self defense semi auto

[cochise]

i am considering buying a new semi auto rifle for self defense.  I have narrowed down my choices to a mid length lmt or a saiga .308 16".  I could use the saiga as a backup hunting rifle but i am concerned about reliability of the hicap mags and parts availability.  the ar could be used for varmint hunting and there are oodles of mags and parts available. I think i had better hurry and decide given the current political climate. any opinions?

[Cheesehead]

Get an AR in 6.8 SPC. You can use it for defense, varmints and medium size game.

Cheese

[Savage]

In today's political climate, I'd go with an AR in 5.56. You indicated that you have a primary hunting rifle so the 5.56 shouldn't be a problem. The 6.8 is a great caliber as well, but with ammo cost and availability, you'd better be prepared to reload. Love .30 battle rifles by the way!
Savage

[targshooter]

Cochise,
I would expect you live in the country to want/need a rifle for self defense. IMO, in the country is the only place where you may need a rifle against numerous adversaries in the open. Can't do that in the city and defend your actions legally. All suburban and urban self defense should involve the phone first and a pistol or shotgun loaded so you don't kill your neighbors by firing something too powerful and too much and sending them gifts through yours and their house walls. Even if you don't like them, this is expensive and time consuming.
Now in the country one needs a companion firearm that has the power and reach to ensure that self defense can be effectively performed if the dirtbags put you under siege. However, the likelihood of this is very small, and again the phone is your first defense. Self defense is not offensive, it is indeed defense. I would probably go with a good hunting rifle in a substantial caliber. I like my Ruger Deerfield. Good to 100 yards (tough to defend legally) and a show stopper at social ranges. 
If you are an NRA member and read the Armed Citizen in their monthly publication, you already know: 1] that most thugs depart at the sight of a gun in the hands of someone willing to use it. You also know: 2] They usually run like the wind at the firing of a shot, and 3] they typically depart when wounded (some, thankfully, die and cost the taxpayer no more money) to seek medical care. If you want a military type rifle, go for it. I would recommend the AR in 5.56; but, as someone already alluded to, in today's political climate, starting with an  AR or other military style gun you have an uphill battle in court.
Now a lot of people say, what, a Deerfield has only 4 shots, I need more. Not so, please see 1,2,3 above. Plus, a spare Deerfield magazine gives one an additional 4 shots. Do remember, you shoot too much you also get an uphill battle in court. There are many pistol cartridge rifles that provide more shots, such as my Winchester Trapper in .44 Mag with its ten shot capacity. Marlin has some nice little lever rifles also.
Summary:
Get an AR rifle for informal target shooting, varmints and plinking. If you want a good SD rifle, take a look at one of the little semi-autos, pumps or levers offered in a decent pistol cartridge. BTW, the pistol cartridges are low in recoil and will be great to shoot for the same reasons as the AR. Practice is everything.

[SHOOTALL]

Targshooter , I read what you posted with interest ! then New Orleans came to mind where the phones didn't work and the police left town in numbers and immediately dismissed it .

[SHOOTALL]

by the way get a M1-A  SOCOM ! IMHO

[LEO]

Targshooter, do some research on penetration, you will find that pistol rounds out penetrate 223 rounds when expanding ammo is used in the 223 in most cases.  There are other vailid points in your argument such as the perception of less than friendly courts as far as the lever guns go.  Also I don't know your history but I don't think I would be wanting to try to dig a magazine out of a deerfield carbine and get another back in under the stress of a gunfight.  It is difficult enough with an M-16/AR-15.  Thus the nod would go to the 10 plus round capacity of the lever gun.  But since the question at hand was an AR or a Saiga, I have no experience with a Saiga and a lot with the AR so my vote would go with the AR based on familairity, availability, ergonomics and ease of maintenance/repair.  As I understand it the parts from the 308 Saiga are not interchangeable with AK parts, if this understanding is in error, then ease of maintenance/repair is not a factor.  I am left handed so manipulation of the AK type selector is problematic for me, if you are right handed it may not be an issue.  Also I think magazine availability is an issue with the Saiga. Fortunately in my part of the Country the courts/prosecutors are still more interested in the facts of the shooting rather than what the person was shot with but I know it is not that way everywhere. Hope this helps.

[targshooter]

Cochise asked about self defense, not survival. The Katrina debacle was not self defense, it had actually gone to survival against roving bands with the need for offensive capability. This is fortunately very rare in modern US history and not the self defense scenario on which one should plan, at least IMO.
I accept those that want to have large magazine capacities, just be aware that in most home defense scenarios it will not be needed. I am very comfortable with the 4 shots of the Deerfield for home defense. Again, there are levers available with greater magazine capacity.
LEO, if you research penetration, you will become aware of many pistol rounds which designed so they do not over penetrate. Also, I am not sure of your history, but fire a .223 off in an enclosed room and then shoot a pistol round. The flash and noise from both will be disconcerting, but the pistol round will have less flash and leave some semblance of hearing, being far less disruptive than the rifle round (this hold true even for a .44 mag when fired out of a rifle length barrel).
I would agree on the AR instead of a Saiga based on parts availability and the fact that an AK derivative will be even more of a hill in court. Any killing is a homicide and will be dealt with as such. Perception is everything if you must play on this stage, from cop to court room.

