THIS PIECE COULD BE THE MOST VERSATILE GUN IN YOUR SAFE

BY WILL DABBS, M.D.

Gene Stoner’s revolutionary lightweight gas-operated rifle almost became a footnote in the history of firearms. Were it not for a determined band of marketers, a hard charging Air Force general, and a certain sordid little war in Southeast Asia, the AR-15 and the M-16 it spawned might never have grown legs. However, the M-16 and subsequent M-4 went on to become the longest-serving combat rifle in American history.

The M-16 was a product of the Space Age. By combining materials science had drawn from the aviation industry and a novel small-caliber, high-velocity cartridge along with some truly world-class human engineering, Stoner and a few others designed the most modular and adaptable firearm in human history. The end result is a gun that can be configured for most any conceivable mission.

Every responsible American citizen should own at least one AR-15. There are already around 20 million in circulation. Some of the latest iterations are actually classified as pistols.

Alex Bosco is the guy who developed the revolutionary Pistol Stabilizing Brace. The PSB was originally intended to allow disabled veterans returning from the kinetic festivities overseas to run a short-barreled firearm safely and well. BATF ultimately ruled that inclusion of a PSB with a short barrel did not change the handgun status of a host firearm no matter how you ran it, and a whole new genre of tactical guns was born.

The real forte of these novel short-barreled fire-breathing monsters rests in their portability. Properly configured, such a gun will fit covertly within a rucksack yet still allow its operator access to paradigm-shifting firepower in a crunch. There’s really no better tool in a true survival situation than one of these stubby little AR pistols.

THE BUILD

Our mission was to craft a compact AR-based survival firearm using common sources without spending too much money. The resulting gun needed to be portable, maneuverable, and concealable while remaining both accurate and effective downrange. We stipulated that the gun had to be within financial and mechanical reach of the typical American gun nerd handy with tools.