It's A Rifle, Not A Barbie Doll

Looking to deck out your AR15 but don’t want to go overboard? In this episode, we dive into the world of AR15 accessories and separate the game-changers from the fluff. With so many options out there, it’s easy to fall into the trap of buying things that look cool but don’t add much to the performance of your rifle. We’ll guide you through the essentials—the must-haves that can make your AR15 perform at its best. On the flip side, we’ll also explore some of the accessories that, while popular, may not offer much in the way of real-world practicality.

We’ll break down the pros and cons of various types of scopes and sights. Whether you’re hunting, target shooting, or planning for self-defense, the right optic can be the difference between hitting your target and missing it. But is it worth shelling out the big bucks for a high-end scope? We’ll give you the facts so you can make an informed decision.

Handguards, grips, and stocks are another area where shooters often go overboard. While customization is part of the fun of owning an AR15, not every option on the market will suit your needs. We’ll take a look at what types of grips offer the best balance of comfort and functionality and which ones may just be adding unnecessary weight. The same goes for stocks—what works great for one person might not be the best for you, depending on your shooting style and body type.

We also can’t forget about the rise of aftermarket triggers. A good trigger can make a world of difference in your shooting experience, but is it always necessary to replace the stock one? We’ll break down what to look for in a trigger and whether upgrading it is worth the investment.

Whether you’re a first-time AR15 owner or a seasoned shooter, this episode offers a detailed look at how to avoid turning your rifle into a Barbie doll, cluttered with accessories you don’t need. Tune in to get a clearer picture of what accessories will actually enhance your shooting experience and which ones might be better left on the store shelf.


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Transcript

UPS and FEDEX, Santa Claus for adults has just pulled into your driveway. You’re excited, because you’ve got $300 dollars worth of gun parts coming in to make your AR-15 “better.” You have so much ordered from so many different places you’re not quite sure what is being delivered today. But you do know that whatever it is, it will be a hit with the boys at the range. But let’s get something straight right from the start; it’s a rifle, not a Barbie doll. Today’s episode is going to cover some of the more asinine things people put on their ARs. I’ll tell you what they are, and why you don’t need them. So let’s get to it.

[INTRO]

Hey you scallywag, welcome to our A Pirate Talks Guns podcast, gun talk for the bold and unapologetic. I'm your host John Cello, the owner and lead instructor at The Tactical Pirate, a professional firearms training firm located in Anderson, South Carolina. I've been teaching people just like you to use firearms for four decades. I'm a former civilian law enforcement officer, and retired from the Army Military Police corps. We talk about all things guns here, from defense, hunting, and competition. Regardless of your skill level, you'll find something here for you. I'm glad you dropped by. Now sit back, relax, grab your favorite beverage if you're able, and enjoy the show.

Welcome to our A Pirate Talks Guns podcast. I’m John Cello, owner and lead instructor of The Tactical Pirate, and I appreciate you dropping in. Before we begin, let me tell you what spurred the subject of this episode. A couple weeks ago, I shot in and SOed a two gun match. Pistol and carbine. The range I call home has this match every time there is a fifth Saturday in the month, and I’m always there.

As usual, we had a great turnout, with seventy plus shooters in attendance. Needless to say, I got to see a lot of ARs, and how they’re set up. Just a quick glance, and I can tell the experienced shooters, the been-there-done-thats, and the new guys just by what they have or don’t have on their guns. So I got to see a fresh crop of them that Saturday. And, as always, with a few hilarity ensued. There were the normal bevy of useless accessories, gun malfunctions due to user-inflicted “trigger jobs”, and a plethora of other ills.

Now I get it. As Americans, we love to put our personal touch on our possessions, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. We like personalizing the looks, and improving the performance of our stuff. Car guys spend thousands eking that last couple of horsepower out of their rides and having them stand out from the crowd with custom paint themes, spoilers, and the like. Some take it too far, and their “improvements” are actually detrimental to performance. If you live in the South, you’ve probably been exposed to pickup trucks that have had the “Carolina Squat” applied to them. This is where some redneck lowers the rear end of their truck so that the front end is pointing skyward. There can be no possible performance increase from this, so it’s purely cosmetic. They actually lose braking effect and visibility when they apply the squat. The only explanation I can think of for someone doing this to a perfectly good pickup is that they we’re tired of losing the loudest truck at the Sonic drive-in contest so they decided to go in a different direction.

Carbine owners can be just as bad. The AR platform is so ubiquitous that a lot of owners just can’t live with having a rifle that looks exactly like fourteen billion other ones. Cosmetic changes being the least expensive are usually the first things applied to the gun. Some innocuous stuff, like flat dark earth rail covers and pistol grip. Maybe a rattle can paint job. This is akin to the future meth addict starting off by sniffing glue. A cheap entry to a more insidious habit that eventually drains your bank account. Next comes the add-on parts. Not too major here. After all, you’re not dicking around with the gun’s internals…yet. Just simple stuff. A rail mounted sling swivel. Maybe a flashlight mount. Eventually while combing through the internet, the committed owner is quickly taken in by parts that have the magic word “tactical” somewhere in their name. These are ordered and applied apace.

