From the outside, most modern sporting rifles (AR-15/AK-47) look like a solid critter, but inside the firearms are a ton of little moving parts. More so on the AR-15 as you can see from this diagram from Midway USA:
The AR-15 is a whole bundle of little parts and mischievous springs, as anyone who has worked on their AR-15 knows all too well.
All rifles are also full of moving parts that are under an incredible amount of force as they launch projectiles by means of small explosions. Stuff wears out. What good is that awesome set-up if something breaks and you don’t have a replacement? You will look awfully dumb with a $3000 rifle that won’t shoot because a $5 part broke and you can’t replace it.
Something else to consider. One of the features of the Biden gun control platform that I paid particular attention to in my post The Future Of Gun Ownership (Or Lack Thereof) was the proposal to ban not just the online sale of firearms and ammo but also gun parts…..
Biden will enact legislation to prohibit all online sales of firearms, ammunition, kits, and gun parts.
Kits and gun parts.
As I said in my post, that could mean just about anything. Slings? Scope rings? Who knows? What I do know is that a firearm with missing or broken parts is useless.
Anyway, it is best to start to address that ahead of time. To that end, American Partisan ran two pieces on the two main platforms talking about springs:
Both are great, short reference pieces you should read, depending on which platform you have or both if you have more than one.
This is something I am focusing on. I have a couple of kits from Rock River coming, their “Oh Shoot” kits, one for the AR-15 and one for the AR-10 platforms. I figured since I have a lot of their stuff, it makes sense to have their kits which contain:
ALL OF THE PARTS AND PIECES FOR YOUR LAR-15 THAT YOU ARE MOST LIKELY TO WEAR OUT OR LOSE AT THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME.
It also might make some sense to have a spare bolt carrier group, even though they are hard to come by and expensive. Really any of the parts that might A) wear out or B) get lost easily should be in your supplies.
There may come a time when you can’t get spare parts you need or maybe you don’t want to be buying gun parts using your credit card online where you know it will be tracked. My recommendation as always is to get what you need now instead of waiting until panic buying starts up.
Whether you live or die might very well come down to taking care of the little stuff as well as the big stuff….
Remember: nobody gets out alive. And the ride never ends.
Your lips to God's ear, sir. When I saw the title, my initial thought wasn't of springs breaking (which of course they can and ultimately will), but of their flying across the room when you're doing a thorough cleaning and effectively disappearing from the universe, because they hide so well.
And that exploded view: I have a brother who's a retired corrections officer, having spent most of his career at the federal supermax at Florence, CO. Since he's a smart guy, he didn't have to spend too many years fighting with inmates before he got into the armorer's shop, eventually becoming the head-cheese gunsmith and locksmith. He likes to tell about a training he took at Colt, which they started off by handing every trainee a box containing every part of an AR-15 in the same state of (dis)assembly depicted in your diagram. "Figure it out." When one of those little springs escaped from another guy and ended up on the floor by you, well, your first end-of-the-day beer was bought.
Yes, a little bag of springs and pins is a good thing to have.
We haven't even done that much but we did have to remove the castle nut and the plate to replace it with a quick detach plate so I could hook a sling to it and we still had the same spring take off at least twice on us.
Perhaps having rifles with less parts etc. Is a better backup. Ruger mini and Ruger PC9 come to mind.
Just saying.
I had a mini 14, ironically enough bought during the Clinton "assault weapons" ban. Mags are super expensive and after market mags don't work, at least the old ones weren't all that accurate and they were clumsy and there simply isn't even close to the same level of accessories. It was definitely a solid gun but they are also super expensive for what you get, my dealer cost on a plain mini 14 is over $800 and MSRP is over a grand.
Yah I get it but I'm more inclined to gave extra rifles than spare parts. That being said if I had to run out of the house tonight I would probably grab the Remington 700. I'm more of a hammer guy than a watch repairman.