How to Use an AR-15

hey guys I am Chris from Lucky gunner and welcome back to our shooting 101 series so far we've covered the absolute basics of how to use revolvers and semi-automatic pistols and now we are moving on to the most popular rifle in America the ar-15 today we're gonna look at how to load/unload and fire an AR style rifle a ton of people have purchased ARS in the last 10 years or so and all those people are either first-time gun owners or brand new to the AR platform if you fall into one of those categories this video is for you I can't teach you how to be a great marksman in just a few minutes and I don't want anyone to think that a video can take the place of real in-person training from a qualified instructor however this should get you going in the right direction so you at least know how the gun works and how to handle it safely if you are new to shooting we really have to start out with a couple of basic guidelines for safety and safe is a relative term anything we do with firearms is inherently dangerous every time you pick up a gun you are making life-and-death decisions you can't forget that fortunately we can mitigate a lot of that risk by following the four basic rules of safe gun handling there are different ways to phrase these rules but here's my summary rule 1 treat all guns the same way you would treat a loaded gun you cannot ignore the other rules just because you believe a gun is unloaded rule 2 always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction that means if it were to fire it's not gonna hurt anyone and it's not going to damage anything that you cannot afford to replace rule 3 keep your finger away from the trigger until you are ready to shoot something it's pretty straightforward but that's the one that people seem to have the most trouble remembering and rule 4 know what it is you are shooting at and what is behind it that goes for the shooting range or anywhere else you might need to use your gun there is a lot more to using a gun safely than just the four rules but if you follow them you greatly reduce your chance of unintentionally hurting yourself or someone else there are multiple ways to do just about everything I'm about to show you these are not necessarily the correct or only methods for handling and operating an ar-15 and the way you use the gun might change depending on the context whether that's long-range precision shooting or practical competition or self defense now having said that whenever you handle an ar-15 or any gun for that matter the absolute first thing you need to do is clear it that means you need to check and see if it's loaded and if it is you're gonna unload it the first step is to remove the magazine the magazine release is right here on the right side of the rifle just push that in the magazine will drop free set that aside and now you need to open the bolt so you can see if there's a round in the chamber the bolt is this thing here it moves back and forth when the gun fires if you don't see it it might be because the ejection port cover is closed but that's okay it will open automatically when you open the bolt so to do that pull sharply on the charging handle and pull it to the rear as far as it'll go if there is a round in the chamber it should pop out when you do this but you still need to look inside the chamber and to get a good look in there we need to lock the bolt open so over here on the left side of the gun we have the bolt catch also called the bolt release push in the lower portion of this thing and at the same time pull back on the charging handle and now the bolt will be locked open the charging handle is gonna be loose like this so just push that back in until it clicks into place another way to lock the bolt open is to insert an empty magazine and now when you pull back the charging handle the empty mag will activate the bolt catch and it will lock open automatically when the bolts locks open you can get a good look inside the chamber which is really just the other end of the barrel we want an empty chamber that looks like this but if they're still around in there for some reason it will look like this on the left side of the gun above the grip you will find the safety selector on most ARS there will be two options safe and semi move the safety selector so the little arrow is pointing to safe now that you have cleared the gun you can do whatever it else it is you need to do with it like clean it or put it away in this case we are going to load it so leave the bolt lock to open and set the gun down with the barrel pointed in a safe direction keep the ejection port that's this opening right here keep that facing up so that anyone else who passes by can see that the rifle is unloaded next you are going to load a magazine so pick up the magazine with your non-dominant hand embrace it against a hard flat surface take a look at the follower that's this piece inside the magazine it moves up and down the top of it will typically have some kind of wedge or ramp kind of shape to it that's a clue to which way the bullets need to be pointing in the magazine so pick up a round with your other hand and load it into the magazine with a bullet pointing in the same direction the ramp is moving just pop it over the top like that the rounds will sit on top of each other in a staggered pattern so one round will sit over to the left side of the mag the next round will sit on the right side and so on I suggest you not fill the magazines to full capacity for example this is a thirty round mag but I don't usually load more than about twenty-eight rounds I'll talk about why in just a minute once you've loaded however many rounds you want to shoot pick up the rifle with your firing hand take a quick look at the safety selector make sure it's still on safe pick up the magazine and insert it into the mag well until it clicks give it a quick little tug to make sure it's firmly seated in place if you skip this step your mag might fall out while you're shooting and you'll feel like an idiot and everyone's gonna laugh at you and that's no good so make sure you do that little tug once you've ensured the magazine is fully seated press the top portion of the bolt catch to close the bolt and chamber around okay let me show you that one more time when the bolt closes it picks up a round from the magazine and loads it into the chamber if I were to take a magazine that has just one round in it and load it and close the bolt now the magazine has no round in it because that that round is now in the chamber it's in here the gun will not fire unless there is a round in the chamber the loading procedure looks a little different if the bolt is already closed before you insert the magazine in this case insert the mag make sure it's fully seated it might be a little harder to get it to seat when the bolt is already closed and that's why you don't necessarily want a fully loaded mag when the spring is fully compressed it's much harder to get the magazine to seat okay so a mag is in there but the gun is not ready to fire yet there's no round in the chamber so you just pull the charging handle all the way to the rear and release it as much as possible you should try to keep