I can vouch for what they’re saying.  Rock River Arms produces exquisitely built rifles, capable of very good accuracy and precision (repeatability).  They make fine machinery.

There are two things that I think have held them back.  First, being in Illinois, and second, their slightly longer lag time at adopting new things (e.g., light forends).  For a long time, their forends were extremely heavy and a bit clunky.  No more.  They’re up with the rest of the industry on that.

I also dislike the fact that they haven’t yet made a rifle in 6mm ARC (but that goes back to what I’m saying about being slow to adopt new things).

I’ll make one final comment.  At one time they only made a polymer 1911 (which in my book is no 1911 at all).  I see that their catalog now includes some very nice 1911s, but the prices are extremely high, even exceeding the Dan Wesson price range.  They’re into the Wilson Combat price range, and it makes me wonder how many of them they sell.

Ammoland has the details.

Coming in at 6.8 pounds, I really like the lightweight handguard.  The price point seems right too (MSRP: $1100), and I think it’s a good addition to their stable given the usual unavailability (and high cost) of 458 SOCOM and the much higher availability (and lower cost) of 450 Bushmaster.

American Rifleman has the scoop, but Ammoland does a little better job by giving stats.

Actually, neither had the scoop on me.  I had discussed this very gun with Steve Mayer at RRA back in December of 2019.

My only complaint about Rock River Arms guns is that the ones that I’ve had seem to have weighty front ends.  I had always thought they needed to be a little more on the cutting edge for reduced-weight hand guards.

With the unloaded weight of this gun coming in at 6.8 pounds, it seems like they’ve taken up the challenge.

Steve also points out that if you don’t want to buy the whole gun, they sell the upper separately.

Military Times.

When Winchester Ammunition announced their straight-walled .350 Legend cartridge at SHOT Show 2019, only CMMG and Ruger had firearms chambered in the new round.

Now, roughly one year later, the potent round appears to be gaining traction with additional gun manufacturers with the latest adopter being Franklin Armory.

The cartridge was developed in response to various hunting laws in the United States that restrict calibers to straight-walled cartridges. This effectively restricted hunters to .30-30, .45-70 Gov or similar rounds in lever-action, or breech-loading rifles.

To give hunters an auto-loading alternative, Winchester developed the .350 Legend – a round that functions in a modified STANAG magazine in standard AR-15 magazine wells.

Despite being developed initially as a hunting round, it is equally as effective as defensive cartridge. There are even super-heavy subsonic loads available for shooters running a suppressor who want more ballistic energy than .300 BLK.

I’m not sure why it flew under the radar, but Rock River Arms also has an offering in 350 Legend, as well as uppers.

RRA responds:

Larson took after the good folks at The Truth About Guns, which she referred to as an ‘activist website’. “This boils down to a small, so-called gun-rights activist website that took the majority of things out of context, to make it sound like Rock River Arms and Springfield Armory were IFMA,” she said. “We did not have control over all actions. IFMA acted autonomously on our behalf.”

[ … ]

Larson then decried Illinois politics, which have almost become a blood sport.“I can’t get into all the details of the politics, as this is still a very real threat,” she told Mark. “Now, we are left with partial truth and fake news driving wedges between the different parts of our firearms community.”

Listen to me.  This is the wrong response.  The only wedge that has been driven is between RRA and your customer base.  The gun community – at least as far as I can tell – is pretty much in full agreement on this issue.

I don’t particularly care for TTAG either.  Their writers resolutely refuse to link anyone or exchange traffic, or frankly even debate issues within the gun community by their completely ignoring other gun web sites.  I once sent Robert a link and he responded that he would be happy to publish me as a writer if he gets the first 24 hours before I post the article to my own site.

Um … no.  That isn’t how this works.  But in spite of the disagreements between me and TTAG, they followed this issue fairly well and published the full truth as far as I can tell.  If not, then challenge the facts.  Don’t call them “fake news,” or “activist website,” or a “so-called gun rights web site.”

That’s insulting.  I wouldn’t even do that.

Ned Weatherby:

Wouldn’t surprise me if the “didn’t know” was true – but averting one’s eyes to avoid learning the truth in this political climate is BS.

However, I truly wonder how many of the people now bitching at various gun friendly websites about RRA & SA don’t do crap for gun rights, other than maybe being an NRA member – if that.

Here in AZ, the Arizona Citizens Defense League has only around 2000 members, and yet, AZCDL and its handful of members are responsible for most of the pro-rights laws passed the last few years in AZ. http://www.azcdl.org/html/accomplishments.html

So few do the heavy lifting. Sorry folks, but “activism” like not buying a RRA product is just keyboard commando posing horsecrap.

I see posts often on various websites from state-run gun rights organizations asking for help. How many of the “activists” who now won’t buy that new SA gun can’t even be bothered to follow a link and send the pre-prepared letters for their own state – much less join?

How many Illinois gun owners didn’t do squat about this issue, and are now bitching because some scumbag lobbyist also took “no position?”

I spend an awful lot of time perusing articles, watching the forum posts, sending letters my readers never see, and writing for you to take the information and act on it.  I hope you do that rather than just read my posts.  Sending these links around pushes traffic and empowers the whole community.  But this takes a powerful lot of time.  I’m not complaining, it’s a labor of love.  But everyone has to do their part.

I’ll would certainly buy again from Rock River Arms.  There’s a sweet 6.5 Creedmoor rifle they have up on their web site I’d like to have.  It’s a bit too pricey for me right now, but after a couple of years of bonuses from work, perhaps it will be my next purchase.

I encourage you to make your feelings known to Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms.  They’ve given you the avenue to do that.  If they didn’t want to hear from you they wouldn’t have given you the chance to tell them what’s on your mind.

As to perfection in the gun rights community, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.  Consider Ned’s questions.

This reviewer has a lot of love for the RRA rifle.

Rock River Arms’ new Fred Eichler Series LAR-15 Predator joins a growing number of AR-platform rifles and carbines specifically configured for the serious coyote and bobcat hunter. Sporting a medium-weight 16-inch stainless steel barrel, it represents the top of Rock River’s current four-model line of ARs specifically configured for coyote pursuit.

It was developed and field tested with the extensive help of Fred Eichler, host of the television show Predator Nation. The Fred Eichler series embodies not only the basic functionality of the AR platform that has made it so widely popular with predator hunters in the first place but also an impressive set of individual custom touches that elevate it to a pack leader among this category of guns.

Anyone who is at all familiar with AR-15 rifles understands why they are virtually perfect predator hunting tools and why predator hunters were early leaders in the mass migration of AR-platform carbines and rifles from the world of tactical, military and law-enforcement applications into full status as “modern sporting rifles.”

This is an interesting article, but this bit caught my eye.

There’s a lot of misunderstanding out in the world about the relative “inherent accuracy” of long barrels and short barrels. In reality (all other things being equal), short barrels are inherently more accurate than long barrels because they are stiffer, don’t flex and vibrate so much while bullets are passing through their bore and experience less muzzle displacement shot-to-shot due to variable harmonics.

In other words, the vibration amplitude isn’t as great with a shorter barrel.  This is a very interesting point, and one that I’ve overlooked before.  Although it could also be observed that the longer barrel is necessary at times to get the full potential out of the muzzle velocity of the round.

In the picture above I have to think they are shipping that rifle with a Pmag or Hexmag if you bought it today.