Bushmaster was originally made in Windham, ME. When sold to Remington, the Maine plant was closed and the employees were laid off. Then the original owner bought the tooling and plant and rehired all the workers under a new name: Windham Weaponry. They don’t have the cool roll mark and they are no frills, but a good manufacturer still
$1000 seems to be the magic price point lately. I picked up a Sig Sauer M400 TREAD Snakebite right at $1000 last year and it has been tip top thus far. To be fair, it has a 1:8 twist. 1337
@@violenceandpoetry barrel twist refers to the rifling in the bore. 1 full twist over 8”. Other popular rifling twists for 5.56 rifles are 1:7 and 1:9. 1:7 tends to stabilize heavier projectiles, while 1:9 tends to favor lighter projectiles. Thus 1:8 being the “Goldilocks” twist.
@@violenceandpoetry it's the rifling twist rate. one turn in eight inches. you can be anywhere from 1in 7 to 1in 9 or maybe even 10. a lot of people think one in eight is the sweet spot for the most versatile in stabilizing bullet weights. I think so myself.
I'm starting to think of charging handles in the same way as muzzle devices. There are so many options out there that the manufacturer may as well put a mil-spec CH on and leave it to the end user to change out.
also there's no fking guarantee right now that the charging handle anyone wants is going to be in stock. so sometimes you end up with your second choice on charging handle. so they probably don't want to get stuck providing a charging handle that's going to be a bitch to get, esp if they're already on a 4-week backorder.
My first AR was a varmint build, and I put a badger latch on the charging handle so it could clear the scope. That was the hot thing for the time, and soon afterward I put a BCM charging handle on another rifle. You can tell there was alot more thought put in the design of the BCM handle. The badger latch felt like it went too far back, like it was going to break off.
I'm glad that Bushmaster is finally reproducing this obscure classic rifle. With no one else out there making modern copies, the "AR-15" as they called it in testing, would surely become a Forgotten Weapon. Now the "AR-15" can truly get the recognition it deserves.
This has been the best explanation video for a lot of questions about the AR. Twist rate, nitride vs phosphate, and dwell time all summarized in easy to understand terms and still review the product. Thank you for this video.
I’m so tired of staring at his butt, it almost feels like I’m in prison. For the Love of God, cameraman (or woman or van or voman), PLEASE stop slo-panning to his butt. It’s like he’s advertising or something.
I always love James’ videos, but honest to god, I had NO IDEA that the channel could pull off a video animation so realistic as was done with the engineers / Twin Peaks segment. Lucas Arts will no doubt contact their team very soon! 🤞
I got my IWI Zion-15 last year when I graduated high school and I absolutely love it. I think it is by far one of the best sub $1000 ARs someone can get and honestly just a great rifle period.
Agreed. Those Zions punch so far above their weight. Especially when priced(at least when I got mine) around a M&P or Ruger AR. Perfectly fine guns, don't get me wrong. Shot several of them. But when they went up $100-$200, well, at that point just look at the next tier of rifles like the Zion.
I was looking through the comments to see if anyone would bring up the iwi Zion. It seems to me all the criteria that James goes over in the video such as one in eight twist rate, mid-length gas system, materials, finishes, etc. All for around the $800 mark
Bushmaster moved from windham, Maine in 2011 after they got acquired by freedom group. So if your bushmaster is labeled "windham, maine" as it's manufacturer origin, it's one of the good ones. After 2011, they moved factories and quality went down
I have a Windham gun that I bought about 20 years ago. It continually puked all over itself. I've replaced everything except the upper and lower forgings LOL!! NOW it runs fine. I thought of it as a learning experience. I've never bought another AR off the rack. I put my own together instead - Frankenguns. Five of 'em. They run
Hey James I think I've got a fun idea for a video series. My favorite old school actor was Charles Bronson. I'd love to see a "Guns of Charles Bronson's film career." And so on and so forth with whatever other gun toting actors you can think of.
My first AR was the Bushmaster XM-15 with the Magpul furniture. I still have it and that thing and it has never given me a single problem. Even shot plenty of steel case through it. The BZ looks pretty tempting though 👌🏼
Radian Raptor is still the king of the charging handles. I finally got to use the SD version for my suppressed rifle and it worked as advertised, no gas blow back in my face.
