Archer Manufacturing Patrol Rifle

Bill Blowers

Bill Blowers

Sausage Six Actual
VIP
Archer.jpg

I wear two hats, one of them is the supervisor of my agencies training unit and range, with a side job as a SWAT team member. The other hat is the owner/operator of a Tactical Training Company. The real job requires me to approve purchases of our department rifles and supporting gear. We are not a large agency, roughly 160 sworn but we issue a rifle to damn near everyone. So, we have approximately 140-150 guns issued and a handful of pool rifles to be used by new guys and officers whose gun is down for maintenance or in evidence during OIS investigations.

We currently issue a Colt Commando 11.5” rifle. Supporting equipment is a T-2, a Surefire Fury, a VCAS or VTAC sling and an MOE handguard to mount everything to. SWAT guns are a different animal with the SWAT dudes picking and choosing (with some direction) bits and pieces for their setups. Our team is regional so my agency only provides 6 guys to the 36 man regional team. The team has a service population of roughly 500,000.

While reading up on guns and gun shit, I came across Archer arms and their products. http://www.archer-mfg.com/ Archer is a new gun company, several things intrigued me about them. First was that the dudes involved were well known gunsmiths and gun dudes. I do not know all of them, but I was aware of their street creds. Second is that they are Making billet uppers and lowers in house, final machining forged receivers, Shilen Match bbls with their APR internals turned in house to their contours. My personal class gun was getting tired, so I was looking for something new. I was fortunate to have direct access to one of Archers gunsmiths, Chris Taylor for some questions. While we were talking, Chris mentioned that Archer was putting out a complete patrol rifle. The rifle would be turnkey with optic, light, and a bunch of upgrades over a stock Colt gun. It also includes a soft and hard case. As we were talking I kept thinking “What the fuck is this gonna cost”. Chris asked me to come up with a price for our current issue guns.

After crunching numbers, our total cost is $1995 for the complete gun. A couple of things to consider are that I did not include employee wages to get our guns ready. We currently piece meal and order different things from different vendors, it takes a bit of time to research prices and then fill out the appropriate paperwork. Since those requisitions are individual pieces of paper, they sometimes don’t get approved all at once, or get lost in the shuffle requiring someone to go looking. Once everything shows up, inventory and inspection needs to occur. I also lose employee time assembling the gun and getting them on paper for the officer to finalize zero. It’s not a ton of time, but it does take time which in turn costs the agency in terms of wages.

I think we are issuing pretty damn good rifles to our guys, so the other issue was why switch and/or pay more for potentially less gun? Chris sent me a run down on what they’re doing.

Full specs on their stock Archer patrol rifle are as follows:

Patrol Rifle
- 14.5" w/ perm attached muzzle device or 16" barrel lightweight RECCE contour
- 13" ALG EMR rail
- AimPoint PRO with mount
- MBUS BUIS
- ALG QMS trigger and LPK
- Daniel Defense-SSD flash hider (extended 1.5" on 14.5" barrels)
- MagPul CTR stock
- A2 grip
- MagPul trigger guard
- M600U with mount

*All rifles have QPQd Shilen Match 1:7 barrels with the Archer Proprietary Rifling (APR) internal dimensions, HP/MPI SOPMOD BCG with lifetime warranty and a bolt rebuild kit with each rifle. Lifetime warranty against manufacturer defects on the finished rifle, with a loaner rifle program if the gun comes back for warranty work.

*All packages include a Patriot Cases hard case, Armageddon Gear soft Carbine Carry Bag, Armageddon Gear or BFG 2 point sling, and a 3pc SLiP2000 cleaning kit.

If you're like me you’re going, sounds badass, what’s it cost???

Dig this MFer’s, the gun listed above is $1895! If you upgrade to a T-2 it’s only $2195. Now I’m no financial whiz kid, but selling this to any cop boss in America should be easy as hell unless you are a total Goober. No more DRMO hodge-podge crap, and no more sub-standard crap at all. That price is subject to change like everything else, but Archer intends to keep it there unless Aimpoint prices go up. (Note: The gun in the picture is NOT the test gun, I will post pics of that in future in installments)

Now comes the question; “Is that bitch duty capable?” Well that’s why I’m posting this. I will be starting a lengthy field trial of their patrol gun, I have elected to upgrade to the T-2, but other than that it will be what is listed above. I don’t work for Archer in any capacity and the trial is for my PD, not my business.