Not satisfied with just changing the looks of the gun with accessories, some of which actually cause problems, the sickness moves to its terminal stage. It eventually occurs to the owner that while his or her rifle may look cool, It’s still not as accurate as it could be. This is beside the fact that the rifle, box stock and in a rest could produce one hole groups at fifty yards all day. So the trigger group replacement takes place, a muzzle brake or suppressor is installed, and the quest for the perfect optic ensues. Eventually the gun is unrecognizable, weighs twelve pounds, and is about as reliable as a cheesecloth condom.

Let me help you not do this to your rifle or yourself. We’ll cover some of the more useless AR accessories, starting with the least egregious to the most heinous. You may disagree with me on the efficacy of some of these. And that’s OK, it’s your right. I just ask that you take a dispassionate look at your gear, and then see if I’m right.

Parts With Inflammatory Slogans. $10 to $50

Uppers, lowers, charging handles, ejection port covers, takedown pins, muzzle devices, and really just about any part you can stick under a laser can be engraved. My AR, purchased through a group buy during a deployment, has the name of the task force I was under and the outline of the state of Texas  on the lower receiver. In Afghanistan, my unit was under the 136th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade out of Texas, hence the engraving. And while this can certainly be a tasteful, non-injurious addition to your rifle, you need to make good choices.

If you ever have to use your rifle in a defensive situation, it may potentially be shown to ma just at a criminal trial. In today’s litigious society, it’s pretty much a guarantee that it will be shot to a jury in a civil lawsuit. Yes, the family of the dirtbag you assisted in taking the room temperature challenge, though they hadn’t seen or spoke with him in twenty years, will sue you for unaliving their dear sweet boy who was just getting his life back together and going to church. So when the prosecuting attorney shows the jury your rifle, or pictures of it, and they see the dust cover with “Dead Men Tell No Tales” engraved on it, it may have a detrimental impact on their view of you.

Multitools Stored In Grips. $30 to $97

Con: Additional weight.

When I first went into the military, (well, I say the military, but it was really the Air Force) back in the seventies, storing things in the pistol grip of our M16s was already a thing. Nothing fancy, you just crammed whatever you wanted handy in the cavity and put a piece of duct tape over the bottom. A simple, elegant solution to a non-existent problem. These days you can get pistol grips that are designed to store things in them. Bottle of oil? Check. (This actually makes some sense.) Batteries? Check. I can go along with this one. Multitool? OK, just stop.This is something that you should be carrying on your belt. Yet there are a plethora of multitools specifically designed to fit in the pistol grip. The most expensive of which at $97 bucks was apparently annealed in a vat of beluga caviar and the tears of peasant children.

And I want to take this opportunity to thank my third grade English teacher for teaching me the meaning of plethora. It means a lot.

Vertical Foregrips And The Grippod $20 to $235

I see a lot of “gangster” or “Tommy Gun” vertical foregrips on rifles. Not the worst thing you can put on your gun, but maybe not the best. I tried one for a little while, like two months, but ended up taking it off. The rifle didn’t feel as solid when mounted, and it caused me to way over-swing when traversing targets laterally. Not telling you not to get one, just that it may not be what you think it will.

One that I will advise you against is the “GripPod” foregrip. This monstrosity has a pair of legs that are retracted into the grip and can be deployed with the push of a button to form a bipod. The legs aren’t individually adjustable, so you’ll need to be shooting from a relatively level surface. It’s also a very loose and wobbly bipod, so you’ll have to really concentrate to hold your sights aligned.

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The Mule Stock $180

The Mule Stock replaced the standard buttstock with a giant piece of polymer that holds a handgun. Seriously. You can put a small frame semiautomatic pistol in the buttstock. They have several “holster” inserts for it to accommodate a pretty good variety of pistols. I'm going to call it How Can You Be and What God Would Allow You. Carrying a pistol in the buttstock of your rifle? Valuable I suppose for a time when the conventional social order could go eat a dick, but wildly impractical any other time. Unless you have an extra appendage available, exactly how do you retrieve the pistol from this thing and get it into action? Also, lose your rifle or have it taken away and you lose both guns. 

