigner" - and'zero tolerance' means that patriotism, achievement, love of freedom, and mistrustof government are scorned, punished, and finally, eliminated, mostly in psychiatricfacilities. Yep, the Center for Disease Control is already into guns, inevitablyleading to treating your political views and your exercise of Second Amendmentrights as a 'medical/psychological' problem.

But anger alone won't solve any problem. You need to use that anger to motivateyou into taking concrete action.

Let's assume you've already started to fight the 'soft' battles. Sure, you start toeducate others - in your family, at work, wherever - to wake them up, get them outof the boiling pan, and into protecting and saving freedom. Some will scoff - butyou have to wake them up to save America, so don't give up! And you vote, andget others to vote. And you write letters - 'to the editor', to your politicians.

You also get people down to the range, rifle shooting with you, as you finally learnhow to shoot yourself. You do it gladly, because once you recognize that you maysomeday have to defend freedom, you have a duty to get ready.

Look at it this way: You have life insurance, fire insurance, and health insurance.Now, as you learn to shoot well, you've got freedom insurance. Of course, you


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As a budding Rifleman, you can appreciate the desire expressed in that comment -to do the job once, not again and again. Long range (that is, farther than 500 yards)is clearly .308 territory, with accurized rifle and ammo. But 'rack-grade' rifles can

still be effective out there. That being said, it's in the 300-500 yard area where yourstandard .308 and surplus ball ammo really shine. Over 300 yards, so you arebeyond effective range of their popguns, and out to 500, where you are still layingalmost a thousand pounds of energy on the target. If you can set it up so you catchyour opponent in this area, you'll dominate him, assuming you acquire Riflemanskills - the ability to hit a torso-sized target rapidly with every shot, at ranges from25 meters to 500 yards.

If you have ever seen one of those WWII weapons training films, where thenarrator talks of a machine gun replacing 6 riflemen in fire effect, you mightquestion this approach. Here's where the narrator gets it wrong. First, those'riflemen' in the film are not real Riflemen - probably no more than 5% of military-trained shooters are 4 MOA to 500 yard genuine Riflemen. So you are reallyreplacing 6 'area-fire' weapons [the not-so-accurate infantrymen] with one 'area-fire' weapon [the machine gun]. And a machine gun is, by definition, an area-fireweapon, meaning you spray bullets in an area, like casting a fishing net, and hitwhatever is unlucky enough to be in the area and to catch a bullet. An actualRifleman is superior to an MG at Rifleman distances, because 90%+ of his shotswill be a hit, whereas the MG will be lucky to get 3% hits. For a real-worldexample, see John George's WWII memoir "Shots Fired in Anger", where anunlucky Japanese Nambu gunner loses when he meets a rifleman.

Six no-kidding Riflemen can equal the firepower - the number of rounds perminute - of an MG, but that six-man team will quickly run out of targets. For theMG, the limit is the number of rounds you have; with riflemen, it is the number of targets. Look at it another way: a bullet from an MG is like a dumb iron bomb. Awell-aimed bullet from a Rifleman is like Precision Guided Munitions - addressedto the target, speeding straight and true, with the target its destination.

As an illustration, someone recently shot the granddaddy of all assault rifles, theStG 44, at the RWVA range. In semi-auto mode, every time he pulled the trigger, a


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popup target at 200 yards went down. When he switched to 2- and 3-rd bursts, hewent thru a mag without hitting a single target.

But wait, you say. You don't use full auto at 200 yards, you use it up close. Right?

So, my friend, the enemy is 'in the wire', even past the wire, and on top of you, innumbers. That's when you are going to start wasting ammo with full-auto fire?That's when you are going to wind up with an empty mag only a few seconds afterfiring your first shot? What sense does that make? One shot, one kill, at 25 yards,right?

As a Rifleman, you're not likely to let them get that close. 300 yards is more than

close enough. My point is just that full-auto fire is pretty useless in the 2A context.There is real meaning behind the term 'toys for big boys'.

But what kind of rifle should a Rifleman use? Well, the good news is that most of you guys already have a rifle suitable for training to be a Rifleman. Starting with avery limited budget, the choice is clear. There is no faster bolt action rifle in theworld than the No. 4 Enfield with its long-radius peep sight and ten-roundmagazine. The older No. 1 Mark III model is no slouch, but the No. 4 has a heavierbarrel, and peep sights much superior to the open-sighted Mk III. They're cheap --around $125, but try to get the No 4 Mk 2 or Mk 1/3 with the late triggermodification. Ammo runs about .15/round, and while most remaining surplus .303ammo is corrosive, these rifles are simple to strip and clean, which you'll need todo that day to keep rust from forming in your barrel. In a pinch, any firearm willhave to do, but if you have the time (and smarts) to pick and choose beforehand,and are on a tight budget, this classic is the one to get.

Second up the ladder is a semiauto, the SKS. If you practice with the Enfield untilyou can get 20 or more hits on a 4 moa target in a minute, you should be able to do30 or more with an SKS. An SKS will run you up to $50 more than the Enfield, butthe ammo is half the price. It is reliable, accurate, lightweight and very effectiveout to 300 yards, dropping off considerable past that (but still, in a pinch, usable).However, if you're serious about shooting at Rifleman ranges on a tight budget,

just note the British .303 is still going strong at 500 yards or more. On the other


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hand, one of the RWVA regulars uses his stock Yugo SKS and commercialRussian ammo ($90/1000 rounds) to get consistent hits on the popups at 400 yards.

Next up: a big price jump to $400-500 for a CMP M1 Garand or an FN-FAL, both

powerful and effective past 500 yards. Garand ammo and clips are getting a littletight, but you still find ammo in the .16-.22/rd range, whereas .308 is in the .12-.15range. The M1 has the better sights - longer sight radius, better sight adjustment -and has the forward assist bolt handle, but the FN has a 20-rd mag, and extra FNmags are cheap. Add the bolt handle from the heavy barrel version so you have apositive forward assist, and you've cured biggest fault of the standard FAL.

Some people will stop there, with the FAL, as FAL prices range up to over $1200.

Kinda raises a question about what you are getting with the cheap ones. But let's goone step farther, for you guys who have the bread and want the best. In my view,that's the M1A. You can still find them at gun shows for about $1100 new in thebox. Used American-made ones might go for a hundred or two less than that, mostof them are not used much at all. There is no better rifle in the defense of libertythan the M1A, under the standards anticipated above:

maximizing your impact while minimizing your risk,keeping the other side in your 300-500 yard 'kill zone', whilekeeping out of their 200 or 300-yard kill zone.

Where to begin? Why not set a goal? Get a British Enfield or SKS now, if that isall you can afford. Learn to shoot it like a Rifleman. Save up for an M1, or, betteryet, an M1A. Make it a goal - a resolution - that you are going to get one. Anddon't assume you can take years to do it. They may not be around forever, and timeis not on your side.

Buying an M1A requires choosing between rack-grade and match grade. Youmake this choice based on, first, your projected accuracy needs in the defense of the Second Amendment, and, second, selecting the most reliable and long-lastingrifle. Four MOA is good enough to hit a man at 500 yards, and a rack-grade out-of-


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The Rifleman Series (Part 2)

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