Hello everyone, I just got the new bargain AR from Radical Firearms, their RF15. A number of sellers just got them from O'Dell for a good price, around the $700-$800 mark. I'm happy to report quite a few things, and some other things, not so much. I've got the standard M&P 15 Sport II to compare to.
First, this thing is tight, and feels like a champ just at first glance and handling. Everything is well put together, snug, no real sharp edges, burrs or bad machining. Much better on the interior and exterior than the MP 15 and quite a few other AR's I have owned. It comes in a box with foam just like the Sport II, but a manual on a thumb drive, and a couple of stickers, no magazine included. The bolt assembly, barrel, rail, bird cage hider, accent parts, buffer tube and lower are top shelf looking and feeling in every way. The RF15 comes with an MFT stock and pistol grip which are first rate, really a nice touch. The bad is the sloppy cast marked trigger, unstaked castle nut screw and gas block, completely out of spec upper rail picatinny on receiver and rail (My elcans won't fit due to ARMS mount... theyre sloppy), and mine has a really weird dust cover which doesn't want to close unless you take a small flat screwdriver and force the spring loaded detent in to close it, really bizarre and someone actually did that at factory to put it back together to test function, what the #####? Also one of my indicators for select fire has an incomplete "FIRE" engraving that looks like the dude or computer was a bit shallow and did not completely write the lettering out deep enough.
Otherwise, on first inspection, it's hard to tell it's a sub $1k AR just from how tight, robust and light this thing is. The melonite coating is much, much nicer than on the MP 15, but really, we will see over time how it lasts because S&W's melonite coatings have been pretty much non issue for a lot of people stateside, where as Radical has quite a stir over their process and coating, even though on mine, from first look, is top notch.
Anyhow, I put my Trijicon Accupower 1-4 on it, along with a few MFT LAR mags and will go to the range to test accuracy. One thing about these guns is that they are rated decently for 5.56, 55gr in 1/7 barrel, but even Rob Ski from AK Operators union on Youtube really could not fault the barrel at near 5k rounds, so I'm excited to see how mine will do.
The gun has the potential to completely dethrone the MP 15 Sport II as the king of budget AR's... soon nobody will give a #### about Nork and hopefully those sloppy but goes bang turds can disappear.
First, this thing is tight, and feels like a champ just at first glance and handling. Everything is well put together, snug, no real sharp edges, burrs or bad machining. Much better on the interior and exterior than the MP 15 and quite a few other AR's I have owned. It comes in a box with foam just like the Sport II, but a manual on a thumb drive, and a couple of stickers, no magazine included. The bolt assembly, barrel, rail, bird cage hider, accent parts, buffer tube and lower are top shelf looking and feeling in every way. The RF15 comes with an MFT stock and pistol grip which are first rate, really a nice touch. The bad is the sloppy cast marked trigger, unstaked castle nut screw and gas block, completely out of spec upper rail picatinny on receiver and rail (My elcans won't fit due to ARMS mount... theyre sloppy), and mine has a really weird dust cover which doesn't want to close unless you take a small flat screwdriver and force the spring loaded detent in to close it, really bizarre and someone actually did that at factory to put it back together to test function, what the #####? Also one of my indicators for select fire has an incomplete "FIRE" engraving that looks like the dude or computer was a bit shallow and did not completely write the lettering out deep enough.
Otherwise, on first inspection, it's hard to tell it's a sub $1k AR just from how tight, robust and light this thing is. The melonite coating is much, much nicer than on the MP 15, but really, we will see over time how it lasts because S&W's melonite coatings have been pretty much non issue for a lot of people stateside, where as Radical has quite a stir over their process and coating, even though on mine, from first look, is top notch.
Anyhow, I put my Trijicon Accupower 1-4 on it, along with a few MFT LAR mags and will go to the range to test accuracy. One thing about these guns is that they are rated decently for 5.56, 55gr in 1/7 barrel, but even Rob Ski from AK Operators union on Youtube really could not fault the barrel at near 5k rounds, so I'm excited to see how mine will do.
The gun has the potential to completely dethrone the MP 15 Sport II as the king of budget AR's... soon nobody will give a #### about Nork and hopefully those sloppy but goes bang turds can disappear.