Your first AR, 20 years ago. Born in 71, parents bought their first AR in 67. Colt SP-1, the first center fire rifle I ever shot at the tender age of 8. Loved them ever since.
I bought the 16" Bravo Zulu back in August '22 as my first rifle - specifically for the reason it didn't have (m)any reviews and wasn't blatantly obvious that it was actually "Proven" like most other reputable companies. I was advised by much more experienced shooters to go for a tried & tested company, but I don't regret my choice to go with Bushmaster one bit. The handguard does have two set screws underneath so I don't know if they changed the setup after this video was put up. I'm super happy with this rifle after I swapped out the buffer spring & buffer to a Geissele Braided 42 & H2 to get rid of the cheap spring sound, and got a Geissele Airborne CH. I also swapped out Stock for Fab Defense, and got rid of the Thrill furniture as stock & grip wiggled a bit on mine. All of these upgrades were based off of personal taste, as the gun performed perfectly with sub 2MOA groups (for a noob shooter!) and cycled flawlessly out of the box. I'm really looking forward to putting a short can on it as well.
If you're this satisfied with the 1.8 inch groups then you're gonna be really happy with with aero and ballistic advantage barrels which can do 1.5ish on their 223 line
Thank you for the coverage of what to look for in an AR platform rifle. I was getting pretty confused around phosphate, nitride, and chrome-lined. You cleared it up, along with the gas system length. I appreciate it.
I feel like James is that dad who constantly tells his son “you could’ve done so much better son” And hop is like that son that’s just like “eh it works for me, I’ll do what I want”
This video just reminds me that I made all the right choices from the start. I deliberate over every-single purchase I make regardless of the industry. It takes me approximately 4-6 months just to buy a pair of shoes much to the chagrin of my wife. She always says - _"Suge, only _*_you_*_ can take the fun out of shoe shopping..."._ However, part of the fun (for me at least) is the copious amount of research before pursuing _any_ endeavor. I like to refer to myself as a "knowledge junkie". Meaning that I research everything I can possibly find before squeezing the trigger on a purchase. More often than not, I come away with more knowledge about a product than the vendor or even the manufacturer at times. This pragmatic approach leaves 'buyers remorse' completely out of the equation. It also alleviates the dreaded "junk drawer(s)" that so many people tend to have in this community. The only "junk" I have are the OEM parts that were removed from my projects over the years. Everything gets a label and a long term storage container. Nothing gets thrown away. Great video concept nonetheless gents. Stay classy my friends. EDITED for grammatical structure.
Dude, same here. Nearly all of my gun builds took at least 9mos to a year to plan out, purchase, and assemble. At this point, I could never see myself buying a complete AR pattern rifle unless we're talking about something insane like the Nemo Omen in 300wm.
I bought a ZroDelta Ready Series Base Rifle on sale for $800 a while back. 16” 1:8 .223 Wylde barrel, and pretty much standard parts everywhere else. It shoots really well!
Alway great content James. I do have to agree that 16” Mid length, 1/8 twist barrels are the way to go. Soft shooting, you can use a variety of loads 55,62, and 77gr and the barrel length is good enough to be effective up to 500 yards. Pair that with a Red-Dot/3x magnifier, or my preferred, a 1-6 LPVO with a TrexArms offset mounted Red-Dot like a RMR, Deltapoint or SRO for quick close range target acquisitions in case you’re caught with your lens on max(😅), a good flashlight, sling, chest rig to carry at least 3 mags and you got yourself a winner. I’ve build a 10.5” carbine length pistol, 16” mid length rifle and 20” rifle length rifle just to have one of each but the 16” is my go to piece. 😎👍
After a lot of research and reviews, I went with an IWI Zion-15 last year and have been slowly adding on as I go. Lots of gun-tubers said it was the best mid-tier rifle before you went into the high dollar Daniel Defense rigs. I love it and definitely think it punches above its weight. I've tacked on a Strike Link hand grip, Vortex Spitfire II 3x prism sight, and Magpul sling. I want to add a light/laser system next and upgrade the charging handle.
