Remington M887 Nitro Mag

It's time for my first review of a shotgun. As you may know from my last post, Remington is no longer producing this product, and for me, it's quite a shame. But it can still be found in some stores and on the used gun market. This is the 887 Nitro Magnum pump-action shotgun.

Remington is known for creating possibly the most iconic and mass produced shotgun in the world, the 870, so when they added another pump shotgun to their lineup, reviews were mixed. When originally introduced, people thought the 887 was produced to eventually replace the 870...which was never was the true purpose. The 887 is almost entirely different than the 870. It was geared more towards waterfowl and to be that gun that can withstand the tough conditions of the average hunter. One of the gun's most interesting feature was the "ArmorLokt" coating on the barrel and receiver which protected all metal exterior surfaces from rust. It also has several other improvements that I like. It has fiber optic sights, an oversized pump release that can be activated with numb fingers, a SuperCell recoil pad, and the ability to shoot up to 3.5 inch shells. The 887 is also lighter than your standard 870, which makes for easy target acquisition.

The 887 isn't without it's flaws. Since the gun has a rotating 3-lug lockup, it can occasionally get stuck and require quite a bit of force to open - however this is a relatively rare occurrence. I've also found that field stripping this weapon is extremely easy. Reassembling it is a different story. I feel like if I had two additional hands, maybe I could put the action and pump back together in under 5 minutes, but since I don't have two additional hands, reassembly takes a while. But overall, I've really enjoyed my time with this gun. I've shot many other shotguns, but this one is still my favorite. Despite being criticized and discontinued, I'll continue to sing it's praises for as long as I own it.

Bushmaster Carbon 15

Freedom Group is really starting to tick me off. It seems like every time I want to review one of their weapons, the company immediately decides to discontinue it. It happened with the Remington 887 Nitro Mag shotgun, the economical Remington 770 rifle, the R51 pistol (that I was SO excited for but they ended up ruining it), and now they may have discontinued this: the Bushmaster Carbon 15. I need to write about this thing before it becomes impossible to find.

Before I finish my rant, let me say this: THESE ARE GOOD FIREARMS (except the R51). Unlike the other guns mentioned, I haven't been able to confirm that the Carbon 15 has been discontinued. The Bushmaster website is under construction and the catalog is showing a very small production line. So who knows at this point. I'll update this when I know for sure.

**Update: I have been officially informed by Bushmaster that the Carbon 15 is no

longer in production. It can still be occasionally found in stores.**

The Bushmaster Carbon 15 is a platform that very few manufacturers dare to even attempt. The upper and lower are completely made of, you guessed it, carbon fiber (amongst other materials). The only other AR manufacturer that comes to mind that has had success with a carbon fiber platform is Windham Weaponry. According to several sources, carbon fiber builds hold up to tolerances above that of aluminum with the added benefit of being very light. This AR weighs in at only 6 lbs. That's super light compared to most ARs. Of course once you add modifications like a quad rail, grip, good scope, etc, you'll get back up to average AR weight in no time. The Carbon 15 is rated for 5.56 rounds and the barrel is a 1/9 twist rate which stabilizes bullets as heavy as 69 to 70 grains. This gun's MSRP is about $900 but you can pick one up for $700 or less at most retailers. Just make sure that you get the second generation Carbon 15. The first generation had mixed reliability reviews and it also lacked the dust cover and forward assist.

So far, the gun seems very versatile and I've not had any issues so far after several hundred rounds. The only thing that I had to replace was the "red-dot" sight that it came with. See the one in the picture? That one. Don't even bother installing it. Give it to charity or trash it and install something (anything) else. It's blurry, ugly, unnecessarily large, has a battery cover that WILL break immediately, and makes the gun top-heavy. I've since added an inexpensive TruGlow 5 MOA red/green dot open sight and it's a 100000% improvement. I've also added an aluminum quad rail to the front with a MAGPUL forward grip. Even after the additions, the light weight of the rifle makes shouldering and maneuvering very easy. You may need to install some flip up iron sights eventually, as this is an ORC (Optics Ready Carbine). I'm excited to get out and do some more shooting. Powdering clay targets on a dirt hill is extremely fun with this guy.

