Picked up a new AR today. I’d been wanting a slightly ‘upper tier’ AR for a while now. I’ve a stack of Palmettos, Stags, Bushmasters, Rugers, etc. but I kinda wanted something with a little more high-end quality. You can spend a lot in the AR world for a Noveske or an LMT or some other top-tier brand and I wouldn’t mind having one. But…I’m not quite there yet. I did want to get something, though, a bit better than what I have. One of my vendors was having a sale and I decided that the folks at FN have been stamping out guns for the better part of over 100 years…let’s get one of their AR’s.
Nothing terribly fancy. Its an FN TAC3 which is what the pattern for most AR carbines seems to be these days – M-lok handguard, telestock, no front sight tower, lotsa pic rail. I’m throwing an Eotech on there, some BUIS, swapping out the muzzle device for a quick mount for a suppressor, adding a light, and calling it a day.
I’ve been shooting AR’s since…mmm…the late 80’s. I think I’ve owned every brand that was extant back then and have seen some weird ones come and go. Back in the day, you didn’t have M4geries…they were called CAR-15’s. If you had an AR you most likely had a full size 20″ rifle. Back then it was Colt, Bushmaster, Olympic, and DPMS. There might have been a few outliers but those were the main brands.
Pic rail wasn’t a thing yet, and attaching a flashlight to your gun never really occurred to us. Flattops were definitely not a thing….AR’s all had carry handles. If you were tacticool you might have the Colt carry-handle scope or an Armson OEG on there. If it was a CAR-15, odds are good you had about 4″ of flash suppressor hanging off the front of your gun to make it legal length,
Mags were aluminum from Okay, Adventureline, Colt, Sierra, and a handful of other makers. If you wanted a drum there was a massive plastic 90-round monstrosity you could buy. If you wanted to really go off the deep end, the guys at LL Baston made mounts to mount an underbarrel shotgun like it was an M203. … an idea that is yet to die. I have never seen one in real life.
As time went on, the ‘rankings’ of manufacturers waxed and waned. The “ABC’s” (Armalite, Bushmaster, Colt) were the highly regarded top-tier guns (mind you this was damn near 40 years ago), and things like Olympic and DPMS were the ‘budget’ guns…much like Anderson/Palmetto today.
Also, way back then (late 80’s), Vietnam was still a relatively fresh memory. You could have a guy who had seen the elephant over there who was still less than 40 years old. The stories about the reliability issues of early M16’s were still being loudly preached. In fact, I know a guy here in town, former crew chief on a Chinook, who has nothing but venomous spite for the gun.
Calibers were strictly .223 and the flavor of the day was 55 gr. ball. Maybe 52 in some batches. Ar’s in other calibers wouldn’t be a readily available thing for a number of years.
Accessories were limited…you could buy surplus USGI 3-mag ALICE pouches and that was pretty much it. You had a GI cleaning kit in the buttstock. A GI sling finished the ensemble.
Nowadays, of course, its a different story. The AR is a ubiquitous platform with dozens of manufacturers, hundreds of third-party accessory manufacturers, a dozen calibers, and the modualr aspect of the rifle has been amplified and improved over the sixty years this thing has been around.
Which brings me to my new FN. It’s as far a cry from one of my early CAR-15’s as you can imagine. It’s more adaptable to things like lights and optics, is probably more reliable, has a freefloated barrel, and is probably more accurate with its heavier profile.
So, long story to simply say that I’m getting to be an old dude who can say “I remember when…”.
But..new toy, so yay!
FN has a long history of making nice firearms.
My goal is to get one of their DMR 3’s… $2500 is a chunk of change though.
https://fnamerica.com/products/rifles/fn-15-dmr3/
I absolutely love shooting my Sig M400… it’s smooth as silk.
Splurged one year on an Sig 516, but at my age it doesn’t shoot much differently than one of my DDs or PSAs. Driver’s fault, not the hardware. I need younger eyes and hands.
Zero- I would like to know what exactly you get with the FN that your PSA, Bushmaster, Anderson, etc do not have? Is it fit and finish, cold hammer forged barrel, different twist rate than those “ lesser” guns, Not trying to be facetious but really would like your explanation of upper end AR over the plebeian others.
