Fixed vs Featureless

hi i'm ernie medina with trb and today again i'm joined by brendan arbalon one of our trb instructors and today we're going to talk to you a little bit about fixed mag virtus featureless rifles now i gotta say uh why this is even a conversation as we are in the people's republic of california uh which drives this this conversation to begin with uh clearly you can understand my and probably everyone else's opinion however uh to maintain compliance uh with the dictators i mean the uh the state's laws uh we have a couple options okay and the uh one of the options is what they call the featureless uh setup for the the rifle brendan's going to talk to you a moment about featureless what it all is what can you have on it what can't you have on it and i'm going to talk to you a little bit about the fixed mag configuration so we have two general configurations or the two most popular configurations that are out there that remain compliant so i'll talk to you about fixed mag he'll talk to you about featureless so let's start off with the featureless rifle right um the future's featureless rifle is supposed to simulate uh one of your uh like older type rifles hunting rifles hunting rifles shotguns all that stuff where you have a fixed stock now this looks like it's uh it's not a fixed stop but it actually has a screw through here right that does uh exclude me from moving this uh back and forth right adjusting base if i'm wearing a plate carrier or not second is that i think the biggest thing that most people see is that i have i do not have a regular pistol grip this has some kind of fin on it that stops me from utilizing the firearm or putting my thumb across or shooting that way um so that you know i don't know why i guess to make it less stable you can't get your thumb around and then i'm not allowed to have any vertical grip right you can have angle four grip hand stops but this one doesn't have it uh you're not supposed to have anything that's a vertical on this rifle uh and then lastly you can have a flash hider this is a compensator because flash header apparently hides the flash of the firearm so um therefore you can't have a flash header so the one benefit this has though is that you are going to be able to have at the very least uh regular magazine release uh compared to other options in california other options right and then yeah that's a featureless rifle it's pretty much when you think about it it is pretty much a standard rifle minus the adjustable stock and the regular uh vertical grip why don't you talk a little bit more about what else you get to have uh magazine-wise so that's right um you could if you wanted to use uh standard capacity magazines on this rifle by penal code right there's no penal code stopping you from using legally owned uh 30 round magazines or 10 plus magazines that you got during freedom week of course yeah of course yeah definitely um on this rifle right now when you go to fix mag it's a little different story yes different story so in the fixed mag configuration there as you can see here this pretty much looks like a standard rifle i have a pistol grip i have a telescopic uh buttstock here and there okay and uh i have pretty much everything that i would want to have on it the only difference is i have a muzzle break instead of a flash hider cannot have a flash hider the thing is i'm now allowed to have up to two evil features on this and by evil features we we say things like a pistol grip right or that that telescopic uh buttstock okay those are my two evil features on this rifle however in order to operate this rifle and i'm gonna flip it over so you can see in a moment uh there are a couple things that i have to do i actually have to break the action meaning separate the upper and the lower because the magazine uh release is fixed and i cannot operate when the rifle is intact so by hitting this button which actually replaces your rear takedown pin uh this is called a kingpin because the system that i'm demonstrating with of course is the ar maglock gen4 so the ar maglock gen 4 which by by far is the greatest option when it comes to the fixed mag configuration uh i have this kingpin as they call it which is a spring-loaded takedown pin which when i press it it allows the upper and the lower to separate and when i flip it over the other side you'll see that this separation thereby allows the magazine release to operate when the upper and the lower are are together and closed you see the pin come back out okay and then i cannot operate the mag release so let me flip it over so y'all can see here so when i hit that that kingpin again the upper and the lower separate and now this magazine release can go in and out and work and this magazine can come out okay when it's when it's in and this uh upper and lower are closed now this magazine release cannot will not operate and this magazine will not release so it's fixed to the rifle so this is the fixed mag configuration now depending on the various types of fixed mag configurations or products out there some like it better than others the one of the main things that i really enjoy about the the ar maglock is that you get to keep your bulk catch which for operating and reloading and things like that definite must and plus as opposed to losing it but another function of clearing uh stoppages or say type three uh malfunctions uh this is absolute absolutely necessary so if i get a double feed or a bolt override and i don't have my bulk catch uh then the the bulk carrier group will be to the rear either some or in whole when that's the case this kingpin will not release in those configurations and then