If you are wanting a lightweight, durable, reliable, optics-ready AR-15, take a look at the Bushmaster Carbon 15. Hopefully you will still be able to find this rifle for many years to come.

Finding the Middle Ground?

I occasionally find myself going over to the dark-side of social media - I have, on more than one occasion, caught myself looking at the different pages of anti-gun groups like the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Brady Campaign. I feel that if we want to make a compelling argument for the rights of gun owners, we must understand what the other side's viewpoints are. Anyone can sit there and say "YOU'RE WRONG and I'M RIGHT," but nothing ever gets resolved with this method. I see ignorance on both sides of the argument. Gun control activists see gun owners as a bunch of irresponsible, law-breaking thugs and rednecks who want nothing more than to use their guns to provoke violence at every turn. Gun rights activists see the other side as uneducated, naive, constitution-hating liberals who only want to take away their guaranteed right to self defense. The interesting part of this is, we all want the same thing! We all want to see the end of unnecessary violence.

There's always a shred of truth behind all stereotypes. Of course, gun control activists don't hate the Constitution, nor are all gun owners irresponsible. But guns are a hot topic of late. There could be a gruesome chainsaw murder in a quite town in Kansas, but we'll never hear about that from mainstream news sources. However, if a gun accidentally goes off and strikes a person in the toe, the media marks that up as another mass shooting and the entire anti-gun population erupts into one giant hate-filled rage mass. When the hate-filled rage mass descends on social media channels, the gun owners of the U.S. get defensive (pardon the pun). Pro-gun people see that the person who accidentally fired a round was acting irresponsibly and press for more gun education. The other side refuses to see this as a learning opportunity and want to remove the gun in question from everyone due to one person's action. They want confiscation. 

This reminds me of a scene from the movie classic, Full Metal Jacket. The movie follows a group of Cadets who are at boot camp and training for deployment to Vietnam. During this time, one of the Cadets breaks a camp rule by bringing food into the barracks. From then on, if that Cadet did anything worthy of punishment, the entire squad would have to share in his punishment. After breaking several rules, the squad had enough of being punished for his mistakes and turned against this particular Cadet and initiated him by hitting him repeatedly with bars of soap in pillow cases while he slept. Gun ownership is exactly the same! Law-abiding gun owners all cringe when we see someone acting irresponsibly with guns. When we hear of a young child who accidentally shoots his/her sibling with their parents' gun that wasn't stored properly, we want to bludgeon said parent with a pillowcase filled with bars of soap...numerous times. We don't believe it's fair to be held accountable for someone else's actions...and it's really not. 

The anti-gunners see a person being irresponsible with a firearm and immediately think that every gun owner is as irresponsible as the perpetrator.  

The part I can't wrap my head around is that the anti-gun community seem to completely ignore the person who uses a gun for harmful purposes. Every time something bad happens and a gun is involved, the Brady Campaign kicks things off with the headline: "Another victim of gun violence" and then continue to talk about how "the gun" murdered two people in an alleyway in South Chicago. They completely miss the most important part of the story - the person. 

How could we have stopped this person from committing a crime? 
**This is where our opinions differ.

Anti-Gun Response: Remove the deadly tool that the bad guy used in hopes that he cannot/will not commit crime.

• This answer to me is like saying, "Let's revoke Vin Diesel's driver's license so that he can no longer drive so fast and furiously."

Pro-Gun Response: Use an equally deadly tool to defend yourself and others from the bad guy.

• Make criminals think twice about pulling a knife on you and have the ability to take control of the situation at hand.

For me, the choice is easy. I feel that a majority of people that are anti-gun don't know much about the tool that they want to ban. It's often very apparent. I'd love to have a conversation with a person that has experience with guns AND is still against civilian ownership of firearms. Those people are in short supply. I wonder why?

Which side do you stand with?