Home AR-15 Six rifles that tried to beat the AR15 and FAILED.

Six rifles that tried to beat the AR15 and FAILED.

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We show six rifles that were hailed as the “AR15” killers but failed to put a dent in the AR’s sales in the United States civilian market. Many of these rifles are outstanding rifles by all measure, some perhaps are superior, but none of them could unseat the AR15 / M16 as the king of the rifle hill in the US.

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#AR15 #M16 #Topdog

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43 COMMENTS

  1. There is only two ways to kill the ar15 and both need to happen not just one of the other

    1. Replace the m4/m16
    2. Mass produce what killed the m4/m16 in the civilian market by big companies like smith and Wesson, Springfield, Daniel defense, ect and make it at a fair price

  2. It's hard to be the price, modularity, and performance of the modern ar. In my opinion you just can't beat all of those for anywhere near the price easily.

    Mlok is the other killer accessory feature. There's nothing that can beat the price, performance, and modularity of that system. There isn't any way to significantly improve on it. It works great in plastic or aluminum and making it is easy.

  3. I am going to play language police. "Vertices" are the intersection points of two lines. "Virtus" (pronounced Veer toos) is the latin word meaning, literally, manhood, from which we derive the English word "Virtue." It is a Sig Veer Toos, not Vertice.

  4. Just my PO, something I appreciate about the AR over most of what was compared here and many others is how the AR has a thinner and slimmer profile. Just not into these tactical rifles that had the dimension of a wooden railroad tie with a barrel stuck out the end of it!

  5. I never got my hands on a XCR but people who own it seem to be extremely happy. I don't want to be that guy but what if it had a polymer lower (not easy to do I know), pencil barrel, improved stock design? And let's be super crazy: imagine this thing with Desert Tech's experimental magazine thing. Because more ammunition = more freedom.

  6. There are probably 100 budget ar15s sold for every boutique high end one. Economy of scale and how cheap one can get an ar15 is a huge reason why it can’t be easily surpassed. The average gun owner isn’t willing to spend two grand or more on just a rifle that may be slightly better than an AR in a few areas when they can buy or build an AR, optic, magazines, and ammunition for less. Most of the “replacements” price themselves out of much of the market from the very beginning. Not everyone who wants a military style rifle can afford a $2k entry fee but the can a PSA or poverty pony build, sort of like all of the cheap Sks or wasrs used to be.

  7. I think the major point of failure was that although all of these were arguably "better" than the AR, none of them were enough better to justify the jump in price. You can buy or assemble a decent AR for $600 so to justify a 300% price increase you have to bring something that's orders of magnitude better. At the end of the day, all of these put lead downrange with reasonable reliability and accuracy — just like the $600 AR. The rest is really just "nice to have" stuff. A second but probably lesser factor is that none of them have the modularity/customizability of the AR. We've gotten used to being able to set up our rifle exactly the way we want it and none of these come with that same flexibility. They all fell victim to the average shooter saying, "That's nice, I guess, but…"

  8. Here's hoping Franklin Armory holds true to their word and resurrects the ACR. It definitely got the short end of the stick with its previous patent holders and deserves a chance at becoming the rifle its meant to be

  9. Hey. I'm a poor. Before DTJ beat Billary? I picked up a Ruger AR556 at a good price. Magpul mags,pistol grip. Rise Armament trigger. Vortex strikefire II. LOTS of IMI AMMO. And rattle can paint job (no scary black rifle here) KRYLON COMMANDO ACTIVATED. 🤔🙀🤪Works fine. I'm not in Iraq. I'm in Militiagan.

  10. Well, as of yesterday, the US Army NGSW concluded with the announcement of a contract award to SIG to supply the NGSW. The Spear is now designated XM5. How well it succeeds the M4 – we shall see.

    I agree about the Virtus being awesome. A bit on the heavy side, but very well-built, and modularity is fantastic. They're adding even more factory-supplied barrel and HG conversion kits for other calibers like .308, 6.5CM, and of course .277 Fury (6.8×51).

    That 6.8 round is probably why a lot of old army munitions plants are being resurrected from slumber. Who knows. That's a massive change in and of itself. But, nice to have yet another new round to play with!

  11. Great vid! I noticed the majority of these guns look extremely similar and offer most of the same "AR killer" options, but none have the ease of exchange the AR enjoys. for instance, I own a Beretta ARX100 and love the gun, but it has become a safe queen since I fell in love with building ARs. the ARX100 is and excellent gun, lightweight and easy to run, clean and carry. However, when they promised it at SHOT Show, they also promised a 300 Blackout barrel to interchange, something they never fulfilled even after waiting to release the gun 2.5 YEARS after announcing it! Beretta made an amazing gun and fell on their face implementing this amazing weapon. I pull it out from time to time and love the way it shoots. Too bad, Beretta.

  12. All two or three thousand dollar rifles that for some reason are all giant chunky masses of plastic. It's called a bang-STICK for a reason, and you can get a good one for under a grand.

  13. the $1200 I save by buying a normal AR pays for the 22 unit, trigger job. scope, red dot, luminous sights and silencer and then I have a 10x more usefuil rifle. Or it will buy 9000 rds of 22lr ammo, or 3000 rds of 223 ball. (bulk, on sale). I"ve got much better things to spend that sort of money upon than some 5% "better" rifle.

  14. Imho, reliability is by far the most important priority for any weapon system. If it fails on the battlefield, a soldier dies.

    That's exactly why for me, as a soldier in the late eighties, the AK-47 beat out my issued "A2"–

    In my opinion, our enemies have a superior weapon (the AK series) to ours… They just don't employ it as effectively as we do ours

  15. Back when I had money (like 15 years ago before all these kids) I had planned on buying an XCR. The reputation about Robinson at the time though was poor customer service. I had also seen posts online where Alex made a complete ass out of himself when people were critical of the rifle or customer service.

  16. I would've gone 1) Mini-14 2) SCAR16 3) ACR 4) XCR 5) tavor. (especially the x95)

    The Mini-14 has long been the domestic rival of the ar15 in a similar way as the SKS ran up against the AK. The Tavor deserves a spot in here, as the compact overall length and feature set did actually drive some pretty good US sales. I know a lot of AR guys that added a tavor to their gun stable and use it as the primary HD rifle. And unlike the SCAR and ACR, the tavor actually has conversion kits available for things like 300 blk and 9mm.

  17. 9 Hole just ran the Scar 16 through their course earlier this week. I believe it put up the best time vs accuracy since they started doing this course. Looked like a kick ass rifle, too rich for my blood.

  18. I think the ARX is a fantastic rifle. I used one in 22lr for a mini rifle competition and found it very reliable even with subsonic rounds and really stable and ergonomic too. Much better than the smith and wesson 1522.

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