The great Phil White let me know a couple of weeks back that a fantastic custom AR15 maker was eager to send me a test rifle so that I could experience first hand what their company is all about. Since I started writing for TFB, I have reviewed four AR style firearms and none of them have impressed me as much as the KVD-15 by KAVOD Custom, a boutique AR-15 manufacturer located in Vidalia, Georgia. Kavod in Hebrew is a greeting in the IDF that roughly translates to “with honor”, which to me is pretty neat. When I got in touch with them, they asked what I wanted on the rifle. Not just what kind of stock or other easily changed part, but internals, bolt, trigger, barrel, and anything else I could dream up. This resulted in me receiving the following on my KVD-15 (which they built for me in a day or two):

• A terrific two-stage trigger that has one of the cleanest breaks I have ever experienced with an AR-15 style rifle
• An M16 nickel-boron bolt carrier group
• Stainless 5.56 national match barrel with a 1:8 twist
• Odin Works aluminum rail system
• Bravo Company charging handle
• Magpul grip and magazines

So great, I received a rifle with all the makings of a fantastic lead slinger. The prominently displayed Hebrew characters on the receiver also look neat, and the testing conditions were coincidentally like a day in the Negev: windy, sandy, and hot. I threw on an Eotech and a 3x magnifier to test the gun:

A group of friends and I took the rifle with us to celebrate the safe return of one of our buddies from Afghanistan, and we all got to beat on it pretty hard:

I worked that two stage trigger as fast as I could, and the rifle chugged along perfectly. I also set out to make some noise by hitting the steel ringers at the 100 yard mark:

My friends also very much liked the rifle, and all gave it a go:

My friend CJ even brought out his M16 lower and we have the upper a try on full auto. Needless to say, the gun performed flawlessly when turning money into noise at 700 rounds per minute.

After a good day of shooting, it was time to give the gun a rest. All in all, the gun was shot about 200 times:

With all the chaos of us blasting away, I did not have time for a great accuracy test that day, so I had to go back and shoot again for distance.

All shots were taken with PPU 55 grain at 100 yards with an Eotech + 3x magnifier:

Photo taken from a previous article to show distance from the bench.

I always have a hard time sighting in just right for some reason, but as usual I shot five groups of 5 shots each. Also, unfortunately I did not have a cameraman for this one.

Keep in mind that I am not a benchrest of long distance shooter, but with this gun it made me look like one. While my calipers have decided to crap out on me, I used a quarter to show relative group size. I was able to pull off this:

I shot a genuine one inch group with this gun, with only 3x of magnification! My worst was about 2.5 inches or so, but three of the groups were under 2″ at 100 yards. With a more experienced distance shooter behind this thing, I bet it could perform like the above target consistently!

I was so surprised by the way this rifle performed in fact, that I got in touch with the people at KAVOD Custom and asked to buy the rifle from them, and to be honest I couldn’t be happier. This AR will do exactly what I want it to, when I want it to.

Anyways, on to my bullet points:

The Good:

• Light
• Accurate
• Reliable
• Affordable
• Nice forend for putting picatinny rails where you want them
• Excellent trigger
• Very good looking lower
• Quality upgrades people usually add themselves
• Excellent company to work with, and they were always available to answer any questions I had for them (you would think all companies are this way, but unfortunately that isn’t always true)
• I own it!

The Bad:

• Some people might prefer keymod or a full picatinny rail
• The castle nut was not staked (an easy fix, and this may have been intentional to allow the customer to easily change stocks)
• The stock is an MOE rather than a CTR

The Ugly:

• ?

All in all, I am thrilled with the performance of this rifle and am very happy to own this gun. The good people at KAVOD are really putting out a quality product, and I would encourage people to give their website a look if you are in the market for a well priced and great performing AR!