The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

Without getting entrenched with who makes the best UK AR style rifle (I know it's been done to death before) any opinions on the wider field that is now appearing with US and German manufacturers.

I am looking to .223/5.56 calibre straight pull and giving serious consideration to LMT, but also looking to Hera and Schmeisser.

Mainly to be used for 100/200 yards non-precision 6" diameter Shoot'n'C/plastic bottle shooting at Severnside using a range of Vortex/Burris AR type sights (and a Mepro M21b when it arrives). Thinking a 16"/18" barrel length 1:7 twist.

Have discounted CMMG as handling a .22 it felt a bit rough and ready, already have a Lantac .22 Raven (although indications are that we might see a full Lantac US manufactured rifle this year that might be interesting), already have a SGC 9mm LR so would like something else.

As an outsider I would consider an AK (epecially with Magpul guards and stock) but only have a .223 on ticket and doesn't seem right somehow to have an AK in .223.

Price range up to/circa £2000 (but closer to £1500 would be better).

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated especially from any LMT or Hera owners.

Mark Bradley or Dave at Valkyrie if I wanted another AR they'd be top of my list

Mark Bradley has a slightly used BAR15 up for sale on UKV,

http://ukvarminting.com/forums/topic/32213-sh-bar-15/

This rifle came in to me about 3 weeks ago as the owner has decided to embark on a life of F Class!!
Anyway, it had a American Spirit Arms lower, and I needed that for another project.
The barrel is a 14.5" Border 1:8 and by the looks of it the rifle hasn't seen a lot of use.
Only the barrel, bolt, upper receiver and stock assy & grip are s/h, but in VGC.
The lower receiver assy, Troy Industries 9" handguard and ALG Defense (Geissele) QMS trigger and magazineare all brand new.

Asking £1450

The Hera is a nice rifle but if you've got a Lantac, you've got a Hera really, the receiver styles are extremely close. LMT have a great reputation. Lantac will do you something very accurate too of course.

Before the interminable, petty, partisan, UK built, pretendy AR, pishing contest goes any further can we stick to the OPs question criteria:

"Without getting entrenched with who makes the best UK AR style rifle (I know it's been done to death before) any opinions on the wider field that is now appearing with US and German manufacturers."

Shooting "non-precision" I would have said get an AK, but if you think a CMMG is too rough and ready an AK is definitely not for you....

Zilberbak wrote:
As an outsider I would consider an AK (epecially with Magpul guards and stock) but only have a .223 on ticket and doesn't seem right somehow to have an AK in .223.

Price range up to/circa £2000 (but closer to £1500 would be better).

Well done Tovarisch, a 5.56/.223 AK is indeed wrong

I would say get a variation for 7.62x39, spent £7-800 on an AK variant and spent the rest of the 2k budget on ammo

snayperskaya wrote:

Zilberbak wrote:
As an outsider I would consider an AK (epecially with Magpul guards and stock) but only have a .223 on ticket and doesn't seem right somehow to have an AK in .223.

Price range up to/circa £2000 (but closer to £1500 would be better).

Well done Tovarisch, a 5.56/.223 AK is indeed wrong

I would say get a variation for 7.62x39, spent £7-800 on an AK variant and spent the rest of the 2k budget on ammo

Sorry, he said a 6 inch target - not 6 foot...

From my experience, 3-4 MOA is the norm in an AK's true caliber. In 223 that comes in about an inch, at the cost of more expensive / rarer mags.

Zilberbak wrote:Without getting entrenched with who makes the best UK AR style rifle (I know it's been done to death before) any opinions on the wider field that is now appearing with US and German manufacturers.

I am looking to .223/5.56 calibre straight pull and giving serious consideration to LMT, but also looking to Hera and Schmeisser.

Mainly to be used for 100/200 yards non-precision 6" diameter Shoot'n'C/plastic bottle shooting at Severnside using a range of Vortex/Burris AR type sights (and a Mepro M21b when it arrives). Thinking a 16"/18" barrel length 1:7 twist.

Have discounted CMMG as handling a .22 it felt a bit rough and ready, already have a Lantac .22 Raven (although indications are that we might see a full Lantac US manufactured rifle this year that might be interesting), already have a SGC 9mm LR so would like something else.

As an outsider I would consider an AK (epecially with Magpul guards and stock) but only have a .223 on ticket and doesn't seem right somehow to have an AK in .223.

Price range up to/circa £2000 (but closer to £1500 would be better).

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated especially from any LMT or Hera owners.

Excluding barrel, bolt and trigger all milspec AR's are pretty much the same so what you should be looking at is which barrel, bolt and trigger would you like/is being used in the build rather than the name or brand of the AR. Regarding UK built AR's I've noticed with some there's not much consistency with the parts being used as it's more of a case of build with what components are available so "brand continuity" may go no deeper than a rollstamp on a receiver.

I shoot at Severnside so you're welcome to have a go on mine. It's 25% Magpul, 45% LAR, 10% Geissele, 10% Krieger and 10% Noveske.

Mikaveli wrote:

snayperskaya wrote:

Zilberbak wrote:
As an outsider I would consider an AK (epecially with Magpul guards and stock) but only have a .223 on ticket and doesn't seem right somehow to have an AK in .223.

Price range up to/circa £2000 (but closer to £1500 would be better).

Well done Tovarisch, a 5.56/.223 AK is indeed wrong

I would say get a variation for 7.62x39, spent £7-800 on an AK variant and spent the rest of the 2k budget on ammo

Sorry, he said a 6 inch target - not 6 foot...

From my experience, 3-4 MOA is the norm in an AK's true caliber. In 223 that comes in about an inch, at the cost of more expensive / rarer mags.

Both my AKs will put pretty much every round in a 6" circle at 100m with Russian milsurp ammo and iron sights if I do my part.Target below is what my AKM did at 50m out of the box with no sight adjustments and 1967-dated ammo, a total of 70 rounds......
As seen on Olegs Rusmilitary site