Beretta ARX 160 in .22 LR

The Beretta ARX 160 in .22 LR is the company's fun version of their current military carbine that was designed in 2008.  The military versions come chambered in 5.56x45mm NATO, 5.45x39mm Soviet, 6.8mm Remington SPC and 7.62x39mm Soviet.  Along with the Italian Army it is also being fielded by Albania, Egypt, Kazakhstan, the Mexican Federal Police and Turkmenistan.  The U.S. was in the process of evaluating it as a replacement for the M4 before the replacement process of cancelled.

The Beretta ARX 160 in .22 LR is the December Featured Gun of the Month at Bill's Gun Shop and Range and I was fortunate enough to be allowed to take a brand-new-in-the-box specimen for a test drive that they were then going to use as a rental gun at their Robbinsdale range.

It was almost like Christmas morning getting to unwrap a factory fresh firearm and yes...it had that "new gun" smell.  (Please note that in the box the front and rear sights are flipped down while they are shown flipped up in other photos of the carbine.)  I have spent a lot of time recently perusing .22 LR military replica carbines and have found the quality of some to be excellent while others to be almost embarrassingly shoddy.  The Beretta ARX 160 rimfire falls into the "excellent" category and is almost indistinguishable from its combat born big brother.  One fact that is distinguishable from its big brother is that it is actually manufactured by Umarex in Germany for Beretta.

The ARX .22LR comes with a 20 round magazine and includes just about all of the features of it's military version including:

• Ambidextrous safeties and magazine catches
• The ability to change the charging handle to either side and determine from which side spent casings will eject
• Four sides of Picatinny rails

• A foldable telescopic stock

• An excellent rubber butt pad

• An adjustable rear dial aperture sight

• An adjustable post up front

The front end of this carbine is all military business...

including the flash hider.

Alright, enough of the photos let get down to how she shoots and handles and it handles great!  Light, less clunky than it may look, comfortable when brought to the shoulder, the action is smooth and the 200 rounds I fired through it went without a hitch.  No failures to feed, no failures to fire and no failures to extract.

The only .22 rimfire ammo I had was some standard Winchester white box 36 grain plated hollow point.

I have to admit that I am not an accomplished shooter with a military front post sight.  I really need a gold bead or an XS dot atop that post.  If I bought this carbine (and that vision has replaced the "sugar plums dancing" in my head) I would immediately take some yellow florescent sight paint and put a nice strip at the top of the post.

Here's a nice warm up target with 10 rounds at 21 feet:

And forty round at 40 feet:

And lastly 20 rounds at 75 feet:

Obviously the group opened up at 75 feet but I think the Beretta is capable of better accuracy than I can wring out of it at this distance.  

December is the perfect month for Bill's to offer this carbine as their Gun of the Month as plenty of kids (both young and old) will have a military replica .22 on their Christmas list.  The Beretta ARX 160 is a great choice and the holiday gives you the perfect excuse to buy one and act like it is a gift for your son or daughter.  Just be sure to bring them to the range and let them shoot it every once in a while.

Zombie Killers--S&W 629 V-Comp and Mossberg 464 SPX

Everyone knows that the Fall season brings out the Zombies, especially during the all important November Nielsen Sweeps Weeks.  That being said it's time to review some tools that will help keep the walking dead off your door step.

Specifically we will be reviewing the Smith & Wesson Performance Center 629 V-Comp in .44 Magnum and the Mossberg  464 SPX Lever Action 30-30.  So settle in because these are two fun firearms.

S&W PC 629 V-Comp .44 Magnum

Let's start with the 629's specifications:

• 6 round capacity
• 4 inch barrel with a removable compensator
• Overall length of 10 inches
• Adjustable dovetailed orange front sight
• Adjustable black rear sight
•  All stainless steel construction
• Chrome finish on the hammer and trigger which also has a trigger stop
• Performance Center tuned action

Upon first firing the revolver I felt that the Hogue grips that accompanied the 629 were too thin.  I wasn't getting a good grip on the revolver and the thin grips focused the recoil into the web of my hand.  I chucked them and ordered a set of Super Rosewood grips from Altamont.

While these grips were absolutely beautiful they also allowed my hand to slip down the the back strap during firing so I turned to Ahrens for a set of their Cocobolo tactical grips.

The Ahrens grips are still pretty good lookin'!  They are also wider so they disperse the recoil energy over a wider area.  The finger grooves also fit well and are deeper which helps hold your fingers in place.