Nice to see that Franklin is working to rehabilitate the Bushmaster name by upping their game. Better features are important, better materials and QC will change the game for them. Thanks for a great video, James!
I LOVE that Thrill grip. I have one om my 10.5 pistol. The FA Binary trigger is kind of a toy, but if you use for quick double taps for follow up shots, it is a beast. I never use it for dumping ammo.
I just went with the S&W M&P Sport II. Ya its talked about alot but it really has been an outstanding rifle! I think I only paid like $450 for it like 3 or 4 years ago but wow what an outstanding deal for an excellent rifle. That same year I bought a FEDARM AR-15 on a winning bid of only $189 and didnt expect it to be any good however that rifle too was outstanding! I put a nickel high end bolt in the gun and it has run like a well oil Singer sowing machine. Im not sure if FEDARM is still making AR-15s but they would definitely be worth a look at only if you like high quality at a very cheap price.
Seems similar to the Savage MPR 15 recon i bought a few years ago. for $900 its the most accurate AR15 i have. If you haven't looked at savages AR lineup, its pretty compelling with Savage being known for making accurate barrels.
Heck yeah! My go-to rifle is an MSR Patrol. I installed a Midwest drop in handguard and a BCM grip/stock. Most accurate AR I have and I have a few. Savage makes a damn good rifle.
I have an Savage MSR Recon .223 Wylde and its bigger brother the MSR Hunter .308. The Recon is VERY accurate. The Hunter wasn't as accurate but with some Final Finish it tightened right up. Both are generally under 1 MOA with the right factory ammo and I do my part. The problem is good factory ammo is pushing $2 per round these days..for .308 anyway.
I just stumbled across the receipt for my first AR15 they i bought right after Sandy Hook in 2012. It was a S&W M&P MOE Midlength and cost $1200 at the time. It served me well for many years with T1 Micro, VTAC sling, and Streamlight light. In ended up giving it to my dad during the summer of 2020.
Gotta say I watch alot of gun channels and reviews, but I trust y'all (especially James aka short shorts guys) for reviews over all others. Keep up the great and entertaining works y'all!
I have no plans to buy an AR-15 yet, but as a resident of WA state, I bought myself 4 AR magazines with 30 rd capacity for posterity. The state is enforcing a 10 rd cap on all future magazine sales starting July 1st so I thought I'd better get grandfathered in just in case.
My 1st AR15 was a Barret Rec7 that jammed with multiple issues. I sold it after twice to the range and didn't touch another one for 6 years which was recently when I got a Spikes 16" which has been much better so far.
When measuring groups with a digital caliper, open the caliper up to the bullet diameter and zero it out. That way you don't have to subtract it from your group size, just read it right off the display.
Bought my AR before the internet. A Bushmaster build with misappropriated parts. Two barrels and now a new complete upper, I’m satisfied with Bushmaster.
Had an Aero handguard on my ar10 that screwed into the barrel nut. Had it leaned up against my truck. After it fell over, I discovered cracks between the screw holes. Now I only use Midwest Industries rails. Tension screws for life!
I heard of Thril from their cheap (but effective so far) MPX mags. They had a supply issue so they sent me a free MPX and AR mag for every MPX mag I purchased so I got 12 of their MPX mags and 6 of their AR mags. All work great so far. I used their AR mags for my X95
I'd recommend building and save a few hundred bucks. Get a PSA complete lower + AO Precision mil spec BCG + any complete upper of your choice. You can order those parts and not need a gunsmith to put the 3 pieces together. I did that and paired it with a Stag Arms upper (chrome lined barrel 1:7 twist 4150 steel) and it's a great rifle. The entire thing just cost me $650 and it's my favorite AR.