your firing hand on the grip and do all the manipulations with your support hand so if you're running the rifle left-handed rotate it 90 degrees and use your right hand to run the charging handle like that okay so at this point the gun is loaded and it will fire if I disengage the safety and press the trigger but we're not quite ready for that so let's keep the safety on finger away from the trigger for now there's one other control on the rifle we haven't talked about and that is this thing here this is the forward assist the only time you would ever use the forward assist is if the bolt for some reason doesn't go all the way forward you can tap the forward assist and it will force the bolt into place it's debatable whether this is really all that useful in reality and a lot of ARS don't even have a forward assist you will probably never need to use it but at least now you know what it's for let's talk about firing the rifle I've cleared it for now because I don't actually want to shoot the gun in here but let's pretend you have just loaded it and now you're ready to shoot the best stance and grip to use are dependent on the type of shooting you're gonna be doing so I'm gonna give you a quick overview of one technique that's geared more toward using the rifle in a defensive context it starts with a good stance and there's really not much to it just get into kind of an athletic posture with your feet about shoulder width apart with your support side slightly forward your knees bent a little bit and your weight forward a little bit now gripping the rifle put your firing hand up high on the grip as high as you can get it keep your index finger straight up here well away from the trigger if you're right-handed put your thumb beneath the safety selector on this side keep her elbow pointed down you don't want to stick it out like that now place the stock in here in between your shoulder and your chest you kind of want on the outside edge of your pectoral muscle like that now most ARS are gonna have an adjustable length stock it's probably gonna work best for you if you just fully extend it or get it somewhere close to that if you're using a magnified scope you might have to bring the stock in a little bit in order to see through the scope properly otherwise most people seem to have better control of the gun if they extend it on out now grab the handguard with your support arm and I like to get my arm out almost a full extension or I have good control over where I'm pointing the gun there's different ways to do it though again don't worry too much about it at this point just to grab it somewhere now with the stock on your shoulder just pivot the gun down toward the ground just in front of the target this is the low ready position and it's the default position you're gonna use until you're actually ready to shoot the rifle when it's time to shoot bring the gun up to eye level rest your cheek against the stock get it firmly planted on there and as much as possible you want to move the gun to your face not your face to the gun you don't want to Crane your head over like that and bring the gun up to your eye like that now you need to line up the sights and here I'm gonna have to take a little detour to talk about sight alignment and I'll cover iron sights first iron sights aren't actually made of iron that's just the name we use for any traditional type sighting system where you have a front sight and a rear sight that you have to line up most ARS with iron sights have the aperture style also called peep sights the rear sight has a little hole that you look through there might be two different size holes the big one lets you line up the sights quicker the little one gives you better precision a lot of them are the flip up style sights like this one so when you're gonna shoot make sure your sights are flipped up I've got a fixed front sight on this AR so I don't have to worry about that one look through the hole in the rear sight at the front sight post you probably will have to close one eye to do this up everything so that the top of the front sight is right in the center of the target unless the target is really close you generally want your vision focused on the front sight everything else is going to be a little blurry the sight will wobble around a little bit and that's okay you won't be able to hold it perfectly still when you're shooting from a standing position if you have a red dot sight things are a little easier just line up the red dot with the target and that's all there is to it a more traditional magnified scope with crosshairs works the same way line up the center of the crosshairs with the center of the target whether you are using iron sights or a red dot or a scope you might have to make some adjustments to that sighting system so the spot that you're aiming at is the same as the spot the bullets are going this process is called sighting in the rifle and that's a topic for another day just be aware that if you bought your gun new or you just installed an optic yourself you will probably need to cite it in before you're gonna be able to hit anything okay so back to shooting the rifle when the gun is pointed at the target you can disengage the safety use your thumb if you're right-handed or if you're left-handed you can use the knuckle of your trigger finger and now finally you can move your finger to the trigger press the trigger to the rear with steady even pressure and bang congratulations you have just put a hole in something and the blink of an eye after the gun fires the bolt will move to the rear a spent shell casing will fly out of the ejection port a new round will be loaded into the chamber press the trigger again to fire another round and you can keep doing that until you run out of ammo or you decide to stop shooting in either case any time you stop shooting take your finger off the trigger engage the safety and go back to the low ready position if the gun is empty the bolt will lock open on the last shot remove the magazine and either load another mag or put it down on the table with the muzzle pointed in a safe direction and the ejection port facing up okay that was a lot to cover so let's go through all that again with a quick live fire demonstration first clear the gun remove the magazine lock the bolt open and check the chamber make sure the safety is on put the gun down and then load the magazine once the mag is loaded double check that the safety is still engaged on the rifle insert the magazine give it a quick push pull to make sure it's seated press the bolt catch to close the bolt and chamber around from the low ready position raise the gun line up the sights disengage the safety and press the trigger when you stopped firing finger off trigger engage safety and down to low ready when the gun is empty the bolt will lock open remove the magazine and load another one or put the gun down with the muscle pointed in a safe direction for more shooting advice reviews and how-to guides be sure to check out the archives take a look at our blog at Lucky gunner comm slash lounge and when you are ready to take that AR to the range get your ammo with lightning fast shipping from us at Lucky gunner calm you

