this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2024
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Assuming proper training and ammunition, they're perfectly capable for hunting small to medium game such as rabbits, coyotes, tyrants, wild hogs, and whitetail deer.
I don't think some people know how much damage a pack of wild hogs can cause to crops and farmland in short order. If it wasn't going to be an AR-15 keeping them off the farm it would be another intermediate or higher caliber semi-automatic rifle that accepts standard magazines. Everyone want's to laugh at that excuse until the farmer has a bad season and has to sell his land to Bill Gates or Chinese investors, they don't exactly make large margins.
The magazine capacity is an issue though. The standard 30 round mag is far to large for any realistic hunting purposes (you can also get up to 100 round drum mags). While you can hunt with an AR-15, it's not the best rifle for the task.
I live in Canada and the government is in the process of banning semi-automatic centre fire rifles capable of holding more than 5 rounds. Given that 3D printers exist, this pretty much bans all rifles with interchangeable mags. I'm a gun owner on a rural property and I think that's a reasonable compromise. I can still own a decent bolt action hunting rifle and a semi-automatic rim fire rifle with no mag limit.
It does suck for people who's rifles are getting banned though.
You've obviously never been surrounded by a pack of coyotes or hogs.
.223 is also an excellent caliber for that size game.
Anecdote time!
I was once semi-surrounded by coyotes while hiking in some back country with a friend.
I did not have anything except my camping knives and a very small axe for splitting kindling.
My buddy had a compact 9mm in his waistband.
Honestly, I can say an AR would not have made me feel safer. A larger capacity on my sidearm, on the other hand, would. The AR is just too bulky to move quickly in close quarters.
Luckily a single round to the trailside was enough to scare them off, since yelling and throwing things wasn't. We then ran/sprinted a few miles down the trail toward the vehicle before we even considered slowing down.
Not many situations in which either one is something I'm desiring though, and while I'm not a fan of limiting people, I can't say I've ever needed 30rds at once. Honestly, I buy 10rd mags just because they fit very nicely in some cases I already had, and the 30rds don't.
Rambling anecdotes over, have a nice day!
Anecdote time! I went to infantry basic training and we were told over and over again, if you have to draw your sidearm, you’re dead. The AR absolutely is not too bulky for close quarters and I would feel much better with one on my hand than anything else. The US army has murdered a lot of people with M4 rifles in CQC. (My politics don’t align with a stereotype of a former infantryman. Please do not assume too much)
In either situation, with adrenaline, good luck getting shots on target.
Hmm, I don’t understand the downvotes but okay lmao I’m sorry that the AR platform is actually fine in close quarters?
I think it's probably that your anecdote and experience is kind of out of left field considering this guy was only dealing with a couple coyotes, and honestly you probably don't even need a gun in that circumstance, and I don't think you'd much need anything larger than pistol-caliber.
As far as I understand it, the main problem people have with it, which they also have with pretty much every gun larger than a foot or so, so most guns, is that you can't really cross a threshold horizontally. About the only thing that could qualify against that maybe is like, a pistol or one of those shotguns with a bird's head grip, or like, some smaller pdw or something. I also dunno how much of a problem that is, of, oh it's gonna snag on something, or whatever, right, I guess it's just the idea it's going to present a higher snag risk or something when turning around, or, when getting up to a ready position? I dunno I'm not a gun nut.
I think it probably also isn't helped by the increasing consumerist trend to load up their guns with more and more extraneous shit and go for longer and longer rifles on their AR platforms to try and increase accuracy on the range, which means they tend to conceptualize of them as being unsuitable for close quarters despite that kind of being the idea of an intermediate cartridge and all that. It also doesn't really help to cite our military engagements with it considering over the last like 3 decades of the rifle's service we've mostly only fought like, random middle eastern terrorist organizations that don't have a great reputation for good training or good equipment or anything like that. You could maybe look at uses of the rifle by other organizations like the IRA or whatever, but I don't think they had any close quarters engagements.
Most of this comment is out of left field. Wow. Uh.
This study shows coyotes predate on humans up to 37% of known attacks. That person was fortunate to have a firearm.
Dude said he wouldn’t feel better with a rifle, well, from his personal anecdote, to mine, I would. I am much more likely to be accidentally shot by my friend with the handgun imo.
Your lack of experience is obvious. I’m not going to go into all the reasons you can clear buildings and rooms without reaching for a handgun, as muzzle discipline and accuracy become exponentially more difficult. There’s a reason SWAT breaches with rifles and not handguns, well, them and any one else that has quick access to a rifle in the situation.
I work at a gun store, that’s simply not true. SBRs and AR pistols exist and are extremely popular.
right, or the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Or the literal decades of combat US special operators have with the platform since Vietnam, or any other of its long, violent life. Or you can ask any of these countries, or, look into any of these use cases
Maybe don’t chime in on things you’re absolutely clueless on? I’m trying to figure out how to put this somewhat nicely but you clearly have some misguided thoughts here. And none of this comment has anything to do with the fact that, if surrounded by a pack of hungry animals, I want an AR-style rifle personally.
Coyotes? Literally just shout at them. They're scavengers not fighters.
In the late Winter/early spring they start getting a bit braver and start moving further into the cow pastures. That's when we have to cull the pack to keep them away from the cattle.
Oh yeah, I thought you meant in regards to humans. I've never seen a coyote so much as growl at a human without a cub nearby.