Longevity and the in-spec tolerances that lead to it. I got sucked into this video and I thought it was fairly informative. While the mid- and lower-tier AR’s gave an ‘acceptable’ level of quality, it still came out to small out-of-spec issues that eventually stack. Also, barrel quality seemed to have room for improvement. While I imagine that no one is ever going to shoot out the barrel on their AR in normal use, you never know what the future holds.
https://youtu.be/cHGtjx_2qbQ?si=S7uhDYt2U2LDwh9-
Excellent explanation. Makes sense. I’ve been leaning towards a DDM7 or a LWRC myself.
I talked to C More earlier this year; nice guns but wow are they pricey and specialized!
Very nice carbine. You have good taste. Those tactical fore ends are very common. The better to add needed – wanted accessories on it is as good a reason as any. A LOT of croutons to top them off. Your choices sound reasonable.
Which sling do you favor for adding to it (if any) ? Standard two point, three point or single mount ?
I still have a Colt Target Sporter (20″ Cali-legal) with an OEG and a GI sling.
I have, on occasion, replaced the upper with something ‘cooler’. These days its basically a doner-lower until I build a new lower. But, it works well, and the OEG is surprisingly good.
And I have a few other AR patterns, mostly 5.56 (Wylde). Some so-called low end (Aero? Works just fine for me) some high end (LMT and DD, works just fine for me). A few different calibers, too.
If you want a tier 1 AR, why not build one yourself? I can easily assemble a rifle with the best components for far less than one would pay for an off-the-shelf mass produced model. Spend money on the barrel and upper components, the lower can be Anderson with a nice G trigger.
Well, if I built one myself then Im parting out components from a dozen manufacturers, which introduces a dozen variables, and I’m trusting my skills to assemble it versus a rifle put together by guys who do it for a living uses parts they manufactured themselves. Assembling an AR isnt especially tricky, but I have more confidence in something built by a global brand that build a million of these things for a living versus something done on my coffee table using a hodgepodge of parts.
Most of the critical parts are — even on the “top tier” products — made by a handful of smaller companies.
Break down a “mil-spec” Colt sometime: stock and other furniture by P&S (think they’ve changed their name recently but the CAGEC is still the same?), fire control parts by LW Schneider (“S in a square” logo), bolts, bolt carriers, etc by yet other contractors, barrels by yet others.
Colt may — emphasis on “may” — machine the forgings (made by yet other contractors) for their uppers and lowers, but primarily what you are getting with a Colt (or LMT, DD, etc) is a more prestigious stamping on the side of the lower. Functionally you have to seek out the real bottom-of-the-barrel offerings (I can’t recall the company name but their lowers were literally stamped with individual letter and number punches and appeared to have been manufactured in a junior high shop class) before you’ll have issues with poor tolerances.
Nor is the assembly work necessarily anything exceptional. We’re not talking about 1950s Pythons being precisely fettled by gunsmiths. ARs are being assembled by semiskilled laborers at best.
The “S” inside of the square is Schmid Machine, not LW Schneider.
CZ – Your FN, Colt, DD… are all assembled with parts from dozens of different subs. You, working on your coffee table are able to build a superior product and provide the needed QC.
Most of the AR assemblers working at the top brand manufacturers, are tractor mechanics at best. Don’t assume they always know what they are doing when banging together a mil-spec (at best) product.
And that is why ‘acceptable’ rack grade accuracy is 4 MOA.
Been thinking I want a float top just so I can use a dot and not have the postin the view. Dunno what I will do but need to get off the pot and do it.
I was in the Army 83 – 87. We used M16A2’s back then. Ran a ton of rifle ranges, we had stoppages ALL THE TIME. I always swore I would NEVER purchase anything that even looked like that stupid platform.
I didn’t know that the Army was using ammo/propellant that Eugene Stoner specifically told them NOT to use. Add that in to GI maintenance, and well, you know…
Love the platform now. Glad to see that I was wrong, things aren’t always black and white.
The issues were resolved long before 1983, and if you were issued an M16A2 you were using completely different ammunition: M855 rather than M193.
The M16’s problems in Viet Nam had far less to do with the powder used than with the combination of unchromed chambers, poorly-manufactured cartridges cases (many were far too soft) and a massive failure to perform individual user maintenance of rifles.
M16s would have had the same issues with ammunition loaded with (stick) IMR4475 as they had with (ball) WC846 powder. Chamber corrosion causing overly soft cases to stick in the chamber, requiring the infamous “cleaning rod down the barrel to punch the case out” to clear the stoppage.
I suspect your issues with M16A2s were largely magazine-related. Until very recently there was far too little attention paid to inspection and PMCS of magazines. If the magazine could be loaded with cartridges and locked into a rifle it was considered “serviceable” in many units, and supply sergeants did not like having to do the paperwork or spend the unit funds to order new magazines.
