Tradition is a hot-button issue for many hunters and shooters. Let’s just be honest with each other for a moment. There are snobs out there that wouldn’t hunt with a semi-automatic rifle, regardless of what advantages it offered, simply because they don’t consider it “sporting.”
To be frank, that is reductivist thinking, and it isn’t patently wrong, but if we take it to its logical conclusion, these hard-line hunters should consider taking game with archery tackle - if not going even more primitive than that.
Until recently, there were a lot of states around the country that forbade hunting with semi-automatic rifles. The big one that comes to mind is Pennsylvania, the last holdout, where hunting with semi-automatic rifles was not legal until 2017.
The truth of the matter is the Game Commission just couldn’t hold out any longer against the ascendant popularity of the AR platform among hunters that wanted to carry MSRs, or modern sporting rifles, in the field.
And, to tell the truth, hunters that carry them, as opposed to single shot rifles and bolt-action and lever action repeaters, are working with a lot of easily defensible advantages.
So yes - there are good reasons for you to consider an AR - in 5.56, of all calibers - for your next deer hunting rifle.
Adjustability
Arguably one of the most salient advantages of the MSR platform for hunting is the innate, inherent adjustability of the whole thing.
Swapping a barrel is relatively easy, as is a bolt carrier group or a buffer tube. But it goes far beyond this.
Don’t like how your rifle is handling? Just get a new handguard. You can tack on muzzle devices to threaded barrels to improve suppression or mitigate recoil, too.
And the modern sporting rifle platform, in the form of an AR, is inherently adjustable specifically to the shooter as well. Most come with adjustable stocks that let you adjust for LOP in the field, at a moment’s notice.
This is a blessing in the deer woods where you might be wearing a few more layers than you were at the range. It also gives you the flexibility to customize the fit of the rifle to you as needed, when needed.
Try that with a wood stock on a bolt or lever gun.
Expandability
The nature of the AR-15 platform is exceptionally versatile, in ways that even modern tactical lever guns and bolt-action repeaters simply cannot match.
It is modular down to its very DNA and parts are easy as pie to swap out, but the expandability of the AR as a rifle goes way beyond that.
Just look at the handguards paired with most ARs. They are covered stem to stern in rail sections, whether Pic rail, M-LOK, or KeyMod slots, and most are dripping with real estate for shooting furniture, attachments, and accessories.
So, you need a variable magnification scope with your AR? Do you need a light for chasing hogs in the swamps at night? Do you need to mount a bipod under the handguard for long-range hunting?
Your AR can do that, and if you build your rifle piecemeal with an AR-15 upper and a kit, you can make it even more modular than it would have been to begin with.
Pursue Other Species with One Rifle
This is an offshoot of the expandability argument, but it’s highly applicable here. The very nature of an AR that makes it basically limitlessly expandable also means you can pursue multiple species with one rifle.
An AR is just as suitable for deer hunting as it is for hunting hogs or coyotes, for instance, and with something as simple as a barrel swap, you could be theoretically upgrading your 5.56 AR to a .300 Blackout.
Just food for thought.
Follow-Up Shot Speed and Capacity
Now we’re getting to the real meat and potatoes of what makes the AR platform a suitable one for hunters. Arguably this is the most important selling point of all.
There’s one thing that an AR is going to offer you that a repeater cannot (or a single-shot, for that matter) and it’s a fast follow up shot without manual cycling that will screw up your sight picture.
Most honorable hunters will admit that they’ve taken shots that were, shall we say, questionable, though not necessarily unethical. And questionable shots require the ability to send off a second dispatch right after the first messenger.
With an AR, that’s simple. You just pull the trigger again.
Now, there’s another dimension to this. Some game, like hogs, can be both wily and dangerous to take down. That makes the ability to take a second shot, quickly, a matter of personal safety as well as ethics.
And, with an AR, you have as many as your mag can hold.
Recoil Management
This has to do both with the caliber and the platform. For one, .223 (or 5.56, if you will) is one of the lightest kicking rifle cartridges out there, whether you shoot it from a single shot, a repeater, or an AR.
Now, with that said, the AR has some other tricks up its sleeve that keep recoil down even more to a minimum.
One is that most ARs are made with threaded barrels - so if you get a complete AR-15 upper that has a threaded barrel (or swap it) you can tack on a muzzle brake to keep recoil down further.
The other is that AR platforms, with their gas-system-driven actions, are inherently smoother shooting than other action types. No matter how you split it, some of the energy from the propellant goes to cycling the bolt - which doesn’t happen in any single shot or repeating action, period.
And, as a result, this makes gas guns - both gas impingement and gas piston actions - smoother-shooting, and lower-recoiling, than most other action types.
Building Your Own Deer Rifle; Starting with the AR-15 Upper
If you’re convinced that an AR might be for you and that some of these arguments in favor of hunting with an MSR hold water, you would be right.
You also have the option of building your own with an AR-15 upper and a build kit, as we carry both assembled uppers, parts, and kits that streamline the process.
If you’re thinking about adopting an AR for hunting, make the rifle yourself and customize it the way you want - and get in touch with us at Sales@MCSGearup.com if you have any questions before doing so.