Monday, March 28, 2016

Upper Swappable

I like the IDEA of swappable uppers, but not the result.

Sure you got the 5.56 AR for all your SHTF needs.  You can grub spare ammo from convoys full of Bernie Thugs raiding the civilized areas after you ambush them, that sort of thing. 

And you can swap out the upper for .300 BLK, full powerish .30 caliber and go deer hunting this fall before things get really bad.  It'll be the last enjoyable hunting season before the Hungry Times his Glorious Marxist Jump Ahead bring down on us all.  (I'm sure gonna miss grocery stores.  Those were really great.  Why, Saundvistas, why?)

But...

It's SO dang easy to make a boo boo with the ammo switch.  Resulting in bad bad.  Dead upper, dead lower, dead hand.

I hate Kabooms.  I want nothing to do with them, ever.

Guy at work is looking to up his firearm game.  Former Marine.  Has just the .40 and Remington 12 gauge right now.  He want a .300 or a .458 SOCOM.  Both with suppressors.  I told him the Whisper version of the .300 has a lot less oomph.  He knows.  He wants quietER, not that real quiet we all love.  Well, as long as he is going into it with his eyes wide open.

But it got me thinking...   Already, if I had my own .300 and .223, I'd load them in magazines that looked and felt WAY different.  Like Milsurp metal for one, and Magtech for the other.  I'd also thing about modifying the mag well.  Put a little obscruction in there so that only a magazine I modded to slip buy an obstruction would fit in that gun.  Maybe an obstruction that is also removable.  But then I have modified the lower.  So maybe that isn't the best idea either.

Like I said, I like the IDEA of swappable uppers, just not the execution

7 comments:

Wolfman said...

I'm thinking paint is your friend here. Maybe do the .223 upper in standard black, and the .300BLK in ODG, and make sure to only use the magazines to match. That way, nothing permanent is done to the magazines or lower, but it's easy enough to keep them straight- provided one is in on the color scheme, of course. If it comes to scrounging rounds and magazines from opposition supplies, things have progressed past the point where color codes are going to really stick- at that point, I think I'd pretty much keep the BLK stuff together, but out of regular rotation.

Of course, if given the option, I think I'd prefer just having two different rifles, but that's me.

Ratus said...

Easy Tbolt, just get a 7.62x39 upper.

No way for a cartridge with a diameter of 11.35mm (0.447") will seat in a chamber of only 9.6mm (0.376").

Also the x39 magazines are very differently shaped, more of a curve like an AK.

Old NFO said...

Ratus is right, anything else is tempting fate...

Angus McThag said...

Not ANYTHING else...

There's several 5.56 alternatives that you can't get to chamber in a 5.56 upper no matter how hard you hammer.

The dangerous alternatives are the ones that take the same magazines and have the same head size. Like .300 BLK... And people noticed and mentioned this all the way back when JD Jones came up with .300 Whisper and people started hot-loading it.

Tam said...

"It's SO dang easy to make a boo boo with the ammo switch. Resulting in bad bad. Dead upper, dead lower, dead hand.

I hate Kabooms. I want nothing to do with them, ever.
"

It's funny, but half the people I know who say this own both 8x57 and .30-'06 guns, even though an 8mm Mauser will grenade a .30-'06 gun every bit as spectacularly as the .300/5.56 mistake.

People don't use their thinkboxes. ;)

Tam said...

Most 7.62x39 ARs don't work worth a damn, and the ones that work okay don't really work so hot either, at least by any serious standards of working well.

That incense cone shaped cartridge is just flat incompatible with the AR's straight section of magwell, and the case head is too damn big for the standard AR bolt to have a decent amount of meat left on it.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

I WON'T HAVE AN 8x57 TO HOME, NEITHER.