Maggie's Farm

Very nice. Sadly, there are seemingly no lefty semi-auto .308 variants of this type of rifle. Some would say this is no big thing and that a lefty should just become accustomed to the empty brass whizzing past your eyeballs. The only lefty semi-auto .308 that I know of is the Browning BAR ShortTrac, a hunting rifle with wooden furniture and a typically limited mag.

If I want a lefty AR, I can go with Stag or DPMS in .223, or learn to live with a righty .308. And an AR .308 is what I want.

They put brass deflectors on the AR-15s to direct the ejection somewhat away from the face. It is somewhat better for the Euros. Herstal's 2000 is completely ambidextrous, or rather the parts can be swapped to make a righty into a lefty, as can the parts in the AUG. Both in .223.

In semi-auto shotguns (none of which I currently own) you have Benelli with three lefty models. There was a Remington lefty semi (I forget which one) for ages which has quietly disappeared from the 2007 on line catalog. The 105CTi, with its downward ejection a la Ithaca 37, has replaced it. But the CTi has gotten mixed reviews and was criticized in the latest issue of Shooting Sportsman, something rare in a gun rag. Many of their recommended fixes seem simple - stock shims, better recoil pad. But there may be deeper problems than that, especially the inability to cycle very light loads. I hope they can get the kinks out. If they do, I might spring for one.

What just realized that what I said about the Herstal isn't quite true. It is the AUG with the swappable parts. The FS 2000 solves the problem by having ambidextrous controls and ejecting forward in that the empties collect in a chute mounted alongside the barrel, from where they just fall or are pushed out. Several people have raised the issue as to what happens in the chute if you empty a clip while firing straight up. Don't know, and don't want to spend $2,500 to find out. On the plus side, it uses AR mags. On the minus side, they recalled the first batch because the thing would slam-fire (go full auto) unpredictably. Or perhaps that is not a bug but a feature. The FS 2000 is also, at least to me, as ugly as sin.

Hardly. I'm a piker.

I notice from looking at photos taken at the 2007 SHOT Show that Kel-Tec displayed a prototype of an ambidextrous bullpup in .308, due to be produced in 2008. Kel-Tec has been hit or miss (as it were) in the past, but it sounds intriguing if your are lefty.