His & Hers M4's

[Diamondback]

Well, not exactly: Hers is a C8A3, the Canadian version of the M4.

Two stories behind these two guns: My M4 started as what I hoped would only be a "bridge loan" purchase until a friend who was in a nasty divorce could buy back his bring-back parts and resume rebuilding his old Rockpile work gun. Sadly, the demos that followed him home were too much fight for him to win and he joined the Two Dozen A Day... after his kids declined to exercise the Right Of First Offer in the purchase agreement and told me "since you were looking for an M4 as a 'teaching gun', finish it for that role and use it to tell his story--it's what he would've wanted so a little bit of him can continue to serve." The upper is a Colt contract, shimmed just enough to make it Title I by John Thomas at Retro Arms Works. Even in-person you have to look REALLY close to see where Colt's steel stops and John's begins.

since my gal is Canadian, we decided it would be an appropriate touch to give her something rare by building her a C8 - when I was doing research, a bunch of guys on a Canadian gun-board hooked me up with some of their spare bringbacks in the same spirit to memorialize their fallen brothers with a "teaching gun" for my classes on Range Day. They jokingly call her gun "the unofficial Canadian Afghan War Memorial" after the Turd, may he soon be flushed, decided to bury the real one in a deep-top-secret part of a base where nobody will ever see it. (One ting not CF-spec is the Umbrella lower--that was a unique personal touch, C. is a huge Resident Evil fan to the point that she's said if she ever gets a crack at wooing Milla Jovovich my options are either learn to share or become The Next Ex.) The folks at Gunkote even put an expedite on developing an air-cure version of their Napa Green for the buttpads on this project.

We also have all the parts for M16A4 and C7A2 20" second uppers*... but with no accessible bench vise to torque flash hiders and PNW gunsmiths dropping like flies, I need to find someone who can teardown and reassemble the front ends and swap the triangle endcaps for rounds. (The 20" URG's were among Aero's last out the door before WA banned AR parts... but they can't legally exchange the URG's and won't do the work to swap the parts.)
*Assuming I can ever disinter the M5 RAS for the A4 from the mountain of boxes it's entombed under in my storage unit...

These two pics are from the day my former FFL outshopped the refinished green furniture and did the post-assembly "look over my shoulder" inspection--before Rumored Pederast Ferguson ran him out of the state, Dave was as much a teacher and mentor as a service contractor and dealer, one of many people in a variety of fields I've been blessed to have take me under their wings.


I also have the matching USMC Ontario OKC-3S bayonet, but at the prices for a Canadian spec Eickhorn B2005 I've told C. that's one part where she's gotta buy her own. (Besides, I was raised that gifting a knife wounds a relationship--when I found a screaming deal on SOG Cash Cards and snagged a spare for a buddy, he got it for a penny as a "pro forma.")

Just thought I'd share these. If anyone has questions, I'll try to answer as best I can. Bonus: who wants to take a stab at what this is?

[Big Frank]

GAU-5A Aircrew Self Defense Weapon , designed to fit in the storage compartments of ejection seats.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ENCaRlYOM

[Diamondback]

And Big Frank gets it in one. This one's had a mild Product Improvement Program run on it since I couldn't get the "right" rail, with the G3ML10.5 discontinued I swapped on Midwest's newer but almost identical 10.5" Lightweight Combat Rail. The laser is positioned to fire through a hole in the handstop/forward sling mount, and I kludged together a coupler from a pair of QD optic risers. (As issued the ASDW goes into its bag in two pieces with the mags loose, I figured if I could figure out a solution to "grab one piece and a single mag placard instead of four loose, amscray and assemble once at safe distance" somebody around M4C with industry connections would know who to elbow at Lackland and say "hey, check this out.")

Ideally I'd like a 1913-mounted hinge unit that would pull the folded barrel back toward the stock/brace/bare tube to unlock for unfolding, flip over to align, then pull back into seated position for locking the Cry Havoc QRB takedown adapter. (Remember Vera from Firefly?) That's a little beyond my engineering capability though.

[Big Frank]

I don't remember Vera but when I searched I found Jayne's Callahan full-bore auto-lock. He loved that gun so much he named it Vera. I used to watch Firefly when it was on and liked it. It's too bad it only lasted one season. IMDb users rated it at 8.9/10 stars, about as high as any TV show or movie ever made. It was the first show I remember seeing most of the actors on, who've since become huge stars. I remembered Ron Glass from Barney Miller, but didn't know anyone else.

Firefly premiered in the United States on the Fox network on September 20, 2002. By mid-December, it had averaged 4.7 million viewers per episode and was 98th in Nielsen ratings. It was canceled after 11 of the 14 produced episodes were aired. Despite its short run, it received strong sales when it was released on DVD and has large fan support campaigns. It won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2003 for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series. TV Guide ranked it No. 5 on their 2013 list of 60 "shows that were canceled too soon".

NASA Browncoat astronaut Steven Swanson took the Firefly and Serenity DVDs with him on Space Shuttle Atlantis's STS-117 mission in June 2007. The DVDs were added to the media collection on the International Space Station as entertainment for the station's crews. At the time the DVDs were transported to the International Space Station, the cost of putting a pound of payload in Earth orbit was $10,000. It was worth it.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303461/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)

[Big Frank]

If I wanted a compact, portable rifle I would get a FoldAR Concealed Carry Rifle. Or build one with a 14.5" pinned and welded barrel instead of a 16". You can also get it with a Proof Research carbon fiber barrel in 16" if you you want it to be lighter. That's a $599 option, and I'd rather just cut the length 1.5" and not worry about the weight. That would get the folded length down to 16.25" with a 16.125" barrel.

https://foldar.com/product/foldar-mobetta-concealed-carry-rifle/

[Sponsor]

[Diamondback]

Frank, the ASDW config had two points. One, it's carry legal on my CCW permit.

Two, if WA gov ever pulls its head out of its collective craplocker so I can legally get an M1 Carbine again, the ASDW and Carbine are planned as a pair of "then vs now" teaching guns. (Remember, every bomber over Germany had a case of Carbines aboard for aircrew SERE...) If you signed up for my History class, you'd probably either love it or hate it from Day One because I prefer hands-on over droning prissy pedantic pedagogy.