Now one of the first things you'll notice about this handgun is the compensator at the muzzle of the 4 inch barrel.  

The compensator is removable...but why would you?  It's so damn cool.  At the rear of the top strap is Smith & Wesson's fully adjustable all black rear sight.  Up front is a drift adjustable blaze orange ramped front sight that is easy for my 58 year old eyes to see.  The hammer is in the classic "teardrop" shape and both the hammer and trigger are chromed with a trigger stop installed to prevent over travel.  The action has been tuned by the PC shop.  The Double Action pull is over 12 pounds which is the limit that my digital scale can measure.  It is extremely smooth and doesn't feel like many of the 12 + pound triggers I have handled in the past.  The single action has little take-up and a smooth 4.11 pound trigger pull.

OK, so it looks real cool...but how does it shoot.  

I started off with a little warm-up with some Black Hills .44 Special Cowboy loads at 15 feet and the light cowboy loads in the big 629 are very pleasant to shoot.

I then moved back to see what she could do at 21 feet.

Quite frankly, I was a little disappointed with the spread of this group and began to wonder if I had made mistake in picking up this revolver.

My fears were put to rest when I set up another target at 21 feet and fed the 629 some PMC 240 .44 Magnum ammo.

That's more like it!  But I do have to admit that after firing the first two rounds I retreated to my range bag to grab a shooting glove.

Bring on the Zombies

Nothing could be scarier than a gaggle of Zombified Nazis.  I let them get to 31 feet before I opened fire.

Fortunately the 629 V-Comp delivers some magic magnum medicine to put the Zombies out of there misery.

Colonel Klink suffered some major facial cavities from the .44 Magnum Halloween candy.

Sgt. Schultz lost both his right ear and eye.

The 629 zero'd in on Major Hochstetter of the Gestapo.  2 shots were fired at each target followed by another 2 rounds.  All four grouped together on the good Major.

General Burkhalter also received a pretty good group of 240 grain Zombie repellent.  

Mossberg 464 SPX in caliber in 30-30 Winchester

For longer range Zombie busting I employed the lever action Mossberg 464 which hold six rounds of popular and versatile 30-30 Winchester.  

Now, I have to own up to the fact that I have made fun of this carbine on more than one episode of "The Gun Nation" podcast but when I got to handle one I was sold, especially with the value price point of $459.00.

Probably the first thing you'll notice is the 6 position adjustable tactical stock.  

The fully extended overall length of the carbine is 34 inches but the tactical stock allows you to adjust the length of pull from 10.75 inches to 14.63 inches.  As bizarre as this stock looks I like the ability to make the overall length shorter as I prefer the stock in the third position.  

I find it to be more comfortable and the shorter length of pull allows me more leverage when cranking the lever down and back up.

The forearm of carbine is a synthetic material containing three picatinny rails for hanging flashlights, lasers, railroad lanterns, paint cans or whatever else feeds into your taticool fantasy.  The rails are removable if you want a more traditional feel to your carbine but the 464 also comes with ladder rail covers which gives you a wider surface to grip.  

While I don't care for the way they look, I do like the larger gripping surface. 

The sights are really good.  

The front sight is a red fiber optic pipe that is very easy to pick up on indoor ranges with spotty interior lighting.  Outdoors, if there is any sunlight at all, the sight glows like the red dot in a good optical sight.  The rear sight contains a u-shaped green optic pipe and provides good contrast with the front sight.

The sights are easy to pick-up, fast to get on target, and provide the necessary levels of accuracy.

I was surprised at how smooth the various mechanical functions are on this piece.  Inserting rounds in through the loading gate is much easier than the three lever action rifles I have owned in the past which consisted of one Rossi Puma and two Winchesters.  The lever action is smooth with nary a hitch in the movement and the trigger pull had no take-up and a crisp release.  

But how does she shoot?  Well as luck would have it a group Zombified Lady Gaga Concert goers stumbled onto the 25 yards line of the range.

The Skipper took four 30-30 pills to the head although the one between the eyes probably ended his rampage.

Gilligan took three rounds into his vacuous melon above his left eye, right up his nasal cavity, and right through his front tooth.

Mary-Ann's face is frozen in awe as she was terminated with two shots to the forehead and right below her left eye.

And Ginger did not fare much better taking one round to the right cheek, one below her right eye, one just below her nose and one right in her zombie-screaming mouth.

