Fondling at ACE

Took a trip to ACE Hardware this afternoon, with a stated purpose to my wife of looking for a laser.  Our new cat likes playing more than our old maid cat used to, and SWMBO thought he would get a kick out of chasing a laser around the house.  I told her I would check at ACE, because I had previously seen cheapo 9 LED Flashlights, with a Laser in them for sale their, for like 5 bucks.

Well, of course, they had all kinds of cheapo LED flashlights there, for under $10...just not any with a laser.  Faced with primary mission failure, I strolled over to the gun counter, to cheer myself by finding how far I had made it up the PMR-30 wait list.  Depressing...ACE hasn't had a single PMR-30 come show up in the last 3 weeks, so I am still #17....but, I am not last now, so hooray for me.  Requiring even further cheering up at this point, I was giving their AR's a quick once over when I saw a flat top with .308 written on the tag. 

It was a DPMS Sportical, in .308(although, if you go to their website, they say the Sportical is 7.62 X 51, the tag AND the side of the gun said .308.  Something to keep in mind I guess).  Flat top, 6 position collapsible stock, 16 inch barrel. 

For about 2 years(ever since ready Rawles book, in which there are multiple times that he explains all the reasons .308 is superior to .223) I have been fighting the urge to get an semi-automatic rifle in .308.  My argument in the 'against' category is logistics.  I have NOTHING else in .308.  Of course, the less logical side of my brain says that until I bought an AR, I had nothing in .223. It's a good argument.

Logical side tries again with: Your wife has tried the AR in .223 and REALLY liked it, and is confident/comfortable with it.  She might become a little intimidated with the larger .308 round.  The counter argument is that I had a friend who let me try his Rock River AR with a .308 upper on it once, and I found the kick to be not much worse than my AR in .223.  Another effective counter argument. 

Logical side gives it one last try.  But the PTR-91 has an 18-inch barrel, so you can get just a little more out of the .308 round, and uses cheaper G3 magazines.  The other side agrees that is true, but the AR is lighter, handier, and and with the collapsible stock will fit both me and my wife better...and all the sudden the argument is about which .308, instead of do I NEED a .308.

Let's face it...if it was about need, we wouldn't need gun safes that could hold more than about 7 or 8 guns...and even that is stretching it. 

I walked out of ACE empty handed, but satiated, because now I can do some research, and because I am sicko, sometimes gun research is almost as much fun to me as actually buying/using the guns.