Although I am not assigned to patrol, I am on SWAT. The Archer gun will take the place of my current duty gun and be my primary AND class gun for 90 days. My team trains 30 hours a month with one of those days being a ten hour range day. I am allocated 10,000 rounds of 5.56 annually, that’s just for me. That alone will put 2500 rounds through it during normal training. With any new gun, I generally shoot 500 rounds of duty through it to ensure it is eating those pills reliably. I also work within 100 yards of our range and routinely shoot a couple hundred rounds a week during the day or I stay after hours to shoot. Those weekly rounds are not part of the 10,000. That should account for another 2400, give or take. I will be as accurate in the round count during the 90 day test as I can, but I think it will see approx. 4-5K during that time. In addition it will also be converted for FoF training for 60 hours and a run through DARC’s LECTC course. I will also be doing one other Night Fighting, 3 day course with it.

I think if it can handle that 90 day run, it will be “duty” capable. I know that far surpasses what any patrol dude will put it through and likely surpass most SWAT guys on round count as well. I will NOT be doing dumbshit like intentionally blazing through 100 mags, or shooting it dry or without cleaning for the 90 days. That shit is stupid. It will get my normal maintenance and lube that I have been doing to AR’s for the last 30 years. Wipe it off about once a month and keep it wet.

There are days when we absolutely put the guns through hard heat/cool cycles, and others not so much. One concern I have heard is whether the QPQ barrel can withstand hard use. From personal research and use from a different manufacturer, I am not concerned. I intend to lay down base line groups at 100 yards and then continue to try and match them throughout the test.

Here’s where you guys come in. If there is something specific that you want me to do with it, let me know and I will try to get it done. It has to be something that a hard use duty gun would reasonably be exposed to. I will continue to update this post with facebook notifications that something new was added. It will include pictures, # of stoppages (if any), round count, and training that me and my new battle buddy go through.

More info on Archer guns is listed below. We will also be putting a 10.3 upper through its paces simultaneous to my test. I will report out stats on that as well. One of the best things about this test is that Archer Pros are on this sight and can quickly chime in with technical information and help about their products. All of them know that if it shoots 4 foot groups and chokes every other round, I’m gonna report it. Their confidence, reputation in the industry, and quality components makes me believe that the gun is going to be ready for more than I can throw at it. The first 90 days will be thoroughly documented, I may continue with quarterly updates until January 1, 2016 if there is interest.

SBR
-10.3" bbl
- 9" Geissele Mk4 rail and gas block
- MagPul MBUS BUIS
- Aimpoint PRO with mount
- ALG QMS trigger and LPK
- Daniel Defense Superior Suppression Device muzzle device
- MagPul CTR stock
- A2 grip
- MagPul trigger guard
- Surefire M600U with mount WML

SPR/DMR
- 14.5" w/ perm attached muzzle device,16", or 18" medium heavy barrel
- 13" Geissele Mk8 rail and gas block
- AimPoint PRO with mount
- MBUS BUIS
- ALG QMS trigger and LPK
- Daniel Defense-SSD muzzle device
- MagPul CTR stock
- A2 grip
- MagPul trigger guard
- M600U with mount.

Optics Upgrades available per rifle
- AimPoint T2 with mount
- Vortex Viper PST 1-4x24
- Vortex Razor Gen2 HD 1-4x24
- Trijicon VCOG 1-6x24
- Trijicon MRO 1x25

Additional upgrades per rifle
- Inconel gas tube for 10.3" guns
- Geissele SSA triggers
- BattleComp 1.0 or 1.5, or suppresser specific, muzzle devices
- MBUS Pro BUIS
- MagPul MIAD grips
- MagPul UBR stock (For SPR/DMR builds)
- SureFire P3X tactical and mount
 
Bill Blowers

Bill Blowers

Sausage Six Actual
VIP
I received the test gun on Jan 8, a portion of the delay was a UPS hub manager telling the good folks at Archer that they couldn't send a gun to a POLICE DEPARTMENT without an FFL. Huh? Initially I was upset, but in hindsight, it is this type of vigilance that helps keep America safe. Well done hub manager guy, well done.

Anyway, the 8th was a range training day for me and the gun did not arrive until after we had started training. To add a layer of separation, I asked our full time Rangemaster to inspect the gun as if it were a new department purchase. We have a process to tear the gun down, inspect critical bits, clean and lube, reassemble and function test the gun. Every new gun also gets 8 mags through it, we then zero it and the officer being issued the gun will shoot it some more to verify zero, feel the trigger and finally qualify with the new gun. This process puts the gun at or near 500 rounds fired before it goes on duty. This is what you get when you remove the cardboard.
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I requested the upgrade of the T2 and Battlecomp. We already issue T2's on our patrol guns so I wanted to stick with it. Run down below of the exact bits on the test gun.
14.5" w/ perm attached Battlecomp
- 13" ALG EMR rail
- AimPoint T2 with mount
- Magpul Pro Irons
- ALG QMS trigger and LPK
- MagPul CTR stock
- A2 grip
- MagPul trigger guard
- M600U with mount
-Gunfighter Medium CH
- Armageddon Sling and soft case (I'm not a bungee sling fan, but it is well sewn and put together. The soft case actually has hard side and it is tits)
- Hard case
-SLiP cleaning kit
- Two Pmags

