Pride – Just Not Helpful.

By: Jimmy Krause

The #1 thing that should be left out of any fighting rifle reference is pride or pride driven statements like “I love this rifle”, “it suits my needs” and “is the best rifle I’ve owned”

Most of the people that are determined to engage in uneducated arguments are the collectors; the guys that just want to have a dozen rifles to post to impress the people in the groups that they belong to. They regularly post them arranged and re arranged. They have not one care about form and function because they’re just going for what looks tacticool and more worried about “fit and finish”.

Let’s face it…. a PSA kit looks just like a similarly set up Noveske from 10 feet away, or a low resolution phone picture. And pride will have them defend their choices as you call them out in front of their minions. They’ll talk about countless rounds, and zero failures. A recent argument had a guy trying to tell a room full of veterans that he expends I’m excess of 10k rounds a week, and his Bushmaster’s round count was over 100k without replacing a barrel or bolt, even BCG or springs….

After that the derp hit the fan, as more chimed in to back him up with more grandiose tales of $450 builds that could take on the full abuse of a Marine rifle company, fully illustrated with memes and pictures of Stoner’s rifle sporting bump fire stocks.

Guy’s like Nutn’fancy perpetuate this mentality. If he spent as much time and effort truly researching and doing assessment of the gear he’s promoting as he does on his camera angles while he fires rounds running threw the plains, he surely wouldn’t choose a mini 14 as one of his #1 rated defensive tools. But pride forbids him from retracting anything, and onward goes the spread of misinformation.

We collect rifles as well. I’m sure all of you have at least 2 AR’s not including any other rifles, shotguns or handguns you own. If there’s a difference between us and the above mentioned collector’s, it’s that rifles wear out faster if you only train with one, and not one rifle is perfect for every situation. More importantly our pride isn’t directed towards misplaced brand loyalty. Instead it lies in the money, time and training we’ve invested in ourselves to become better at what we consider important, mainly the lives of our friends, family, and selves, and what we consider the minimum standards allowable when the above mentioned is on the line.