[LEO]

Targshooter, a good portion of my working time is spent researching such things as penetration and the performance of one round verses another, the FBI has a whole group of folks that do so also and their findings also state that most serious defensive pistol rounds out penetrate good expanding 223 ammunition now FMJ ammo is a whole different story, there is also some good info on this on the Box of Truth website.  The 308 is also an entirely different story it has a great deal of penetration even with expanding ammunition it really shouldn't be used in an environment where a bullet that gets "out of the box" will cause a problem.  But you are right about the flash and blast from  a 223 in a room it is certainly attention getting as I have done it on several occasions, if you really want to have some fun fire one out of a car but then a shotgun has these same issues.  I am not saying that the 223 is the ideal cartridge for use in a confined space my point was that if loaded properly it is not overly penetrative for such use.  Nor am I saying that you have to have a 100 round Beta mag to have an effective home defense gun but you do need enough rounds on board to be able to deal with the situation and under the stress of the environment people often miss, there is often more than one bad guy, and sometimes even with good hits it takes more than one round to stop the attacker.  A friend of mine had to put 5 rounds of 10 mm,  180 grain hydra shoks into a suspect to put him down and they were all good upper torso hits and the guy lived to go to prison.  But as I have posted before, everyone must take the time to learn what the law is where they are at because if varies greatly from area to area and then gather as much information as they can about what their defensive needs are. They then must make an informed decison based on these parameters.  Usually most people will find that there is not one solution to their situation but rather they need a system approach because what works for them for home defense may not work for everyday carry and what works in the winter for carry may not work in the summer.  Everything is a trade off, there is no such thing as a free lunch.  But then we have kind of gotten away from the topic at hand but it is relevant to help cochise make an informed decision.

[Savage]

The .223 rd is an excellent home defense round. Noise and flash are about the same as a shotgun in a confined area. That's not something I read somewhere, but actual experience. Neither flash nor noise would be a concern for me in my choice of a life saving tool. A quick search will bring up a wealth of accurate information for any interested parties. Here is one of many examples:

FBI Ballistic Tests
As a result of renewed law enforcement interest in the .223 round and in the newer weapons systems developed around it, the FBI recently subjected several various .223 caliber projectiles to 13 different ballistic tests and compared their performance to that of SMG-fired hollow point pistol bullets in 9mm, 10mm, and .40 S&W calibers.

Bottom Line: In every test, with the exception of soft body armor, which none of the SMG fired rounds defeated, the .223 penetrated less on average than any of the pistol bullets.

http://www.olyarms.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=26

Savage

[cochise]

thanks for the replies guys. I should have provided more details.  I live in SE AZ about 10 minutes from mexico.  On any given day I observe an average of two border patrol busts on my 30 min commute to work.  I also enjoy hiking in the mountains which unfortunately are a hotbed of drug and human smuggling.  You never know what you might run into out there.  I think I need a semiauto with a high cap mag in case I stumble into one of these groups that is armed with ak-47's. If they opened up I could lay down some suppressive fire while i beat feet out of the area.  i chose the ar because the advantages already stated and the fact that the average cop on the street now carries one.  How could a pinko type prosecuter villify a civillian using what the police use. i am also very familiar with the ar from my time in the national guard.  My reasoning on the saiga went that i could put a wood stock on it and it would look more like a hunting rifle than a military one and everything i have read about the .308 saiga says they are pretty accurate.  If i get the saiga i have lot's of cash left over for mags and ammo the ar is much more for a decent one and will have to acquire ammo and mags more slowly.

[Badnews Bob]

Sounds to me like an AR 10 would fill your needs except for cost it'll out perform the siaga or any AK based rifle, .308 wins over a 7.62x39 anytime, not so much the .223. Saigas are great buys however and in .308 very versital.

[kevthebassman]

thanks for the replies guys. I should have provided more details.  I live in SE AZ about 10 minutes from mexico.  On any given day I observe an average of two border patrol busts on my 30 min commute to work.  I also enjoy hiking in the mountains which unfortunately are a hotbed of drug and human smuggling.  You never know what you might run into out there.  I think I need a semiauto with a high cap mag in case I stumble into one of these groups that is armed with ak-47's. If they opened up I could lay down some suppressive fire while i beat feet out of the area.  i chose the ar because the advantages already stated and the fact that the average cop on the street now carries one.  How could a pinko type prosecuter villify a civillian using what the police use. i am also very familiar with the ar from my time in the national guard.  My reasoning on the saiga went that i could put a wood stock on it and it would look more like a hunting rifle than a military one and everything i have read about the .308 saiga says they are pretty accurate.  If i get the saiga i have lot's of cash left over for mags and ammo the ar is much more for a decent one and will have to acquire ammo and mags more slowly.