So there you have it.  Two potent Zombie thumpers from opposite ends of the price spectrum.  The Mossberg 464 SPX can be found South of the $500 mark while the S&W PC 629 V-Comp will be a little North of the $1,000 line.  They are both loads of fun to shoot!

Part 4 of 4 in the “Carbines for

Home Defense” series


When I began this review four weeks ago I stated:

“We are going to look at four different carbines; one that is somewhat expensive but is probably what most people think of when they envision a carbine [and that was the M4 version of the AR platform by Bushmaster], one that is a little more reasonably priced and may surprise you as to its actual origin [the VZ 58 by CZ], one that harkens back to WWII [the Auto Ordnance updated version of the .30 Caliber M1 Carbine], and one that is very reasonably priced but lacks the speed and capacity of a military carbine. However what this last carbine trades off in terms of speed and capacity it makes up for in the accuracy department.”

And our last carbine reviewed is another CZ, the bolt action model 527 (and I bet you thought it was going to be a lever-action carbine). Here are the specifications:

CZ 527
Ammo: 7.62x39
Magazine capacity: 5
Magazine type: Detachable
Rate of twist: 1:9 in
Weight: 5.9 lbs
Overall Length: 37.4 in
Barrel Length: 18.5 in
LOP: 13.5 in
Barrel: hammer forged, blued
Stock: Walnut
Trigger: SS
Sights: fixed

I will tell you right now I love this little carbine. The military clone carbines are great, but they are militray dull. The CZ 527 is a handsome little pug with a very nicely checkered walnut stock. It is light, short, well-balanced, easy to operate, easy to break down for cleaning, and accurate. It’s drawback from a defensive standpoint is its 5 + 1 capacity but that may also be its blessing in the gun restrictive era that we are entering. Its small 5 round magazine might make it Obama/Biden proof. I know that Obama said we can “celebrate our 2nd Amendment rights…”, but he doesn’t intend to. I hope you remember Biden’s speech where he said that “The next thing they’re [the republicans] are going to tell you is that Obama will take away your guns. Well he’d better not come after my Beretta shotguns.” Well Joe if those are high capacity semi-auto shotguns you might want to bury them in the backyard. And, I certainly hope you hold accountable all of your “change and hope” voting friends who told you that Obama would have too much to do with the war and the economy to come after your guns. They were wrong. The new President and his cadre of Congressional Democrats are making this a priority and wasting no time in getting started.

Obama ally, Congressman Bobby Rush from Chicago, has introduced an invasive registration bill that, if passed, would make complying with it almost impossible and will turn many honest gun owners into criminals…which is something that Congressman Rush knows all about since he served 6 months in jail for illegal possession of a firearm in 1969…a year after he went AWOL from the U.S. Army and became a co-founder of the Illinois Black Panthers. How can an Army deserter and convicted criminal can even run for Congress? For a sad laugh about this kind of thing go watch “The Guy from Boston” at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7o9p0fP6cQ (warning, there is some salty language).

If you wonder what Obama has in store for you second amendment you can find it on the White House web site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/urban_policy/

For your convenience, I have copied it below.

THE AGENDA • URBAN POLICY

Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

Ah…the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. Such a complete waste of legislation that when it expired no one…no one in Congress even bothered to bring it up for re-instatement. The other seemingly innocent phrase that should make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up is “making guns in this country childproof”. This is another gun-grabber tactic; if they can’t get around the Second Amendment they’ll pose child safety restrictions that are impossible to comply with and demand built in safety devices that do not exist in order to dry up the firearms industry’s ability to sell their products to U.S. citizens.

Anyway, let’s get back to the CZ 527 Carbine.

This carbine in 7.62 X 39mm is a pretty good thumper. As mentioned in VZ-58 review its 124 grain bullet travels at 2700 Feet Per Second with 1600 foot pounds of energy. This cartridge has been successfully used against us since the Korean War. If you live in a more densely populated area you might want to consider the Magsafe ammunition. Magsafe produces specialty ammo that produces great shock and low penetration making it safer to use as it will not shoot through your target and will breakup upon striking sheetrock walls, etc. Magsafe makes a 7.62 X 39mm round with an 80 grain bullet moving at 2750 feet per second with 1343 foot pounds of energy.