At the first break in training I talked to the Rangemaster for his take. He told me that he would reject the gun due to an out of spec selector. It appeared that the selector was sitting askew and his speculation was that the selector detent hole was improperly machined. I checked the gun myself and immediately noticed what he was talking about. We also considered that the selector itself may have been out of spec, so we dropped in a new one and it was the same. The selector snapped off Safe crisply but was "mushy" going back to Safe. The weapon did pass the rest of our inspection including a function check. Gas key and Castle nut were properly staked, barrel was tight, all fasteners were tight and there was no marring on the finish to indicate it was anything but a new gun.
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Bear in mind that we have also rejected Colts in the past, shit happens, and I am less concerned about human error as long as the company takes care of business on the Customer service. I went back to training and we finished the training day at 2200 hours PST. Since the gun was Safe to use, I stayed late and put 220 rounds through the gun to include a 50 yard zero. Zero stoppages during that time and the gun zeroed. I shot the five round group below with practice ammunition and will get a true 50 yard zero with duty ammo on it in the coming weeks.

I contacted Archer the following morning and explained the issue with the selector, I also sent the pictures above. I was told to send that bitch back and a replacement would be in the mail ASAP.
I will let the Archer guys explain how and why this occurred in the machining process, as an end user I don't really care as long as they take care of business. And they did. Further, I was actually pretty pleased that this was NOT a cherry picked gun, it was grabbed off the rack and sent. A field trial for a manufacturer is daunting since they have no idea what the hell I'm going to do to the gun. They also knew that I would report issues and concerns on this forum in the same fashion I would do to my Chain of Command if I wanted to buy their guns for the agency. Last, the trial is also meant to test their internal procedures for QC and inspection, This fell through the cracks and I would bet there is a new check measure in place at Archer.

Regardless, I got the new lower yesterday. The new lower passed all inspections and be ACCEPTED by the agency as a duty gun, pending live fire. Since I shoot rifles left handed, swapped out the selector for a BADASS ambi and dropped in a Norgon Ambi mag release with my own "Blowers Battle Paddle" addition (TM/C/Patent Pending/All Rights Reserved/Don't Steal My Sweet Fucking Idea).
I fired another 270 rounds through to push it near the 500 rounds required for live fire functionality. Somewhere between rounds #480-490, I got some pretty extreme flashes but kept on banging. Upon completion of that magazine, I took a quick glance at the gun and found a clue that something had gone wrong. The BattleComp was missing.....
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I notified Archer and included pics. They immediately said we will replace it, not their product but they stand by the end product, another bonus. I was able to spin off the broken end and attached a SF suppressor adaptor. I have never seen or even heard of a BattleComp coming undone in this fashion. We are a regional SWAT team so each agency handles their own guns, one of the agencies had BattleComps on their guns prior to suppressors and I know that those guns saw 20K rounds without issue. Archer contacted BattleComp and we all agreed that I am a Special Snowflake when it comes to breaking shit. Regardless, both companies stand behind their products and I will let them speculate on potential causes.

After some weird shit with a UPS manager, a lower and a failed Battle Comp, I ended with another 40 rounds and a zeroed gun. So far the upper has 530 round on it and the new lower has 310. I'm not gonna keep doing math, the lower will continue to have 220 rounds less than the upper due to the swap. ZERO MALFUNCTIONS. I have training today and tomorrow with marking cartridge doing entries today and vehicle/bus assaults tomorrow. "Character" marks begin today, however due to SHOT next week and DARC the week after, it will not get a hard zero until the week of Feb 2-5. At that point it will transition to a duty role for missions as well.

If you have questions or want to see something specific, fire away and I'll try to make it happen.
 
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Bill Blowers

Bill Blowers

Sausage Six Actual
VIP
The gun went though 150 FoF marking cartridges, the extractor on the FoF bolt had a piece of plastic from the cartridges jammed under it and it gave me fits for a minute. Figured it out and no issues. Nothing to do with the gun, it was the FoF bolt. The gun conducted a bunch of vehicle and bus assaults, it got scratched....

I got into the range today and went through another 670 rounds. The last 120 were suppressed. The gun is running like a champ and I will likely continue to beat on it full time with the suppressor.

1200 rounds total / 0 Malfunctions. Sorry for the blurry pics, I'll try to do better.
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IMG_0704.JPG
 
Bill Blowers

Bill Blowers

Sausage Six Actual
VIP
The Archer gun attended team training on Feb 14 & 15. This included bus assaults using FoF marking cartridges. Initially the gun was giving me fail to extract stoppages, these appeared to be double feeds since the spent case was extracted halfway, released by the extractor, and then it cocked and attempted to feed the next live round. I figured out that a piece of plastic from the FoF rounds had broken off and was wedged under the extractor. Once this was cleaned out, the gun ran fine for the rest of training. However it should be noted that I only fired about forty rounds total, after the extractor issue was fixed, during that evolution.