What appeals to me: the trigger sounds nice, sounds about like the one in some of the ruger ars, has qd holes in almost all the right spots, just needs em up front although I personally use the one in the rear of the handguard, good for chest carry but that's about it, and it has a mil spec charging handle, everyone else doesn't like those but that's my preference, I have a strike industries charging handle in my lightweight build, mainly because primary arms quit selling the 15 dollar imi charging handle and it was the cheapest one I could find that was 7075-t6, granted it does look nice, 30 bucks seems excessive, I actually prefer the imi over that one but I'll leave it on there just because it looks nice, I don't like wide charging handles, plus I shoot right handed and just pull the handle back with my left pointer finger so I don't care about ambi personally, overall I'd say it's overpriced because it just doesn't have that many features, the psa lightweight cross cut handguard looks better, the barrel is an unknown, not a fan of the grip but to each his own, I'd rather just build my own for less and have a ballistic advantage barrel that'll shoot sub moa or even a fn chf chrome lined barrel, get a spikes gas tube, kak gas block, an aero lower for the nice aesthetic, afrx skeleton or b5 stock, b5 grip, a similar trigger or just mil spec with some jp springs, toolcraft bcg, a2 fh cuz I'm cheap and brakes are loud, not to mention .223/5.56 has next to no recoil, get a couple spikes qd swivels and the sling of your choice, slap a 300 dollar leupold lpvo on top and you'd have a very capable rifle for around a grand or so that's accurate and user friendly plus you'd know what parts are in it, oh and I almost forgot a battlearms safety selector cuz those things are smooth. Then again I prefer building them myself, some people don't know how or don't want to or maybe they just don't like the parts I mentioned for whatever reason. At the same time, how much does this really offer over a 500 dollar psa? I've shot some 1 hole groups with winchester m855 from a 10.5 psa upper (trust me I'm as shocked as you are), and of you don't trust the psa bcg you can get a toolcraft for another hundred, but like a lot of people I'm not a huge fan of some of the psa stuff, but their handguards and lowers work just fine, or you could go with an aero and have a nice looking rifle that's got a ballistic advantage barrel from the factory (okay it says aero but it's the same, get over it), but I personally am not a huge fan of their handguards, they just look weird. So my final opinion, this is probably the right rifle for a lot of people, but it's not the right rifle for me. If you read this far my opinion must have interested you, if so, feel free to do what I said, otherwise my opinion really doesn't matter anyway and that's fine too, you do you. Nonetheless, have a great day!
My first AR was a Colt SP1. Not very impressed. Next was a Bushmaster...better for my uses at the time. Now I probably have at lest 12 different brands. Maybe half of them parts \ kit guns. Probably the best value is the PSA guns with the FN barrels. I have some Colt uppers with their pencil barrels that are light and shoot great. I even had \ have some Remington, DPMS & Bushmaster close out kits from CDNN investments. They were actually pretty good rifles. I still have a few of them.
On the outro music I can’t help but imagine James in short shorts doing the Carlton dance while all the 80’s neon colored outfits surround him on a dance floor as they observe the newest dance craze of 1986 possibly 1988
Haven't played with one yet. Looks fairly nice. I'd just add a radian raptor charging handle and replace the muzzle brake with a flash hider. Everything else looks good to go for my liking.
Olympic AKA SGW was before Bushmaster and the newer Armalite, kids LOL...Bushmaster tight chambers that wouldn't feed steel case ammo and had gas ports that required full power ammunition to function...
I own 4 ar variant firearms in 3 different calibers all of them together with 1000 rounds of ammunition per caliber didn’t cost 2500.00 and one of those calibers is 6.5 Grendel which is at its lowest cost 79cpr I’ve run at least 1000 rounds through each gun and aside from working out bugs like buffer weight and bad magazine for 7.62x39 I’ve had no problems
Why does no company sell an AR-15 receiver, with just a small parts kit, BCG, barrel, gas system, buffer, and a raw dog buffer tube? Market directly to the "AR builders" that think an Allen key is a purpose-built tool. Also, I'm happy that Bushmaster got their shit together, and I like the format of this review. The "what to look for" mil-spec comparison is really good.
Good to see more affordable AR's to make this platform more accessible. I like my Sig M400 Tread (also a sub $1000 AR) but if I were in the market today for my first AR, I'd likely consider the rifle in this video as well.