Grip Armor $150

Blue Rock ARmour is the manufacturer of this product, and I really can’t adequately describe this abortion. You’ll just have to plug it into a search engine to see it in all its splendor. It consists of two big chunks of plastic that replace the buttstock and forend of a carbine with a curvy, space age looking vibe. The Grip Armour has a two-part design consisting of a pistol grip (Trigger Armour) and foregrip (Well Armour) portions that wrap around the magazine well, without any thought to making mag insertion easier. This product is an attempt to combine a bunch of features into one accessory. The Grip Armour provides an ergonomic pistol grip, enlarged trigger guard, knuckle guards, finger rest, magazine guide, magwell grip and an angled foregrip. Why some people are determined to make guns look like something out of Starship Troopers is beyond me. This disturbing trend started way back in the sixties with the Steyr AUG. Current guns from the manufacturers that embrace the “gun that doesn’t look like a gun” approach are H&K with their SL8 and FN with their 2000 and P90. Grip Armor adds just a touch of fascism in their offering in that it forces you to place your hands on the stock where they want you to. At this point, if a clown invited me into the woods I'd just go. 

Bayonets $35 to $300

Imagine giving a monkey a sword. Is he even going to figure out how it’s used? And once he does, is he going to be a benevolent king of all the monkeys? Now, give a bayonet to someone who has never been in the military, or been in the military recently as, except for the Marines, they don’t train with bayonets any more. Are they going to know how to use it? And who exactly would they use it on?  Why in God’s name would any civilian need a bayonet? Just me, but if I have a bayonet on my gun, this means I’m pointing a gun at whoever I plan on using the bayonet on. So, I don’t know, just pull the trigger? Now, a bayonet on your rifle is handy if you’re searching a giant pile of straw that’s on top of a camel. And removed from the gun they’re damn handy for opening MRE bags. See, that was the total actual combat use I had for a bayonet in the course of three deployments.

If you are going to get one, and ever plan on using it for more than display or cleaning your fingernails, don’t go cheap. Go ahead and get the one the Marine Corps issues from the manufacturer. But my advice is to skip this entirely.

Added Weight

Remember this phrase; ounces make pounds, and pounds make misery. A bone stock, empty AR weighs around seven pounds. Now, I know that doesn’t sound like much, but get a seven pound weight and carry it around for, say, twelve hours. See, not many of us carry or have carried our carbines for any extended length of time, so the dismissal of the extra weight accessories adds is common. Now, let me relate a little tale. 

Picture it, 2008. The government decided that Heat Death, Iraq, would be the perfect place to build a FOB. I’m there with an M4, with a CCO optic, IR and visible laser, flashlight, and a freaking M203 grenade launcher attached under the barrel. Imagine if you will doing a dismounted patrol lugging this eleven pound monstrosity around for eight hours. Oh, and you’re also wearing eighty five pounds of body armor and gear. These days, I don’t have to carry a carbine for extended periods of time, but I still want it to be as light as possible. Just me.

The message I’m hoping to convey here is to choose your accessories wisely. In the military we had the understanding that mission drives the gear. For instance, you would set your rifle up differently for doing overwatch as opposed to building clearing. Know up front there is no such thing as a universal configuration. The best you’ll get with a setup like that is a rifle that performs several functions with great mediocrity. 

Determine what, exactly, the primary purpose of your rifle will be. Long distance shooting, hunting, defense, game gun? That’s its mission. Select the gear that will most enhance the base rifle’s performance in accomplishing that mission. My personal rule is that if it doesn’t increase the accuracy potential or shot to shot controllability of the rifle, it doesn’t go on the gun.

Using mine as an example, its primary purpose is home defense. To that end, it has a non-magnified red dot, a set of backup iron sights, and a rail mounted flashlight. And that’s it. Like I said, I tried a vertical foregrip and didn’t like it. I also tried a MagPul angled foregrip and didn’t like it, though from what I’m seeing on other people’s rifles they’re pretty popular. I won’t touch the internals since it’s a defense gun. Is the trigger great? No, it’s not a (Guys-Lee) Geissele, but it’s not horrible either. Just the stock trigger that comes on a Sig M400. Does everything I need it to do, which is make the gun go bang when I pull it. Replacing it with a lighter, smoother trigger opens up a line of attack for the plaintiff’s attorney in a civil suit.

Instead of spending money on stuff, I put that cash into ammo and learned to shoot the gun as it is. Unless you’ve been shooting the AR platform for years, this is probably the best way for you to spend money on your gun. Ammo and range time learning to shoot it. And, not because I’m an instructor, but spend at least one session with an instructor. You may be surprised what you might learn. And if you’re new to the shooting world, definitely find an instructor to teach you. It’s easier, and cheaper, to learn how to do something the right way as opposed to trying to unlearn bad habits.

Well, that’s it for this episode. We’re winding down the instructional year with our last South Carolina concealed weapon permit class Saturday, September 21st, and our last Ladies Only Handgun Clinic October 26th. 

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Disclaimer: "This podcast is for the purpose of education only and is not a replacement for therapy. We suggest you seek out the help of a trained professional for help with your specific situation."

Until next time, shoot safe.