I have friends in that area, McNeal to be exact.  Knowing that area (not as well as you, of course) I wouldn't hesitate to carry the AR, but I also think you could be well served by a pistol caliber carbine, preferably one that uses the same mags and round that you shoot from your pistol.  Then again, with the mesquite being the way it is, I think my truck's gun rack would have a bolt gun in 30-06 or .308 right next to a 12 guage with a long magazine.  In the mountains, I grab the bolt gun.  In the mesquite, I grab the shotgun.

[cochise]

I have a Sig 226 because my arthritic wrist can't take the pounding from the 44 mag and 45 i used to shoot. I severed some ligaments a couple years ago in a fall and when they went in to repair them some of the bones were cratered from arthritis so they ended up removing them and rebuilding the wrist joint. it only bends about 45 degrees now and can't take shock like batting a baseball, shooting powerful rounds in a handgun etc. I thought about getting a Ruger pc-9 to go with the Sig but i got to talking with a friend who ran recon teams in SE Asia and he told me about seeing an NVA stitched with a Swedish K from collarbone to crotch. He said the guy continued to run for 150 meters or so and then returned fire before expiring. I think i need something hotter than a 9mm in a carbine-I only carry the round in a handgun out of necessity. Kevthebassman are your friends missionaries? There is a huge complex of missionaries who take supplies and medicine to South America from Mcneal.

[kevthebassman]

I have a Sig 226 because my arthritic wrist can't take the pounding from the 44 mag and 45 i used to shoot. I severed some ligaments a couple years ago in a fall and when they went in to repair them some of the bones were cratered from arthritis so they ended up removing them and rebuilding the wrist joint. it only bends about 45 degrees now and can't take shock like batting a baseball, shooting powerful rounds in a handgun etc. I thought about getting a Ruger pc-9 to go with the Sig but i got to talking with a friend who ran recon teams in SE Asia and he told me about seeing an NVA stitched with a Swedish K from collarbone to crotch. He said the guy continued to run for 150 meters or so and then returned fire before expiring. I think i need something hotter than a 9mm in a carbine-I only carry the round in a handgun out of necessity. Kevthebassman are your friends missionaries? There is a huge complex of missionaries who take supplies and medicine to South America from Mcneal.

There are horror-stories with any round.  I think that a 9mm carbine shooting hollowpoint ammo would be fine for two-legged varmints inside 100 yards, but bigger is better as long as you can control it and afford to feed it. 

And no, my friends aren't missionaries.  One of them is a really religious guy, but the rest are pretty far from it, as a matter of fact.  Whiskey drinking crowd, does a lot of coyote hunting.  Keep Airedales.

[cochise]

aredales are cool dogs i had one as a kid i called him ugly. Do your friends run lions with the dogs?

[kevthebassman]

I know one of them has a lion dog or two, but I don't believe he runs his Airedales for lion.

[Mikey]

CoChise - I'm sorry to hear you have to deal with that type of situation so close to your home but for a self defense semi-auto while out in those areas I would think of something less expensive, especially not knowing the local police attitude or how the courts in your area view self defense shootings whilst out and about in troubled areas.  The courts may think you should avoid trouble and stay away even though it is open land.  Their thought may be that even though you had a right to be there you should have expected trouble and avoided the situation. 

If the schmidt happens while you are in the area and the courts then decide (if the incident gets reported) you shouldn't have been there and decide to have the Sheriff confiscate your rifle, you want them to take the cheapest one.  I would suggest, in that vein, that you consider a SKS rifle. 

The SKS is inexpensive, accurate and a proven battle rifle.  It can hold its own against an AK from a distance and is quickly reloadable.  I would not think of hi-cap mags, just develop your skills reloading the SKS (which is easy) under stress - might even be easier and quciker than trying to rock an AK mag into place.  The Soviets didn't consider reloading time in their choice to go with the AK over the SKS, they just went with a higher mag  capacity and a semi/full auto capability. 

There is a ton of ammo available for the SKS rifles - hunting ammo and mil-surp/mil-spec.  Either type would suffice to save your bacon if you get in trouble.  And if you are liable to encounter antagonists armed with rifles you would want a rifle to defend yourself.  The 7.62x39mm round is a much better choice than any pistol cartridge in this situation.

The SKS concept would then allow you a more expensive varmit rifle for hunting.  The Saigas are simply a semi-auto AK in hunting configuration but the 16.5" bbl in a 308 would not be my primary choice for either hunting or defense.   JMTCW.  Mikey.

[kevthebassman]

Cochise is a pretty wild place.  Really the only law you can count on seeing anywhere off the beaten path is the border patrol. 

Speaking of the border patrol, a fellow down there who is an agent (I forget his name) has a cousin who runs greyhounds for coyotes.