My first AR was a Bushy A2 style and I loved that gun, but that was 20 years ago. Back then Bushmaster had a certain mystique about them. SWAT teams across America used Bushmasters and there were rumors of CIA secret squirrel operations in Latin America, supplying clandestine guerrilla groups with Bushmasters. Nowadays, the law enforcement market is much more crowded but LMT, SIG, DD, LWRC & HK make up the biggest share and Bushmaster lost its mojo.
Before he passed away, Mr. Fjestad of Blue Book fame, he, in a discussion on Gun Talk radio, noted there were over 250 AR manufacturers! Hence, the seperate AR Blue Book.
For a first-time novice buyer, is there a chart breakdown of what you want in an AR? For example: best twist rate=8, best barrel=chrome lined, best steel= 4150 or whatever, best gas key=whatever, etc.
The first rifle I assembled was on a tight budget. It has a clamp railed forward and it walks away from the upper at the range after it heats up. Someday I will drill some set screw locations in the barrel nut.
The clamp on handguard is a Big deal! It will fill. I had one on a rifle and if you use sling tension for shooting offhand, it will come loose over a short amount of time (6hrs of shooting for me). It is just a very long lever torquing those screws.
Come on, James, you know the ARFCOM search feature is absolutely useless. There isn't a single thing in this world that ARFCOM hasn't bitched about at some point.
First AR was a Colt with a 20 inch barrel. It showed me that the long guns just fit me better than the shorter 16 inch guns that I always felt like were off balance when I tried them at the store. Not to mention a bayonet looks better on a 20 inch AR.
A modern 20" build is the best of all worlds, you get the velocity of a longboi but also a freefloat rail for better harmonics, a superior barrel profile for better weight distribution, as well as a sight radius as good or better than the M16. You don't get a bayonet, but if you're actually needing one your fight is probably already lost anyway...
@@Hybris51129 The way I figure it, if the SAS and Delta guys were able to literally tape D cell flashlights to their guns and make it work, how hard would it be to improvise a pokey bit...
Thrill is an up and coming company. I did a ton of research and their grip is awesome in ergo. It essentially copies the HK grip in texture and grip angle. Great piece. No idea on their stock furniture though.
My recommendations...for your first AR buy a pre-built one from Smith and Wesson, Savage, PSA or a well known manufacturer. Spend less than $1K but get generally what you want...or what you think you want: old style, new style, etc. Once you have one for a while and you try different parts on it, you'll start to know what you want in your next AR. Once you do that, assemble your second AR, even if it's just the lower and you buy a complete upper. For your third AR, assemble the upper and lower using the components you like...or buy whatever AR has the features you really want. If you're really able to understand the features important to you off the bat, then just go buy what you want.
If getting a PSA I'd recommend getting one with a freefloated upper, idk about others but I have not had good luck with their old school uppers with regards to canted FSBs.
@@tackytrooper If it had canted sights I would think PSA would return the upper. I picked up one of their blemish A4 carbine uppers and it’s great. There was not a blemish on it I could see. I also have several BCA uppers which have been great so far. The only issue I’ve had was I had to get the enhanced firing pin for the 7.62x39 upper to resolve light primer strikes with steel case ammo, which I believe come standard with them now.
Back in 2012, I paid just north of $1000 dollars for a Bushmaster patrolman carbine. Granted back then, I don't think we had the AR-15 options we had now. But, it came with good features then, paying $1100 dollars today for an even more feature heavy Bushmaster would probably be worth it if the quality is there. I did luck out and get a good production copy with mine. Though, I'm kinda partial to the 1/9 twist that came on my 2012 copy, maybe because I just don't see 1/9 out there much.
Since when is the consensus that nitrating is better than chrome lining? Chrome lining protects the barrel much better. The issue with chrome lining is that it somewhat reduces accuracy, which isn't the case with nitrating.
Chrome lining will generally offer a little longer lifespan with moderate use. And a noticeably longer lifespan with mag dumps and frts. DD and noveske barrels are CL’d and some of the most accurate barrels available. That being said, a good nitride barrel will last a long time, far longer than most shooters will need. I treat barrels as wear items so I’d rather have a perfectly gassed extremely accurate nitride barrel that gets me 12k rounds than a mediocre CL barrel that gets me 20k.
