bringing personal ar uppers to iraq ???'s

[Phirebug]

so, my commander and i had an interesting discussion the other day. i've been talking for a long time about the possibility of bringing my AR upper to iraq with me on the upcoming deployment. it's a rock river varmint upper with a 16" barrel...amazingly accurate. he said that he supports the idea as long as i can find out about the legal/military regulation issues that would apply to something like this. obviously, i'm not going to just throw it in my duffel bag, but as company armorer, i can just sign it into the arms room and ship it over in the sensitive items milvan. if it's just the upper, it's not technically a personally owned weapon, and i could just bolt it onto my m4 lower when i got in country.

does anybody know of any existing army regs regarding this? does anybody know where i could go to find out?

for that matter, what if it WAS a personally owned weapon? i'm allowed to sign them into the arms room with a commander's memorandum as long as i meet the appropriate regulations for storage and inventory. could i sign it in and ship it over with the rest of the weapons? i would LOVE to have my savage model 10 over there, and she shoots M118 special ball like a dream.

thanks for the help, guys. somebody always has an answer. hell, i asked about BIGFOOT HUNTING and somebody actually found a serious answer out there.

[Norton]

In my opinion
For the AR type weapon the upper is not a leagal weapon, just a part..
So it would be no different than a set of rails or a scope.
I sent my nehpew a foward grip for his M 4 in Iraq, nobody said a thing.

[turbothis]

the question is can you take ak parts out?

[Gunny_Frost]

When I went to Somalia, we could bring our own pistols / shotguns with us. Our command would not allow us to "switch out" parts with the A2s we carried then.

If your CO has no problem with it, and it works for you go for it.:thumbup:

Be safe.:America:

[Otis61]

I hope you can do it. It seems as though confidence in the accuracy of your weapon would be really important.

[ziggy222]

as a civilian i can't answer that but i've often asked myself the same thing if i was drafted,it would be nice to take my own high quality weapon of choice so long as it used the same ammo and was reliable enough that i did'nt need to worry about ordering a new part for it while on a battle feild.which brings me to my point.if its a civilian model i'm thinking its rifling is to stablize a 55 grain bullet and the heavier ones the military provides will not shoot as accurate with that twist.they use a 62 or 70 now don't they?i'm not sure.i know i would deffinately want the 45 over those 9mm they use now and the short barrels they now use don't generate enough velocity for the 223.i think it would be like sticking them with a red hot ice pick if at a distance.i'd want what they used in nam

[cbear]

But can you bring it back? You never know if you'll get a new CO, who could have a different take on it. The way the military is about bringbacks, you may end up leaving it when you rotate out.

[Cavalryman]

My son's National Guard unit commander seems to have intimated that the unit armorer would be allowed to ship privately-owned pistols and that he would look the other way as long as no one higher up the food chain got wind of it. I haven't actually talked to the man, but I will before the LRS company gets shipped to the sandbox again. I think my son could make good use of my full-on combat modified M1911. Of course, there's no guarantee that he could bring it back, but if he comes home, then as far as I'm concerned the pistol can stay.

[Phirebug]

my ar upper has a 1:8 twist, the m4 has a 1:7, so it should still stabilize a 62g bullet just fine. (hell i shoot 75s out of it all the time) i'd love to bring my .45 but then you run into the problem of obtaining ammo. bringing it back could be a problem, not so much with customs, as i can sign it back into the arms room, but possibly with a new CO. if that were the case i guess i'd just try to sell it to one of the guys replacing us and leave it there.
don't get me wrong, as much as its detractors will argue otherwise, the m4 is a pretty accurate weapon, and our ammo is pretty high quality. i used to HATE the m16 platform, but the more i use it, the more i realize it's really not a bad weapon at all. underpowered, sure, but if you take care of it, it's accurate and reliable. the main purpose here is that i could mount a fixed power scope to the varmint upper and use it for the overwatch missions, and keep the close combat optic on the m4 upper and use it for dismounted operations, without having to re-zero every time.

[JC Speiser]

When i was in Korea in '81 I had a .38 revolver shipped to me...(it's a long story) and the unit armorer had to keep it inventoried. When I came back I had it and had orders cut to bring it back (that's another long story)...when I hit SeaTac it was immediately confiscated by the ATF...(that's a damn long story in itself) and it took almost 2 years and 4 inches of paperwork to and from the ATF to get it back.

To mirror the others - it's not taking it that's the problem, it's brining it back that's the issue...of course back then we flew commercial through civilian airports...I don't know how it's done today.

[Cavalryman]

i'd love to bring my .45 but then you run into the problem of obtaining ammo.
I really doubt that would represent much of a problem. Firstly, you won't use much pistol ammo. A pistol is a last-ditch, save-your-@$$-when-everything-has-gone-to-$#!+ weapon and a dozen rounds is probably enough for an entire tour. Secondly, with all the security contractors and those types in Iraq, ammo in any standard caliber can be gotten.