Hist-o-ree..

(..from the famous last line of the original movie, The Longest Yard, as the heretofore assistant warden throws Eddie Albert's tag line back at him with sarcastic derision.)

Unidentified Individual with H&R M-1

I am often lectured by my youngest son, Sho, that I should be happy and shoot what I got. For some time now, however, I fussed and fretted over the prospect of squiring a perfectly legal AR-15 into the realm of the modern day relatively gun-free liberal paradise called California. Not to relive the misery, but the descent into the panty-wearing safe space now run by governor Gavin Nuisance included classifying the sporting model of the famous Viet Nam era M-16 battle rifle into a "featureless", neutered firearm acceptable to the soy bois of this sate. It involved the removal or change of the following lethal features of the AR-15:

    o Pistol grips
    o Forward pistol grips
    o Thumbhole stocks
    o Telescoping or collapsible stocks
    o Threaded barrels, flash suppressors or silencers
    o Barrel shrouds
    o Grenade or flare launchers

..and just when I was perfecting my grenade launching techniques, along with the art of the collapsing stock butt stroke, too! But California declared all owners of AR-15s with those features and a heretofore legal detachable 10-round magazine de facto felons. So we are offered the opportunity of registering the rifle with the state of California as an assault weapon or neutering it to comply with the newer-than-new SJW, PC safe space rules. And I would be glad to obey had my AR-15 not been swept overboard off the end of the Huntington Beach pier in a tragic boating accident a couple of Summers ago.

Oh, woe is me! Mine had been assembled with the look of the nearly-classic Viet Nam/post-Viet Nam rifles; I intensely dislike the Flash Gordon ray gun look of the modern plastic toys that the bearded, tatt'ed adolescents dragged to the ranges these days. The collapsing stock and other appurtenances made an otherwise handsome battle rifle into some weapon out of a drug-fueled dystopian nightmare. All I wanted was a simple, classic M-16 look.

I could even deal with the 10-round mag limit as long as the A2 stock and simple lines were intact. I thought that surely there was a way to achieve that "graceful" appearance with some ingenuity. But I guess I was wrong. After-market compliance produced nightmares like this..

Yech!

So, I went back to the drawing boards and tried to rethink the whole thing and it was while I was on a visit to a local firearm emporium that I saw an M-14 being offered. I asked the salesperson about that and was told that the M-14 was compliant and could be sold in California -- so long as it had a 10-round mag. So that got me to thinking about what I did have already: two classic M-1 Garands and these were perfectly compliant with the modern "safe-space" rules of this waxing-commie paradise.

One was an H&R I bought from the CMP sight unseen through their mail order sales. It was a classic "mixmaster" (as Garand collectors call them) having an H&R bolt and trigger assembly and a Springfield op rod and other components from other M-1 contractors. Basically, it was a rifle originally made around 1954 or so that had been issued and then, after use for a couple of years, went back in to be rebuilt with whatever came out of the parts bins of the army contractor at the time. But, collectors' criteria aside, it was exactly what I wanted: an authentic battle rifle of the World War II and Korean War era and beyond. It shot well and had some interesting cartouches (stamps) on it.

The other rifle -- a Greek repatriation -- was a Springfield M-1 built around 1954 as well and loaned out to the Greek military before it was eventually returned to the U. S, Army. It had a shot-out barrel and the stock was dog meat. (Ironically, it even had a peace symbol carved into the stock; guessing that the Greek army had a lax sense of discipline and wry sense of humor at the time.)

The Springfield was sent to Dean's Gun Works in Tennessee and re-barrelled and given a new stock. Basically, it's a beaut.

So, who needs a tricked out AR-15 when one has two of these that are perfectly marvelous to shoot and are imbued with history and tradition? You know, like George Patton described them:

Another irony is that, when the CMP was being re-authorized by Congress back in the 60s some time, they had a few on display in the well of the Senate chamber and Ted Kennedy (The Lyin' of the Senate) strode down to make a speech, picked one up and, brandishing it, said that he would vote for the bill because he did not see too many liquor stores being knocked over with M-1s.

With ringing endorsements like that, how can one go wrong?