i can't get that mag out so now not only do i have a type 3 double feed but then i have a bolt carrier group that's stuck and a magazine that's stuck uh in place what has to happen then is i need to essentially jam that buttstock while trying to pull back that charging handle with a magazine inserted and basically i'm having to send that bolt home on possibly a a live round not something that i prefer to do when clearing a malfunction so some of the the benefits to having this kind of setup but again going back to the fixed mag setup as you can see by and large the the fixed mag setup allows me to keep pretty much everything that i want um the only thing or one of the only things but a couple things is i cannot put a standard cap magazine uh in this rifle so this one's capped at 10 okay can't put any more than 10 rounds whether i own them legally or not the moment i put anything greater than 10 in here it kind of nullifies this whole thing and now this is illegal so considerations when running a fixed mag you get to keep all the cool features you're just now limited to uh to 10 rounds as far as operating goes as a benefit my procedures for reloading and manipulations are literally one step away from standard operation the only step going back to the other side is having to hit that kingpin before i operate that that mag release the the thing about uh featureless rifles right is that pretty much since the the only thing that changes in the featureless rifle is the actual manipulation of the firearm like 90 percent or almost all featureless rifles will work in a sense of like you using as a defense weapon the thing about fixed back though from our point of view there's only one product that works in the fix mag that makes this a defensive weapon and that's the ar maglock unfortunately any other device that you put in a fixed magazine gun actually you know let me rephrase that if your fixed magazine gun does not have the capability to lock its bolt to the rear and release the magazine with the bolt back to the rear and that's not a vile defensive gun because when you do get that jam and you will that gun is pretty much useless yeah and to demonstrate that so being able to uh take the the mag out with the bolt lock to the rear so i'm going to go ahead and and lock this bolt to the rear okay so now my bolt locked to the rear okay i can hit this kingpin my upper and lower still separate actually a little bit less but still separate and i can still engage this mag release so essentially i'm getting full operation of this rifle as if standard okay with with this here and it's still satisfying the law in that i can't hit that magazine release whether the bolt is forward or still closed but locked to the rear it's fixed can't do anything must hit the kingpin must separate the action yeah so those are a couple nuances about the featureless versus fixed mag and as always most things boil down to preference okay so whichever one you prefer i prefer the fix mag because i really do not like to have my thumb on the same side when operating the rifle especially being a left-handed shooter i'm already having to uh to do things differently i don't want that added nonsense of of having to lose the uh the opposable thumb and that grip on that and that pistol grip to manipulate the uh the rifle so that's my preference and whatever your preference is whether you want to keep that 30 round capability or you're okay with having the thumb on the same side or you're okay with having the uh the butt stock pins it's all boils down to preference whatever you do obviously train to it yeah like i said like uh being ernie were talking when i pulled out this farm today i haven't touched this gun in two years just because i we just don't use the fixed magazine i'm sorry feature is gone because the air magnet does work really good but like i said it is preference but if you run it just make sure you train with it and it's funny because you've actually been in uh in classes or trainings with uh law enforcement and things like that where they're running standard configuration and you're running ar maglock and they don't know the difference and you're just as fast as they are yeah and because i ran this initially at a competition in arizona like two three years ago nobody even noticed that this was featureless you know and then i ran that with multiple classes with law enforcement teaching and taking the classes with them they didn't even notice so so it all boils down to preference and of course training so there you have it that's the featureless versus fixed mag pros and cons and the nuances of both [Music] after doing my research becoming a uscca member was really a no-brainer uscca members get life-saving education expert training plus self-defense liability insurance they are hands down the best self-defense membership association out there their firearms education and training resources are genuinely life-saving the uscca training academy is probably my favorite feature of membership it's an online qualification system that trains and educates you on what you need to know as a responsibly armed american the uscca association is founded on four responsibly armed americans like you prepare for what happens before during and after a 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Channel: TRB Training

Views: 8,188

Keywords: taprackbang, trbtraining, fixed vs featureless, what is fixed vs featureless, which is better fixed or featureless, benefits of fixed gun, benefits of featureless gun, fixed vs featureless comparison, fixed gun, featureless gun

Id: 2KLTi1gBwlE

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 18 2022