Remington recently sent me a delightful AR15 style rifle to test, called the R15 that I think is quite neat. The R15 comes from the factory with a camouflage color scheme, 22″ barrel (other lengths available), A2 stock, free floated barrel, and a low capacity 5 round magazine. This rifle is truly a hunter’s AR platform; The rifle should be legal in most states due to being featureless (no evil collapsible stock, threaded barrel, etc.) and should also be hunting legal in many states due to the 5 round capacity (many states limit the number of cartridges in your rifle). Of course, when hunting the name of the game is accuracy so I had to put Remington’s gun to the test with their own ammunition:

Since I only had 20 rounds of this, I shot five groups of four shots each at 100 yards.

For this I mounted my trusty ACOG on the R15 and figured I should be able to pull off a respectable group with 4x magnification. I set the rifle on the shooting bench and got to it:

The R15 is really comfortable to shoot. When it comes to shootability, nothing beats the tried and true A2 stock in my opinion. Even with my long arms and lanky frame I found the R15 to be very comfortable to shoot. The hand guard is nice too and provides a large surface on which to grab.

From a bench with the bipod deployed I pulled off consistent and decent groups.

Best:

Worst:

Out of the 5 groups I averaged 1.34″ with the Remington soft pointed ammo. With more magnification I know I could have squeezed more out of her, but I think even with a 4x optic and some off the shelf ammo I did okay. The rifle is incredibly easy to shoot and it just begs to be put to the test with a 10x and some hand loads!

After the accuracy test, I decided to just set up some gongs to see how hot the hand guard got or if accuracy would suffer after the barrel warmed up. For this I used regular FMJ ammo, of which I have plenty:

The Remington R15 effortlessly rang the steel again and again and I had an absolute blast shooting with this gun. I must have shot around 200 rounds in all.

Now I just can’t get my hands on a semi-auto rifle without really trying to see what it can do so I loaded a 30 rounder and did a gratuitous mag dump as fast as I could pull the trigger, and it ran like a Swiss watch:

Nailing my cameraman with brass. Sorry Chris!

This was great fun, and I am sure I could use this at a carbine competition just as well as I could any of my tacticool guns.

Now here is where I need to get on my soapbox for a second. Many may find the camo a little unappealing. In fact both of my friends who saw the rifle at my shop chuckled at me and asked if it came with the soundtrack from Deliverance. However, the R15 in my opinion helps bridge the gap between the older traditionalist crowd and the guys who like modern sporting rifles (like myself). The R15 looks a lot less scary than an M4 type gun, and if would not be out of place on the gun rack at a hunting shop. This rifle may persuade some people who were previously opposed to black guns to get one, and the more people who realize these have the same capabilities as any other firearm in that caliber, the better! Anyways, off my soapbox and on to my bullet points:

The Good:

• Light
• Accurate
• No jams in 200 rounds or so
• Hunter friendly
• Camouflaged (good or bad depending on your viewpoint)
• Railed upper for optics
• Bipod and sling mounts (two studs up front)
• Featureless for ban states
• Priced around $1,100 to $1,200
• May attract some more folks to the AR15 world

The Bad:

• I wish it had a muzzle brake (still would be ban compliant if pinned)
• The factory 5 round mag is very tight when loaded to capacity
• A 20″ barrel would be ideal rather than 22″ for weight and bullet velocity according to this chart
• Standard AR15 trigger (for a precision hunting rifle I like a good trigger)

The Ugly:

• Some people may just absolutely hate the camo and featureless setup
• 1 in 9 twist (for hunting with .223 I want the heaviest bullet possible)

So that’s that. All in all the R15 is a nice rifle that I really enjoyed shooting!