 Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel of the Fence, and today we're gonna talk about the minimum requirements for a fighting rifle. The Minimum Requirements So the term fighting rifle, that's a term that I first heard from James Yeager as far as I know, he invented it. And it's a good term, it's a good term. It's a term meaning, you know, the rifle that you would fight with, right? A rifle that you're gonna go to work with as opposed to a rifle that you would maybe target shoot with or perhaps compete with or shoot some deer with or whatever. And a fighting rifle can do those other things, but those other rifles may or may not be able to be a fighting rifle, right? So what are the minimum requirements for a fighting rifle? Like, guns are very popular right now. There's a lot of people buying them, a lot of first time buyers, and the supply is just dwindled and prices have gone up in economics. So what, if you're brand new to it or you're trying to build like the minimum requirements for a fighting rifle, you're talking to your friend who wants to buy a rifle for the first time and they wanna use it to protect themselves or whatever, what are the minimum like bare bones requirements you can get away with and still have a capable fighting rifle that can do the job, okay? That's what this video is about. Now honestly, that's why I built this gun in particular, because I wanted to answer that question and I wanted to have a gun that's just like, look, bare bones minimum, what is it? What does it look like? So it needs to be a, first off, it needs to be a competent gun and caliber. And what I mean by that is a semi-automatic intermediate cartridge, right? Can you get a 308 and whatever? Yes, but then now we're getting into like battle rifle territory. And aside from that, again, we're talking about like, what do we bare minimum need at the most reasonable cost we can get and 308 is just always gonna be more expensive than 556 or 223. So in that case, an intermediate cartridge rifle and primarily the big two, right? You have a 223 or 556 gun and you have a 762 by 39, right? Those have been the two that have ruled the roost for the past like 70 years. So first off, a competent caliber like I talked about. This is an AR-15 chambered in 556. You can shoot 556 and 223 through it. Primarily we'll just shoot 223 because it's cheaper and more readily available than 556 proper. Most people I know just shoot 223 through their rifles. So yes, 762 is cheaper, but an AR-15 is by far the most superior intermediate cartridge rifle ever. You can take that to the bank. You can quote me on that. I would take a $600 AR over an $1,800 AK any day. We can have that discussion some other time. Okay, so right, you need a rifle. You need something like that. Be it an AK or an AR. ARs are superior and you're an American, so buy an AR. But either or work, okay? From there, you're gonna need some kind of sighting system. This, I went as bare bones basic as I could get, right? I just have the traditional front post sight and then I have our carrying handle on this one because I happen to have that left over from another build. So I have the carrying handle which has the rear sight in it. You could get a flip up rear sight if you want. I just happen to have this so it went on here because again, for me it was the most economical at the time. For you, it might not be, you might just buy a new rear flip up sight, okay? There are only two accessories that are required on a rifle. And I put it in the accessories because like I said, they're required. You've gotta have them. The first one is a sling, okay? This is a Magpul transitional sling that I had left over from again. Other slings that I've had and I've just bought different slings to move on with my guns. So I had this one left over, so that's what went on here. But you need some kind of sling. Preferably one that adjusts, that's gonna make your life easier a lot later when you start actually using this thing. But whatever, any will work, okay? Most people like 90, 95% of shooters are gonna run a two point sling. If you wanna run a one point, because that's your flavor, that's fine. Some people have problems with that, I don't care. But you have to have a sling. I've heard it said and I think it's pretty accurate that a sling is to a rifle what a holster is to a pistol, right? It holds it when you're not using it. So I can do this and I can use my hands and I can talk and I can move and I can drag a person out of the way, whatever. But you've gotta have a sling. I know some people unlike their home guns don't have slings on it, cause their thought is look, I'm gonna grab the rifle and I'm gonna go and I get that, that's fine. You do you, it's America. But I'm gonna run a sling on all my rifles, right? I wanna be able to grab all of my fighting rifles and go do shit if I had to and so they all get slings, okay? That's just me, you do you. The other accessory that's required is a light, okay? You've gotta have a light on your rifle. That's a requirement for rifles. A white light and a sling, that's it. But you've gotta have a white light. Here I just did the most bare bones basic thing I could do. Again, I had this light previously. So if you had to go buy it, a new handheld light you could do that. Get one that's momentary only, right? There's no click cap. This particular one I guess I could turn the cap somewhere, there it is. I can turn it so it's constantly on. But I just leave it push button. But get a light that's momentary only, okay? Some people will argue about that. I know, whatever, that's fine. Momentary only light and then you can just, this is like I think this attachment piece, it came with a light that I ended up using on a different thing but I think it cost me 50 bucks. So for 50 bucks I can put a light on my rifle that's gonna work. This is again, this is just an old surefire that I ended up putting on here. But you can put any kind of tactical light that's gonna be able to do it. Especially when you start talking about like carbine length gas systems where the light is gonna be further from the muzzle where all the concussive blast happens. You can put just about any kind of tactical half decent light back here and it's probably gonna survive. So again, this was just a handheld light that I put in a clamp and put on the gun. Do what you want. But that's it, that's the bare minimum you need and you can come take a class with this, you can save your life with this. People have gone to war with less than this for the last 70 years on the rifles. So you can, can you do less? Yes, but these are the only two requirements that you're gonna require on a fighting rifle. So again, for depending on when you buy the rifle, where you buy it, you can get away with building a functioning fighting rifle set up for probably closer to 800 bucks right now, give or take. After you get the rifle and the light and the sling and you kind of build it from scratch. But that's still not bad. That's still not bad to be able to have a rifle that might save your life. You have to buy some bullets, you have to buy a couple of magazines, but after that you can be set. I've been into guns for a while now and I have all the Gucci stuff, right? Or at least a lot of it. And I have fancy optics and fancy expensive lights and fancy slings and whatever. And that stuff's nice, it's really nice. But at the end of the day, this is really all you need. And if you only have this, don't feel undergunned or don't feel inferior or don't feel like if I had that thing, then I could be better or whatever. If you just have this and you master this, the world's your oyster at that point. That's really all you need. I think it's the Marines that shoot out to about 500 yards with iron sights on the rifle qual. So they do it with a gun just like this, right? Just like this, and that's how they do it. So you don't need to feel undergunned or incompetent or lustful of more gear. And I get it, we're all chasing the dragon, we're all lustful of more gear all the time. But if you just have a bare bones fighting rifle, get some quality training with it, learn to run it, thank me later. That's all I got for you. I hope that was helpful. I hope that kinda, one, bolsters you with confidence to feel like you don't need stuff in order to protect your life. You just need a bare bones minimum requirements and some training, and you're gonna be good to go. Two brave deeds and endure.