It's not every day that you get to buy a gen-yu-wine James Bond gadget. In 1963's From Russia With Love, Bond unpacks a Q-supplied briefcase that contains, among other things, a handy little .22 caliber rifle that comes apart and fits into its own stock. He later uses it to snipe a hapless minion who was dropping grenades on him from a helicopter.
That rifle was the AR-7, a survival rifle manufactured for the US military by Armalite. These days, it's made by Henry Repeating Arms in Brooklyn, which re-named it the Henry Survival Rifle. Now I have one of my very own, because the last time I got grenades dropped on me, all I had was some harsh words and a rock, and that was lame.
Actually, I got it for bikepacking. It weighs 2.5 pounds, and the barrel, receiver, and a spare 8-round magazine all tuck ingeniously into a plastic stock that floats.
It will fit nicely into my trailer. Just the thing for defense against the varmints, four-legged and otherwise, who might want to eat my food, steal my bike, or disembowel me while I'm camping in the woods not far from a road.
When you put it together, it looks like this:
I also picked up an MSR Dragonfly stove, which means that the only major piece of kit left to get is a sleeping pad. Soon, I will be prepared to ride as far as I can in a day, then creep off into some unfenced and unposted woods, pitch a tent, rehydrate some food and cook it, sack out, then wake up in the morning, fry up some instant pancake mix, and head off again.
This, I will call fun.