The 527 is also an easy carbine to handle. With an 18.5 in barrel it brings the total length of the weapon to just an inch and a half longer than a yard and its weight of 5.9 pounds makes it just about as light as the .30 caliber M1 carbine and 1.4 pounds lighter than the VZ-58. Nothing can be easier to operate than the bolt action. Yes, you lose the magazine capacity of the other carbines and the speed of their semi-automatic operation but the bolt action is reliable and not prone to jamming and, if it does, it is very easy to manipulate and even remove the bolt if needed to clear the jam. The ease of removing the bolt also makes the CZ 527 very simple and fast to break down and clean. With the modern semi-automatic military-type carbine the breakdown process leaves you with a work bench full of parts: an upper receiver, a lower receiver, a magazine, springs, a rod, a bolt, an extractor, a firing pin, and on and on and on. The CZ 527 field strips down to three components: the rifle, the bolt, and the magazine.
The 527 is also pretty darn accurate as the 5 round targets below show. All were fired at 25 yards. Although the receiver is dovetailed for scope mounts I like the robust fixed sights that she come with. The front post has a hood that protects it from incidental damage and the rear sight is perhaps the most visible and heavy duty stock rear sight I have ever seen on a bolt action rifle.
Lastly, the 527 is the least expensive of the quartet we have looked at with an MSRP of $727.00 as compared to the .30 caliber M1 Carbine at $860, the Vz-58 at $990, and the Bushmaster M4 clone at $1299.00. Due to the current political times that we have entered the prices on the high capacity magazine fed military clone carbines are climbing due to demand. The good news if you want a bolt action 527 is that they are available usually at a discounted price and I am seeing them on GunsAmerica.com and GunBroker.com going for $525.00 and $605.00 as well as the MSRP of $727.00. You may want to get one before everyone else realizes what a good idea and good value these carbines are.

There are many other carbines worthy of being reviewed and I don’t want to snub them; I just don’t have access to them currently. There are very fine lever actions in various price ranges from a few hundred dollars to a couple of thousand dollar and they are also available in a variety of calibers such as .357 Magnum, 44-40, 45 Colt, 44 Magnum, 30-30, all the way up to 45-70 and 500 Marlin.

In semi-automatic carbines there are the many variations of the Ruger Mini-14 usually found in .223, but also available in 7.62 X 39mm. Springfield makes several different versions of M14 carbines in 7.62mm (.308). From everything I have read, these are excellent firearms, however they are expensive.

For the budget conscience shooter (and who isn’t these days), there are many different makes and country of origin variants of the venerable AK-47 and its predecessor, the SKS all available in 7.62 X 39mm.

So, there you have it; if you feel that you need a carbine (and you know that you need at least one) you have many choices available to you. Good Luck on your search.

Carbines for Home Defense Part 3 of 4

.30 Caliber M1 Carbine Tactical Model by Auto Ordnance

There are several different stories about why the military asked firearm manufacturers to develop a carbine during the early days of WWII. One version states that they were looking for a replacement for the .45 ACP sidearm because the pistol not easy to shoot and had a limited range of 50 yards maximum. Another version says that it was developed for paratroopers who needed a rifle that was lighter and more compact than the military’s standard battle, the M1 Garand, which was 44 inch long and weighed in at 9.5 pounds. Still another story has it that the military wanted a smaller, lighter, handier weapon for non-front line riflemen such as tank personnel, truck and other vehicle drivers, mortar and artillery crews, officers, cooks, rear echelon support troops, etc.

I’m not exactly sure of the true reason that the army went looking for it; it certainly did not replace the .45 ACP handguns. Quite frankly I see no reason to give up any secondary weapon if you are serving in a battle zone. I will buy the fact that paratroopers needed a compact rifle and clearly the M1 Carbine served in this capacity both in its original full wooden stock version and the folding wire butt stock model which was customized specifically for the brave soldiers who jumped from airplanes into the heat of the battle. It is also true that the .30 caliber M1 carbine replaced the M1 Garand as the primary weapon for infantry support troops, but many of the carbines found their way into the hands of frontline riflemen who didn’t mind sacrificing stopping power and range for a smaller, lighter package. The heavier, longer M1 Garand rifle fired the very powerful 30-06 cartridge and had an effective range of 500 yards. The M1 Carbine was 8 inches shorter and 4 pounds lighter than the Garand. It also gave the soldier a choice of 10, 15, 20, and 30 round magazines whereas the Garand held 8 cartridges. However the 10 to 30 rounds of the .30 caliber cartridge were less powerful than the 30-06 bullet fired by the M1 Garand. Ballistics for the .30 caliber carbine cartridge are just about equivalent to a .357 Magnum round with a 110 grain bullet moving over 1900 feet per second with 900 foot pounds of energy. (CorBon is now manufacturing .30 Carbine ammunition in their DPX line using a 100 grain Barnes solid copper Triple Shock Hollowpoint bullet moving at 2025 feet per second with 911 foot pounds of energy.) The M1 Garand’s 30-06 bullet can be found in weights between 150 and 180 grains with velocities of 2700 to 3000 feet per second and 2800 to 3000 foot pounds of energy. The 30-06 round has been a staple of hunters who have taken every type of North American big game that is out there so it easily handled two-legged enemy combatants. Additionally the ammunition makers provided steel-core armor piercing bullets that could penetrate most urban cover as well as some of the armored plating on early tank models, personnel carriers and other vehicles. There is clearly no doubt that the M1 Garand was the superior battle rifle of WWII. The .30 Caliber M1 Carbine was certainly shorter, lighter, held more rounds, and had less recoil but was not the best choice for an all around infantry weapon that required the ability to make long distance shots and punch through various forms of cover from which the enemy was firing.