They will definitely come after humans if they are hungry enough and their pack is large enough. It's around that season that they start getting a bit braver because they are hungry coming out of winter and it's breeding season. Usually they run after the first shot, but sometimes they don't notice you dropped one and they keep coming until the follow-up shots. It's not out of the ordinary to bag multiple coyotes in one spot.
Maybe I've just never had a pack big enough and hungry enough, but I live out west and I've never seen them be aggressive towards humans. Even when they got into my camp once, the second I sat up out of my sleeping bag they scattered.
It's not the best rifle for any task. But it's a good enough rifle for most tasks, and between real AR-15s and the various clones they are cheap, in common calibers, and have accessories widely available.
Which is why it's the most common rifle in the US by a fair margin.
It being the most common rifle in the US by a fair margin is in turn why it's so often used in public mass shootings, as those are usually done with weapons of convenience rather than something bought for purpose. Likely also why the guy who shot Trump used one.
If a public mass shooter wanted the best gun for the job, they'd get something closer to a PS-90 (the civilian version of the P-90 which is a military rifle designed for urban combat).
You're neglecting the fact that mass shooters are murderers, so close combat isn't their thing - and the best gun for the job has already been shown - ar15-style rifles - 14!! - with drum mags and bump stocks:
On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada from his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people[a] and wounding at least 413. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867. About an hour later, he was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting
That's a lie. Anyone familiar with guns knows he had a machine gun up there.
roflwhat?
this is such a silly response I can't even.
he purchased 24 firearms over the course of years. Most were AR types - 14 .223 ar15 patterns but also AR-10s and a .308 bolt action.
you could argue he made them machine-gun like with the c-mags and bump stocks; as the shooting went on his firing came in longer and longer bursts, 90+ rounds - but there were no 'machine guns' in the ATF tax stamp sense.
Just stupid american laws crafted by idiot politicians owned by the gun lobby allowing civilians to approximate a half ass version that's basically only effective for murdering unarmed civilians. A real machine gun is belt or box fed, has changeable barrels, a tripod or bipod with T&E, an AG....
Yeah I watched the video. That weren't what they said.
??
what fucking video?
jfc pardner, did you learn to speak english at the podunk u school of cowpunching?
you're a human waste of my time. gonna block you now, you're either too dumb or too delusional.
There's literally video of the Mandalay bay shooting. You know how to google shit, right? And yeah, I am a cowboy from the middle of fucking nowhere. I know what I'm talking bout comes to guns.
you don't know a smoothbore from your asshole
WATCH THE VIDEOS AND BE AMAZED: they weren't fucking machine guns, they were propelled to those rates of fire with bumpstocks, you goddamn bellend. that's why prior service people like myself, who have been around machine guns IN REAL FUCKIN LIFE, understand there's no good reason for civilians to have them and devices like crank triggers and bumpstocks that approximate their rate of fire are fucking stupid and evil.
You're a fucking idiot, dude. And see through as hell. You've not done any of that. Larping a character to push an agenda.
Wait til you get those fucking murder hogs up there.
5 rounds for a pack of dogs or pigs??? Ok buddy 🙄
In the arctic standard bear protection is a five shot bolt action 30.06. You'd load them with three FMJs to scare the bear away and two hollow points in case that didn't work.
The truth about predators is they aren't interested in dying for their meals. Prove to them that approaching will be deadly to them and they won't approach. You don't have to kill the entire pack, you just have to kill or wound one, or even just blast some rocks in their path.
Honestly external magazines need to just be banned. That way it's immediately clear a rifle is legal or not. It's also great for hunting still, and okay for self/collective defense. But not great as a mass casualty producer.
We cleaned about 250 boar out of our farm over a four year period with the same 3-5 shot rifles we hunt deer and moose with. They mill around long enough you can reload. I have an SKS but I don't bother, I'd rather sneak over a hill and pop half a dozen slowly and cleanly with my .338. And I can do it from far enough away that they don't really get upset until 3 of them are lying on the ground, kicking.
You'd really want something bigger for hogs and deer. Never known anyone who hunts deer with .223. You really want one of options in thirty caliber.
While I'm sure someone hunts rabbits with a rifle you'd really use a shotgun or a really small rifle for them.
.223 is a good coyote round though. There are better coyote rounds available and there are better coyote rifles in .223.
.300 Blackout for hogs.
You can get an AR-15 chambered for this, or easily swap a few parts if you already have one.
AR-15's are popular because it's an easily modifiable platform. It's not the best for any one thing, but it's pretty good at a variety.
I’ve taken deer with 556. Even if I hadn’t, I know people do because all the heavy loads sell out around deer season.
Actually, are we allowed to shoot coyotes in the city limits? Alligators are mostly chill and will just take off, but coyotes hunt around at night here.
...rabbits?
Yup. Shot placement is key if you're looking to feed yourself.
5.56 is a ridiculous waste of money for rabbits and totally excessive. 22 or even a pellet gun would be perfectly adequate and waaaaaay cheaper.
There's nothing like some good tyrant jerky
i was under the assumption an ar15 would explode something like a rabbit without useable trace?
Nah, it's a small round as rifles go. "High powered military rifle" is a complete misnomer.
The likely issue there is less the size of the round and more the impact of the pressure wave on tissue. Body shots with a standard high-powered rifle round may not leave much useable meat on something the size of a rabbit.
Yeah, if you want meat. Farmers usually want to control rabbits from eating everything else.
5.56 is a waste of money for rabbits though
A small round traveling really fast can do a lot of damage, not a great round for small game - stick to .22 or birdshot.