Sunday, January 12, 2014

The dollar hurdle...

Neat video for the forthcoming Beretta ARX-100:


I have a vague wantsies for it, in the same way and for the same reasons as the SCAR, but it suffers from the same problem faced by Everything Not An AR: Price.

Don't be fooled: If the AR-15 were released today, it'd probably hit the market at close to two grand as well, but the development costs are long amortized and builders can buy parts from a host of outside vendors and that's why you can get an AR for so much cheaper than the newer guns.

As someone who owned a Beretta AR-70 during the Ban Years, I appreciate the fact that the new ARX takes STANAG mags. We joke now about magazines for this gun or that gun being made of "unobtainium", but that's almost the God's honest truth about Beretta AR-70 mags ten years ago.

I searched and searched and found one guy on the internet who had some 30-rounders he would let go for $160 apiece, with the caveat that you had to buy the rifle he was selling, too; he wouldn't sell any mags separately.

9 comments:

Joe in PNG said...

On one hand, it will appeal to the "craps where it eats" anti-AR crowd.

On the other hand, there's not all that many of them, and they would rather have a 7.62 of some sort.

Prediction: this will be a boutique gun.

RevolverRob said...

I'm definitely not the worlds biggest AR fan, but even I find it hard to justify buying into any other rifle platform. I'm perpetually poor, and the simple reality is 5.56 ammo is basically the cheapest rifle round on the planet. Seriously, 50 rounds of serious TAP defensive stuff is cheaper than 50 rounds of .357 Magnum defensive ammo right now and since I have an AR in 9x19 as well, it's idiotically cheap to keep well fed in ammo.

Simple economics figure into everything. Basically anything besides an AR is a boutique rifle and hobby of those with excess funds today. Me, I'm moving the opposite direction these days, less calibers, more ammo. Pretty soon my whole safe will be 9x19, 5.56, and 12-gauge guns. And probably all of those calibers will be in some form of an AR variant.

-Rob

Tam said...

RevolverRob,

??

The ARX-100 is a 5.56 rifle that uses STANAG mags.

Critter said...

I enjpy taking AR barrels on and off. They're the tinkertoys that shoot.

Joseph said...

My current SHTF rifle is a yugo SKS. I'm scraping the bucks together for some version of the AR platform; this is complicated by the fact that I am just not used to spending this kind of money on something for me!

RevolverRob said...

Tam,

I was going a different direction when I originally wrote that comment. I was thinking about SCAR 17s, FALs, PE57s, etc.

But the ARs are still cheaper. For instance, I really want a Tavor and they even have a 9mm conversion setup! But that's $2800+ for a 5.56/9mm Tavor setup, versus what I have now which is two AR15s one each in 5.56 and 9mm that cost me about half of that price.

That said...I still want a Tavor.

-Rob

Skip said...

I want to see a shooters range report on S&W MP10.

Sigivald said...

We joke now about magazines for this gun or that gun being made of "unobtainium", but that's almost the God's honest truth about Beretta AR-70 mags ten years ago.

Kinda like an AG-42, ever.

You whippersnappers, get off my lawn!

(On the other hand, sure, you don't really need more than one for an AG-42, since it's not really meant to be removed, but...)

Anonymous said...

If I was going with a "new generation" 5.56 rifle the SCAR would be the only serious contender in my book. But for my uses it does not do enough to warrant being over twice the price of a current good quality AR from Colt, BCM, DD. If I had SCAR level of money I'd probably put it towards a LaRue .308 rifle.

George