Spare parts
 

It's not something I had considered before but do any of you guys keep spare parts in your gun bag?

The reason I ask is today I went out shooting with a friend, the second mag I put into my Bushmaster wouldn't lock in. On inspection I noticed the mag release had broken, on the left side where the pin is swaged in, there isn't a lot of metal around the pin so I expect this could happen in time. (the rifle is 6 years old and had a lot of mag exchanges). It's a $15 part but put the rifle back in the bag as I didn't have a spare. I went on line and bought two lower rebuild kits and one upper kit. It wasn't that much $ and with the simple tools in my range bag will prevent this in the future.

No spare parts in my bag but having read your dilemma I may get a few spares just in case I have to bug out.

No, but I buy durable firearms.











Sorry, just could not resist! :D

My last trip to the range (last Weds) included 4 different rifles, 5 different pistols, and a shotgun that I wanted to test a repair. Would have needed wheelbarrow for spare parts.

From an "end of the world" perspective, have a friend with a large farm, bunch of sons and sons-in-law. He has about a dozen rifles. All Marlin Mdl 336 lever action 30-30s. And he does keep a few firing pins and extractors on hand. His rationale was commonality of spare parts, commonality of ammo, and his lever action "deer" rifles are lkely to attract less unwanted atention than an evil black rifle.

I don't keep many spare parts for my firearms either but am thinking about getting a spare LPK and springs and extractor parts for the AR. Though this rarely happens with my other firearms, twice I've dropped small AR springs/detents and luckily found them. I need to take this as a warning though and have extras on hand.

I posted an answer to this type of question in another thread. I keep a complete small parts kit in my MOLLE vest in a pouch designed for GPS (I think), along with the punches and what-not to change them out. The handle of my combat knife serves me well as a make-shift hammer. I keep another such kit in my assault pack. These two articles are with me always in my vehicle.I keep the locked in a home built safe bolted to the floor of my extended cab pick up. No use in having them unless they are with you when you need them. I might as well go ahead and add that in my bed side BOB kit. I keep a complete set up in that as well. Might not be able to get to my pick up...you never know if you have to run away in the middle of the night. I keep a set of camo ACU's, a tactical cross draw vest with Level 2 armor, quick zip boots, and kevlar helmet (German surplus) on a rack by my bed complete with an AK with Reflex sight with detachable night vision accessory, and 1911 along with 10 fully loaded mags apiece. That will get me to my AR stashes.

The point is...2 is 1 and 1 is NONE

I strongly agree w/ the 2 is 1 and 1 is none way of thinking. I picked up that habit in the Army aand it not only came through for me then but as been very helpful in the civ world. Bosses love when they have a guy they know is always prepared and they can fall back on. Things break all the time. Why let it ruin your day because youre not prepared? I have to drive over an hour to a decent range and would hate to waste the gas. Shooting is expensive enough.

Dang...I drive 10 mins to our club range, and have a private 200 yard range outside my back door. I even built a bench on my porch. Talk about lazy...lol. It's handy though when doing load developing. I use the club range when training FNG's into the shooting sports. Also when I need a 500 yard range. Amazing how many necomers we have into the shooting arena these days. Being a civillian Militia Company Commander, I have contact with all sorts of people who are becoming interested in the Militia ideology. Especially when they find out we are not a bunch of paranoid illusionists with an anti-government agenda, but in fact, fully and wholly support a Constitutionalist government and stand ready to help out in the event of a catastrophic incident.

Unfortunately, we are extremely picky and choosy about who we allow into our core group. It has taken me 20 years to build a crack team of civilian operators and I am not about to jeapordize that unity with unproven noobs. That's why I help them set up their own program and guide them in the training regimes. Then teach fundamental marksmanship based on the techniques I learned in Boot Camp back in '79. I found that adhering to DOD training methods is by and far superior to most other individually developed methods. The Army, in it's infinite wisdom, developed and adopted these techniques for a reason...who am I to question them?lol

The Army has actually turned to newer methods designed by these individuals. Ive been out 5 years but at the time my unit was sending guys to classes so they could come back and teach the rest of us. This also goes for H2H combat. The mil set up a new H2H system w/ help from the Gracie BJJ family.

Yeah,a few of my members are vets of the Box and are in the process of teaching us old men the new tricks. Pretty interesting stuff to say the least. When I was in boots, life was seemingly simpler. It was the M16A1, OD Green Fatigues, web gear, and Brain Buckets. Jeeps, Deuce and a Half's... All the cool stuff we can hang on an MBR these days was real Buck Rogers back in those days.