Channel: Lucky Gunner Ammo

Views: 1,795,402

Rating: 4.9223104 out of 5

Keywords: ar-15, lucky gunner, gun safety, shooting 101, shooting technique, shooting basics, how to use an ar15, ar 15 rifle, how to use ar 15, how to use a ar15, how to shoot ar 15, how to shoot an ar 15, ar15, rifle, shooting, how does an ar15 work, ar15 beginner's guide, ar15 basics

Id: mL-ZzgwkuzE

Length: 14min 26sec (866 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 20 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Murrabbit]

Decent 101 "what the heck is this thing even?" type video.

One minor note - toward the end as he talks about the weapon cycling he mentions that the bolt moves to the rear - and he illustrates this by pulling back on the charging handle. Pulling the handle back moves the bolt of course, so I see what he's going for there, but in a 101 video it's probably a good idea to also mention that when you are actually firing the weapon the charging handle will not move when you fire the weapon - so don't worry about getting your cheek right up on that stock, and if your posture is hunched forward and you've got a lot of contact with that rifle you're still fine - you can put the tip of your nose right up against that charging handle and you're still good to shoot, and it's not gonna punch ya in the face.

Take note of his posture in the very end of the video, back curled a bit, shoulders shrugged some, leaning forward, wrapping his body around the rifle as much as possible - this helps to absorb recoil and keep the rifle on target for followup shots. A lot of first time shooters seem to like to stand up nice and straight, even arch their back or lean away from the rifle (hey it's about to make a big bang, I get being a bit sheepish about the damn things), which is just generally a bad shooting posture. You don't wanna be afraid of your rifle, so be sure to get yourself behind it real nice and sturdy and show it whose boss. . . or be it's trust-fall buddy? Or . . . well you get the idea.