As an armorer and even later as the Master Gunner in my brigade it was an uphill battle to get supply sergeants to approve orders for a “go-to-war” supply of magazines that would be kept in storage while the existing stock of magazines was used for training and defective magazines were mercilessly culled with a large hammer.
Good point about the mags – Brownells sells (sold?) a go-no go gauge for the mag lips, but for $50 it was way too pricey for most, and now with plastic mags is unneeded.
But the biggest issue with the AR platform? They run better when run wet.
Looks like a nice rifle!
Funny how that works. Military adopts a new rifle in the early 60s. Then it takes around 50 years to get the damn thing to work right. Those early guns had many different problems. From the ammo being loaded with ball powder instead of stick powder. You couldn’t keep a round in the chamber at night on ambush. I worked with alot of veterans that used this in Vietnam and even some who were in the first Gulf war. Not many people ever had much good to say about the M16. Adaptability wasn’t a strong suit. In Vietnam the max distance was well within the max distance of 300 meters. In Afghanistan that distance wasn’t very good. Most contact over there was more like 500 to 800 meters. That was one reason they actually started to pull the M14s out of war reserve and did some modifications for use in the anus of the world. I’ve pretty much shied away from the M15 opting instead for an AK47 variant. And even the Yugo SKS.
But now that the chamberings are more powerful. I might try one of the new Ruger SFAR in 7.62x51mm or even the 6.5mm Creedmore.
But I still remember when Colt made guns were the only choice. Back when you could by three or four AKs for the price of one AR15.
I remember those days as well. Back in 1980’s, I decided the Ruger Mini-14, Mini-30 and M1 Garand was a decent self defense platform. .223, 7.62×39 and 7.62 Nato (Garands were Springfield Armory current production), they all had similar safeties – sights – action type so shooting one was similar to the others.
AR-15s were at least three times expensive as the Garand alone. (Now its the other way around – isn’t that funny ?) But the AR-15 is far more versatile now – not even a contest. Damn, I feel old.
Yep, the same with full caliber (7.62) rifles: Three choices, the M1A/M14 (M1A is a trade name), the FAL, and the G3/G91.
I recall when I was a teenager looking at an HK91 – gorgeous, wooden display case with ALL the accessories, and a price tag twice that of my car. I vowed to buy one, someday.
I did, eventually: The price got down to only a week’s salary as an attending physician. Of course I made a lot more then than as a teenager working in a gas station.
Then PTR came along and made inexpensive clones. The real salad days where when CTD was selling surplus Bundeswehr magazines for a buck a piece (or less). I got a few hundred mags and a few PTRs
The M1A/M14? The rifles were expensive, and while I had two Springfield M1As they both spent more time in transit for “free warranty” work than available for use. Mags were never inexpensive, mostly because Congressman Chuck Schumer decided that since they were not for .30-caliber rifles, the DoD could not make parts available through DCM, and $20-30 for a mag?
The free worlds right arm, the FAL? Please… Every country that actually fought a war with them (Britain, Argentina, Israel) replaced them with an M16 or similar as soon as the war ended: The brits almost literally did it as the squaddies got off the airplane at Brize-Norton.
The M14, FAL, and G3 platforms all have issues, too, first among them weight and ergonomics, then difficulties in scoping them. Much better to replace them with an AR platform like the AR-10.
I sure miss those $150 PolyTech AKMs. Ammo for them was hard to source when they first came out, hence the silly cheap price.
Rock River makes some nice iron. I picked up one their AR-47’s with a fluted barrel a while back. One of these days I’m going to have to get it to the range, heh.
Spent the $$$ on an fn barrel. Shoots like shit. Finally got a hand load to group. Would not recommend. That and you can’t hardly find a 1/9 barrel anymore. 1/7 just don’t like 55gr bullets
Great purchase, CZ! Congratulations!
I’m planning to take the less expensive option, and upgrade an AR with the best 1:7, 20-inch, DMR-style upper I can afford. That’s long been the poor man’s high-quality AR option: a basic, forged lower, followed by saving up and buying a really great upper from a trusted source–a case where the term “bang for the buck” really applies!
Dirty Bob
Nice to see a small mention of the Olympic Arms AR15. That was my first AR purchase many years ago. There is a lot of hate regarding that AR on the internet. I still have mine and love it. No issues to this day. I’ve acquired and built several over the years, and still like my original AR.