Rifles

Gun Tests Magazine has named the SSK Industries 300 Whisper AR-15 as the publication’s “Best in Class Rifle” for 2011.

Semi-automatic carbines have become enormously popular. Applications range from law enforcement and home defense to competitive target shooting and hunting. The most popular platform is the AR15-based weapon chambered for 223 Remington. But if you visit your local shooting range, you will find AR-style carbines, circa the 1960s, shooting alongside historical battle-rifle actions made popular in the 1940s. Gun Tests magazine recently tested an M1A variant in the form of Springfield Armory's $2090 Socom II AA9627 with black fiberglass stock.

Sturm, Ruger's new Ruger American Rifle is an American-made bolt-action offered in short- and long-action calibers. Ruger President and CEO Mike Fifer said, 'Our new rifle is lightweight and quick handling, yet manages recoil surprisingly well. With a great trigger, smooth-cycling bolt, and tack-driving accuracy, the Ruger American Rifle gives hunters an affordable tool to achieve success in the field.'

AR-15 rifles continue to be churned out by more and more manufacturers. Frankly, the modular concept of the AR platform means that rifles can be built to specific price points, more easily, we think, than traditional bolt guns or other actions. And we recently found two such guns that illustrate how perfectly pitched the product price can be made to appeal to a specific customer.

The Ruger SR-556E "Essential" #5912 5.56mm NATO/223 Rem., $1375, is what Sturm, Ruger calls its value-priced two-stage piston-driven carbine. The major similarity between it and the SR-556FB (January 2010) is the carryover of Ruger's two-stage piston and multi-stage regulator. The major difference is, rather than a quad rail, the Essential has a round aluminum handguard with a full-length Picatinny rail only at 12 o'clock, so the rail and the flattop receiver align. The handguard is also drilled and tapped to accept sections of rail or handguard covers, available at www.ShopRuger.com, which allows the user to configure the handguard to his or her requirements while minimizing size and weight. It's also a significant cost savings over the quad rail.

Adcor Defense's B.E.A.R. Elite is the second generation of that company's modern automatic rifle line. Based in Baltimore, Adcor rolled out the original B.E.A.R. (Brown Enhanced Automatic Rifle, designed by and named for Michael J. Brown, executive vice president of operations at Adcor Defense) with a free-floating gas-piston system attached to the rail. This allowed for a free-floating barrel. Other features were a key-locked rail system, an ambidextrous forward-placed charging handle, and a polymer dust shield that protects the ejection port from debris.

The B.E.A.R. Elite tested here offers several enhancements to the original (hereafter, we'll spell it "Bear" so those capital letters don't scream on the page). The Bear Elite features an FN Manufacturing 1:7 twist hammer-forged, hard chrome-lined barrel with M249 rifling profile, a Magpul MOE Mil-Spec rifle stock, and a Magpul MOE rifle grip. Both the Bear and Bear Elite are available in several barrel lengths, optics ready or with sights, and in fully automatic for law enforcement. Our test gun here is the optics-ready (no sights) 16-inch-barrel Adcor Defense Brown Enhanced Automatic Rifle (B.E.A.R.) #201-2040 E, $2214.

The charge we gave our test team was to compare a highly-rated gas-piston gun to the two new entries, so we chose the Ruger SR-556FB 5.56x45mm NATO-223 Rem., $1995. It's obviously very similar to the 556E — but much more expensive. In contrast, the Bear Elite offers an interesting set of potential upgrades, but it is $200+ more expensive than the SR-556FB.

The History Channel compares the M14 and M16 rifles.

Colt Defense LLC will bring to market the LE6920MP, a rifle standard equipped with many of Magpul’s most popular firearm accessories. This rifle is the first product Colt Defense and Magpul have developed together.

During World War I and World War II, and in some cases beyond, there came four great bolt-action rifles in martial actions: the Lee Enfield, the Mauser, the Mosin Nagant and the Springfield. While there were many variations among the rifles, we all know what a Lee Enfield and a Mauser look like. The Nagant was produced in the many millions, and the Springfield is sometimes regarded as a rifle with almost magical accuracy. These rifles wrought many a bloody victory for one side or the other in warfare from about 1903 onward. The Lee Enfield and Mauser rifles are still seen in action in Afghanistan today. Recent events in India showed Indian security forces armed with the Lee Enfield, probably a homegrown version. These rifles simply refuse to die. While these four are the great battle rifles of the 20th century, there were other contenders for the test program that were considered and discarded. The excellent Schmidt Rubin straight-pull rifle was considered, but since it didn't figure into warfare it was not included. The French rifles are a bit quirky for our tastes, and ammunition is difficult to obtain. Likewise, the Italian Carcano is not really in the league with the others. We admit the Japanese Arisaka is an omission, but we were unable to find a suitable firing version within our time frame. We used four rifles primarily during the test program and added two special interest rifles for a side comparison as well. In the end we think we have a good idea of the handling properties of the rifles used in the Great Wars.

