SPBCTS

I am retired LEO, when I was leaving we were supplementing the 870 with the patrol rifle, not eliminating the shotgun. There is no reason to do so. Never too many tools in the toolbox. I live in the sticks and worked in town. When I was working my wife had an 1100 at her disposal. I load 00 buck in the tube. The speedfeed stock has slugs. The weapon is stored action open. If she wants a slug first she can combat load one from the stock. There was a chance she would encounter a bear or mountain lion as well as the human threat. The 1100 has a flashlight on it and she has been trained with it. It is, and always has been stored out of reach and out of sight for any child. I worked a lot of nights, for a lot of years. When working the Task Force I was sometimes gone overnight. Having loaded weapons in my home is simply a way of life. I've sent too many people to prison and been involved in too many critical incidents to assume that no one out there hates me. In fact, I know the opposite to be true, LOL. My sons were taught early to respect firearms. We have acreage and can shoot here, and we do. Teach them respect, an understanding of what can happen...let them see you skin a buck or prep a bird for the pot... There are so many environmental variables involved in making these types of choices, let alone the children variable and frankly the personal variable. Some people are just not comfy with a shotgun. Some people can't make a .40 cal SA/DA function due to weak wrist issues. In my situation, the shotgun is the one of the right weapons to have available. So, it is. I also keep a loaded pistol available. Whatever you decide is right for your home, environment and other factors, train like crazy with it. Train weak hand. Train strong hand. Train in the dark. Train, train, train. There is a 100% probability that you will revert to training under stress. 100%. It is proven in every LEO shooting. So train. Train your body and your mind. Both must be in sync if you want to be as effective as possible. If someone in your home isn't comfortable with a shotgun, get them something else. I know of a number of people who struggle like heck to cycle a pump action shotgun under stress. Short-stroking, forgetting to reload at all, etc. is common under stress and if you can't train that out of them it is a good indicator that they are not comfortable with that weapon. If that is the case take them to another weapon. It is also pointless to put a .45 automatic in the hand of someone who physically cannot control it. If they can't control it they can't hit with it. If they can control a 9mm and hit with it then the 9mm is far and away the better choice for that person. I have seen way too many men scaring the heck out of their petite little wives trying to force them to "learn" to work a 1911 style .45. The guy gets mad, the woman gets mad because she is trying like crazy but can't handle the buck of the pistol. (Not just on women here, I know men that can't hit with them either but carry them cause of the "cool" factor.) Put a 9mm Sig 229 in her hand and within an hour she is smiling and punching the lights out of the bull. Sorry for the rant, folks. This stuff is near and dear to my heart after all those years...

Looks like it was a great show. There is nothing like a good legit rock and roll show. I took my eldest son with me to see Boston in Reno in the early 90's. I believe he was about 8 years old. I put some shooting style foam ear protection in his ears, and we were about 10 rows form the stage. He was mesmerized. Every once in awhile I get a look at his Ipod. It is full of Classic Rock...sure he has his modern stuff, but there is a ton of music on there that comes directly from my influence. Makes a Dad proud.

I am retired LEO. When I started with my former agency, a local cop shop in 1980, we used to hear rumors that the dept. had an original Thompson full auto rat-holed someplace, but no one would own up to it. We heard that they were issued to the local agencies during the 50's by the fed or state. Fast forward 5-6 years, I am now an FTO and a rangemaster, and I am over at our secure storage with a Sgt. going through some stuff because we are getting kicked out of this area by some other county dept. In this room, behind a shelf rack is a closet door with a dead bolt. We get all the stuff off the shelf rack load it into the truck and then and spend a couple minutes going through the key ring looking for the key. We get the right key get the door open, one shelf in closet. What do I see but three, not one, but three "violin" style cases. My heart leaped. Sure as heck, three Thompson machine guns, with forward pistol grips and complete with drum and stick magazines, all three looked as new. We couldn't believe it. WE loaded them up and went back to our main office. No one could believe it. Since the Sgt. was the senior rangemaster and I his #2, we "took custody" and secured them in our range locker in a corner of the Evidence Tech's room used by the Sgt's. About a week later he had one all cleaned up and called me on the phone on my day off. "Wanna go play with Tommy?" Enroute. Unreal feeling, really unreal. Even with just the stick mag those things are heavy, and the cycling rate is nothing like modern weaponry, but boy are they fun to shoot. I can't imagine what one of those would weigh with a loaded 100 round drum. We shot it a couple more times, them tucked them all away. They were part of the history of our agency, and we wanted to care for them as such. I made Sgt. a few years later, and went to look at them. They were gone. Some idiot Lt., whom I'd never got along with, and who was the bean-counter, traded them off to the state dept. of justice for 6 Vietnam era AR-15's and a handful of magazines. He thought he was saving some money. I about blew a gasket. The agency head heard me yelling behind closed doors form his office next door and came in to ask WTF was going on. I had showed him the Tommy's when he got elected, and told him how I felt and he agreed. We never suspected this clown would do what he did. That Lt. was put in charge of the pencil vault and never promoted again. But the damage was done, our Thompsons were gone. Still makes me mad to think about it.

People in my neck of the woods are struggling to hold on. If you are in an industry that services cars, home appliances, and generally keep exiting stuff working are staying busy out here....because no one is buying new cars, no one can afford an new dryer, no one has any $ left in the wallet. Things are going to get worse, folks. The fed is printing money, and we are then auctioning T-Bills to float our debt, and buying the debt because no one else will. We're printing in, loaning it and borrowing it all at the same time. It is insane.

