A tale of... 3 carbines (the trifecta?)

[rob_s]

I posted this elsewhere and thought I'd re-post here for discussion.

Long post ahead. Essentially I'm posting this to have a place to track my progress and thoughts as I work through this. The last project apparently was useful to a lot of people, so maybe this will be too.

Those of you that know me might recall my "tale of two carbines" post from quite a few years ago. If not, it's pretty much re-posted here.

These guns, and many of the concepts contained therein, have stood up surprisingly well since inception. A few things have changed that matter (I pretty much use X300s for white lights, exclusively, now) and several things have changed that don't (stocks, VFG length, etc.). However, since that time, my side-job as blogger and magazine writer meant that a LOT of new hotness came through my hands. What I found was that these two carbines stood up to all that new hotness without batting an eyelash. More recently, there have been improvements in a couple of tech areas (silencers, optics, and attachment methods) and changes in my own opinions (dedicated suppressed gun vs. on/off can) and interests (precision shooting, 3-gun) such that I felt an overhaul was in order.

However, a few of the concepts have stood up well for me. Primary among them is maintaining as much commonality between the guns as possible, especially where it comes to the shooter interface (grips, stocks, controls, trigger, sight picture, etc.). I was also rather happy with the color-coding since it was a zero-cost option and helped me think about the guns in my mind but also spot them in the safe more easily. Plus, black guns are boring. However, I'm not into dips, drips, and coatings because they are added cost and I don't think the difference matters enough to actually pay for it.

I decided to go with replacing the uppers and other parts rather than buy whole new carbines because I have two factory Colt SBR lowers that are big-pin, and one non-NFA big-pin lower (we're talking about FCG pins, not takedown/pivot pins, for those that don't understand). So it seemed prudent to keep the lowers, and engage in some fiddle-fart to get what I want. If I were starting from scratch I might be inclined to simply buy a couple of Daniel defense or KAC rifles in the lengths I want and call it good.

I'm still working out the accumulation of parts and the swap-over, but here's where I'm headed.

First, the use cases:

Green Gun
-"Home Defense"/SHTFantasy
-Hog Hunting (buggy)

Grey Gun
-Competition (short courses)
-New shooters (women, kids, with both irons and RDS)
-Training classes ("carbine")
-Travel (where legal)

Tan Gun
-Hog Hunting (stand/static)
-Competition (long courses & Precision)
-Training ("scoped" or "precision")
-Plinking (public range, shoot from bench, new shooters or non-shooters)

Then the configurations. Most of this is in the planning stages, and I'm working through the options. There are a LOT more choices today than there were when I did this the last time.

Green Gun
-10.3" DD Barrel (shortest I'm willing to go)
-9.0 BCM KMR (standardized across all three guns with adjustment for length)
-BCM BCG (good quality and consistency with other guns)
-BCM Gunfighter CH (mild gasbusting ability, better latch)
-Silencerco Omega (allows mounting on all three guns, plus any other rifle I might buy)
-SLR Rifleworks Adjustable Gas Block (to tune gas to run fulltime suppressed, not 100% set on this make)
-Brake mount for can (to protect blast baffle, gun will not be shot unsuppressed)
-BCM Fixed Keymod VFG (no need to remove)
-Noveske Keymod Covers (best covers I've found)
-CMC Trigger (standardized across guns, one of few that makes for big pins, pull weight by use case)
-Magpul BAD (on all guns, but for this one works well with Redimag)
-Redimag (spare mag for HD)
-Magpul CTR stock (QD socket plus ability to be locked for LOP)
-Magpul MOE SL Grip (more vertical orientation, but includes backstrap)
-Aimpoint PRO (I find the 30mm to be more forgiving)
-Aero Precision mount (no need to remove)
-BUIS (not settled on make yet leaning towards front and rear from BCM)

Grey Gun
complete upper
-11.5" BCM ELW-F (allows slightly longer handguard for more flexibility)
-10.0 BCM KMR (standardized across all three guns with adjustment for length)
-BCM BCG (comes with upper)
-BCM Gunfighter CH (better latch)

-Hider mount for can (gun will rarely be shot suppressed, but why not have option)
-BCM Fixed Keymod VFG (no need to remove)
-Noveske Keymod Covers (best covers I've found)
-CMC Trigger (standardized across guns, one of few that makes for big pins, pull weight by use case)
-Magpul BAD (on all guns)
-Magpul MOE stock (will add QD socket, no need to be locked for LOP)
-Magpul MOE SL Grip (more vertical orientation, but includes backstrap)
-Aimpoint H1 (lighter)
-Scalarworks mount (light, QD for use with irons only)
-BUIS (not settled on make yet leaning towards front and rear from BCM)

Tan Gun
complete upper
-16" BCM stainless (for just a bit more precision potential)
-13.0 BCM KMR (in this case, I want just a little barrel protruding for ports, etc.)
-BCM BCG (comes with upper)
-BCM Gunfighter CH (better latch)

-Brake mount for can (to protect blast baffle, gun will not be shot unsuppressed)
-BCM QD Keymod VFG (to be removed to avoid hanging up on dump barrel, when encountered)
-Noveske Keymod Covers (best covers I've found)
-CMC Trigger (standardized across guns, one of few that makes for big pins, pull weight by use case)
-Magpul BAD (on all guns)
-BCM A5 receiver extension (to further reduce recoil for competition)
-Magpul STR stock (will close on A5, provides nicer cheek weld)
-Magpul MOE K2+ Grip (seems better for "precision" but matches the grip angle of the SL)
-1-6 Optic (not settled on this yet, leaning Leupold)
-Aero Precision mount (no need to remove)
-BUIS (not settled on make yet, but will be folding offset)