The ever-popular AK-47 has been made in many countries over many years, and in many variants. They have been around a long time and are still being manufactured new today. Some are better than others, and the buyer will have to do some research to find the best bargain, and luck might have a part to play as well. In an effort to clear away a tiny bit of the fog, we acquired one of the recently offered fixed-stock versions from Romania, called the WASR-10 (about $450), and put it up against a recently made Yugoslav [IMGCAP(1)]version with a folding stock, called the M70 AB2 (about $500). Both were in the original 7.62x39 caliber, and both were in near-new condition. Our test ammo was two-fold only, Russian hollow-point and Chinese soft nose. Both rifles had what we consider to be excellent triggers. And besides the caliber and pedigree, that's about all they had in common. We took a hard look at them, and here's what we found.

Here's a look at the 2011 new products from Taurus.

Smith & Wesson has added a new extension to its Military & Police (M&P) Rifle Series with the introduction of the M&P15 chambered in 300 Whisper.

Despite the long-standing availability of the AR-10, 30-caliber semi-automatic rifles continue to be less popular than the 5.56mm/223 Rem. AR-15 little brother. But just like the high-capacity 9mm pistol led to the popularity of more powerful high-capacity handguns, we're still interested in finding a good 30-cal carbine.

Our latest acquisitions in this quest began with Ruger's newest 7.62x39mm Mini-Thirty carbine, the $921 No. 5854. We wanted to see if shortening the barrel to a hair over 16 inches would make it a better choice. For the AK-47 adherents, we added a $1270 Colorado Shooting Sports Custom Combat Gen 2 AK-47 that featured the addition of a Lightning Bolt and Lightning Lever for improved combat readiness. Our third gun chambered the 300 Whisper, a round designed to be fired through a suppressor. Built by SSK Industries, this was a $1300 AR-15 platform capable of shooting both high-velocity and subsonic velocity rounds with the twist of a screw in the handguard.

Since our primary interest was close quarters battle, our accuracy tests were limited to benchrest shooting from the 50-yard line. But we also challenged the SSK Industries 300 Whisper to longer distances to learn more about this cartridge.

In addition, we had some very specific questions to answer that had more to do with the general "shootability" of these carbines, including rapid fire. We got some help practicing for shots of record from a couple of new products from Battenfeld Technologies.

They were Caldwell's $130 Dead Shot Field Pod and the $170 Magnum Rifle Gong. The Field Pod is an ultra lightweight collapsible shooting rest with a carry sling. We especially liked the gong because its frame broke down to 5 easy-to-carry pieces plus the durable AR550 steel plate. Ringing the gong gave our test evaluators immediate feedback and we didn't have to paste up targets. It was a lot of fun for our testers, too.

For optics we mounted the same Springfield Armory 3-9X40mm A.R.T. IV variable power scope on both the Ruger and SSK Industries carbines. The Colorado Shooting Sports AK-47 utilized a forward mount with an Aimpoint CompML2 with 4-MOA red dot mounted and sighted in by CSS. It seemed ideally suited to the weapon and was a better choice than any long-relief scope we could supply. In view of our relatively short test distance, we chose to leave it in place.

For ammunition we utilized four different rounds of 7.62x39mm ammunition. They were 124-grain soft point Wolf Military Classic, 124-grain FMJ American Eagle, Remington UMC 123-grain Metal Case, and Winchester 123-grain full-metal-jacket rounds. Our 300 Whisper ammunition consisted of three Cor-Bon rounds and three Hornady rounds. The Hornady rounds were the 110-grain VMax, 208-grain AMax, plus a handload topped with a Hornady 169-grain hollowpoint boattail bullet. The Cor-Bon rounds were 125-grain jacketed hollowpoint rounds, 220-grain Subsonic rounds and a 150-grain jacketed soft point. Unfortunately, we had difficulty chambering the 150-grain JSP rounds and returned them to Cor-Bon for analysis.

(GunReports.com) -- PARA USA announced today that it was exiting the rifle market to concentrate on its core competency in handguns. CEO Thanos Polyzos said, “PARA has some exciting new projects in development that will continue the innovation that we started with the high capacity P14-45 pistol. We want to bring these exciting new major caliber handguns to the firearms market and we need to focus our attention on them.”