As a side note, many of you may have seen the movie “Carbine Williams” starring Jimmy Stewart. In the true Hollywood style of over simplification and romantic embellishment the film portends that Williams developed the M1 Carbine while serving a prison term. Williams was a convicted criminal and did go to work for Winchester after being released, however his contribution to the project was rather minor. If he had engineered the entire firearm then it would have been named after him just as the Thompson submachine gun was names after it’s developer, General John Thompson, and the M1 Garand was named after John C. Garand.

My local firearms emporium received a shipment of all three models of the new Auto-Ordnance M1 Carbines: the original version with the full wooden stock (and I must say that the furniture on this model was absolutely beautiful), the paratrooper version with the folding wire-stock, and their new tactical model which has the standard hardware mounted to a folding synthetic stock. The latter is the model I selected. Here are the specifications:

Auto Ordnance Tactical M1 Carbine Specifications

Model: AOM160
Caliber: .30 Caliber
Barrel: 18"
Weight: 5 lbs. 13 oz.
Length: 36 1/2" overall, 27 1/2" (Folded)
Construction: Black polymer folding stock, metal perforated handguard
Finish: Black Oxide
Sight: Post front sight, flip style rear sight
Stock: Polymer
Magazine: One 15 Shot stick

Right off the bat I will tell you that this is a fun little shooter. The rather rudimentary rear “peep” sights are easy to see and flip between the short range sight regulated for ranges out to 200 yards and the longer range aperture for ranges between 200 and 300 yards. Realistically, any target at 200 to 300 yards is probably pretty safe if I am behind the trigger.

During my first 150 rounds I had about 6 rounds that did not go bang when I pulled the trigger. Upon examining them there was no firing pin indentation on the primer. I began to figure out that the bolt was not properly engaging the round. I also had some difficulty securely seating the magazine early on. A range employee who was enamored with the new line of Auto Ordnance M1 carbines told me that both of these problems would smooth out with continued shooting and by the final 50 rounds they seemed to no longer be a problem.

The Auto Ordnance carbines come with one 15 round magazine and while I would like to have some 20 and 30 rounders I have to be realistic and realize that this would only cause me to shoot more ammo and the .30 carbine is not inexpensive nor is it plentiful. I went to three gun shops and outdoor sporting goods stores and came up empty. Online searches of Midway USA, Cabelas, Sportsman’s Guide, Cheaper than Dirt, etc. turned up a whole bunch of “out of stock” notices several of them claiming that they expected to be back in stock in mid April. Finally I drove an hour north to Cabelas and found that the store had a scant 850 rounds of which I took immediate advantage.

Shooting Time

As I mentioned earlier this carbine is very fun to shoot. This first target was shot from 75 feet and was my first group out of the box.

This next target was again shot at 75 feet and is a good general representative of the groups I was getting after sighting it in to the best of my ability.
I fell prey to temptation and just had to fire the carbine with the stock in its folded up configuration. I rolled a silhouette target out to 30 feet figuring that you would only fire with the stock folded up if you were in eminent danger. There torso shots were fired by point shooting from the hip. Not real accurate but they all hit home.
In the next head section of the silhouette I held the folded carbine up and used the sights to pretty good effect.
In all the .30 caliber M1 may not be the most effective choice for a defensive carbine if you live out in the wide-open-spaces and may have to make longer distance shots. But it is very handy and gives you plenty of firepower if you stock up on a few higher capacity magazines. The new CorBon ammunition ups the ante a little bit and makes the M1 carbine an effective choice for shorter urban shooting environments.