Okay. I emailed Armalite and got a response, for my specific model with the lower gas block. Their part numbers EX3404 (front) and EX3406 (rear)are designed to work on the 10TBNF and one of the 16 inch barrel units with the same offset plane rails. These are clearly M.I. sights...as shown on the Armalite website.

The best thing about that machine is the time it is going to save you. Once your sons are born time is gonna be a very precious commodity, and you sure as heck ain't gonna want to be spending any more than you have to doing stuff like shoveling snow.

I have the hot rod disease. When I was still working, I was putting in so dang many hours all the stuff in my garage stagnating. No time. Now, I have plenty of time but no $. ::) But I spend a lot of time out in the shop tinkering, making a little progress as $ allows, selling a car here and there to fund the next project. I did manage to add on to my shop and now have almost 1400 sq. ft. of insulated, sheet rocked and heated man cave, and enough stuff to keep me busy for the rest of my life, and that is if I don't drag some other pile home.

You, and people like you, are the future of innovation in this field. You need to get your foot in the door with a couple of local SWAT teams in your area and by the Sgt. a cup of coffee, then pick his brain as to what he feels are glaring needs in the weapons equipment field. For example, I can't believe that no one is making a B.A.D for the Armalite Ar-10 platform. No one. I can't believe it. With the incredible demand in the field of accessories for the modern sporting rifles, and when you see how popular "out of stock" is on all the usual websites when it comes just about everything, I think you will do fine. I think you could put together a basic class for the guys who've purchased the 80% lowers and teach them to finish their product, then how to measure it to confirm it is within limits. 1 hour of class time on shop safety, 1 hour of discussion on general machine theory, then a demo on setting up on the machines... then each student gets to set up his lower and go through the process of finishing the unit. Anyway...you are gonna be busy, no matter what you choose.

I know this post is old, and I am also very new here, but can perhaps add to any syllabus you assemble. If you guys are still working on this advise and I will share my background, 25 year LEO...

I am a big believer in the free market, but acquisitions like this seem to regularly have one major downfall... The competition blows, and the innovative stuff that comes out of them tends to suffer. When you get a big corporate overhead trying to run 8 or 10 shops, they all have to fall in line. Lines, by definition, only go from point A to point B. I am an old time hot rod guy, spent a lot of time building and playing with all sorts of on road/off road/hot boat stuff, and all the neat cool stuff that gets brought to the market in that world seems to come from the smaller shops first, even if they are later picked up by a big shop to mass market it, the tinkering that give us the goodies regularly comes from the shop where a guy can spend time pondering, time testing, time prototyping, and time making adjustments. I don't think the corporate empire environment is strong on that, but hey I could be wrong.

Another new guy, was very happy to find this forum. Been around guns all my 55 years but just now getting into the modern sporting rifles. My eldest son and I are "building" or shall I say personalizing, an AR-10TBNF he just purchased. We live in northern Nevada, but due to time and distance I don't get to see him often enough. He is hoping to add some tricks to the rifle, but right now he is recovering from the cash outlay of the purchase, so "Dad" is helping him find the stuff to trick it out. Since I am retired and have the time to help him plan to spend his money. ;D He would like to make it an honest 600 yard rifle, he is former military and can do his part. I think the Vortex Scope that Midway has the exclusive on is what he is looking at, in his price range and I think sufficient for the work. It has been a long, long time since I priced optics, I can't believe the prices these days. I have a 1966 Bushnell Scope Chief 3x9 my father bought new from Bushnell in LA. He paid less than $125 for it. It is mounted on the 1972 Remington Model 700 BDL in 7mm Rem. Mag. he bought the next year. The combo is still dead nut at 300 yards. The glass was recharged by Bushnell in 1980, and they sent a note along with the scope offering to buy it if he ever wanted to sell. Not likely... Anyway, happy to be here, don't know much but plan to learn...

I found the sights required, Armalite has them on their website, and so does midwest industries.... http://www.midwestindustriesinc.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_id=173

Hemi I suspected that may be the case but have not seen the workaround anywhere on the net.

Thanks R-squared I will go look at those too!.

Thanks for the welcome and the information. It appears that Armalite sells the MI SPLP kit for these specific rifles. I am thinking those with a 45* "adapter" on the gas block and the rear pic. would work. I just need to know if using up those 3 furthest back slots is going to create an eye relief problem when we mount a scope. Need to go find some pictures. Just trying to avoid spending his $ on stuff he won't be able to use later. I will go look at those Magpul Gen 2's.

Gentlemen... Hello, new guy to the forum and to the Armalite platform, but some experience with firearms in general. Recently my son purchased a new AR-10TBNF and he should have it soon. He works, I am retired and can spend lots of time searching the net and helping him make plans to spend his money ;D. It will be a while before he recovers from the purchase of the rifle ($ wise) and I don't want him buying less of a scope than he wants then having to buy another, so I am suggesting he buy a set of iron sights for it while he saves for a scope. I see several sets of irons online, but none specifically for the 10TBNF. I have seen some guys having problems with the elevation of the front rear mounts, and would rather ask before spending. Can I get some input on a good set of irons that will perform well and be a bolt on for the 10TBNF without changing the rails at either end... and be worth keeping on board in case of a scope failure? Really excited about this father-son project.