I attended DARC LECTC Jan 25-30. I went through the first night firing like a mofo and wondering why bad guys weren't reacting. After the first run getting chewed up, I discovered the barrel was clogged with pellets from chamber to crown. Shit happens, got it cleaned out and prepped for the next run. Same thing. And then the same thing again. I was frustrated as fuck since we were doing multiple runs on the house, with a ton of bad guys delivering the hate and the gun appeared to be clogging with fof rounds in the first magazine.

The next day I came in early, cleaned it real good including light oil per FoF instructions. Went out and test fired a magazine and it stacked up about half the magazine. Cleaned it with acetone and left it dry, same thing. At this point I was shitting that I was going to go through the DARC with a pistol only. Big thanks to Ben Miller who was smart enough to bring a spare upper that he loaned me to complete the course. The new upper fired the FoF rounds without problems, my work gun has also reliably fed and fired the FoF rounds.

Later in the week I borrowed a UTM bolt and rounds from Matt Shockey and test fired the gun again. The Archer gun ate the UTM for two mags without issue. However I was unable to use it during the course since all I had was FoF. In hindsight I could have swapped out UTM for FoF since students also provide rounds for the role players. So the DARC role players would simply have gotten more FoF and less UTM. But I had a working upper and anyone who has been through DARC knows the last thing you want is a lack of confidence in your primary right before deploying.

The lower worked fine with the spare upper and I did not have any other major problems outside of the normal marking cartridge issue. I will be live firing the gun a lot in the coming weeks and hopefully it will loosen up a bit for the FoF to work, otherwise it will not get the monthly tactical training days as part of the evaluation. The lower will, the upper will not.

I don't think this would prohibit me from buying their guns for patrol, but we already have dedicated SIM uppers and older uppers that could be swapped onto an officers lower for training. The SWAT dudes are different since we are issued FoF bolts for monthly training, adding a spare upper to my car vault is a pain in the ass since it's already stuffed to the gills with shit.
 
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Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Random Factor of the K Power
We have a few theories as to what's going on here, but until we test the FoF stuff, they're just ideas at this point.

Unless testing shows otherwise, we don't think it's our bbls.

This may be a good time to mention our bbls, since it's something a little different. We use some IP kung fu in our bbls, that gives us better mv and has had a pretty good showing the accuracy department. However, we don't think the kung fu IP would be a major issue with the FoF® brand, but until we get some more testing done, in the field and in the shop, we won't make a final statement.

Once again, we at Archer want to thank Bill for this T&E. We knew going into it that he'd be reporting the good and the bad, and we were pretty stoked when he agreed to do it. Bill is a consummate pro (and the Typhoid Mary of breaking shit apparently), and we're proud to be the first company that gets puts through the ringer in a P&S T&E.
 
Bill Blowers

Bill Blowers

Sausage Six Actual
VIP
I attended Fight Club 6 Feb 3-5 wth the Archer gun. During the 3 days I fired 960 rounds through the gun. More than half were suppressed.

TD2 had one stoppage which was a fail to feed, however this was due to an extremely dirty gun from shooting suppressed and no lube. Wiped off the bolt and upper, added slip, right back to banging away.

We were shooting steel and as course host that means I get to spray paint a lot. I picked up a can that was left down range and started to shake it. It was punctured from steel frag so the gun now has white paint specks all over it. FML.

TD3 had a fail to fire, with a dead trigger. While transitioning I attempted to put on safe and it wouldn't go. Q3131 had reared its ugly head and there was a blown primer under the trigger in the receiver impeding movement. I knew I was gonna find the primer based on the guns feedback. We have been shooting Q3131 for a long time but I haven't had a blown primer in years. No biggie, I used all of my extensive armorer knowledge and banged the receiver against a range table until it fell out. Reassembled it and kept banging away.

I was top gun for the course with the Archer stick. I had put a hasty 50 yard zero on it in our 25 yard range. After one drill I could see everything was left of center so I dialed it in at 50 yards during a break. I put 10 rounds into a B8 "X" ring from prone with only a T-2. The class tempo did not allow me to shoot groups at 100 yards but I will be doing that later this month.

The gun currently has 2220 rounds through it with Zero gun related stoppages.

The FoF issue also seems to be resolved. The smart guys at Archer recommended an H3 buffer to allow more pressure to build up behind the FoF pill. I put in an H3 today and went through 60 rounds without any issues. I have team training this week and will pound as many FoF rounds through it as I can with the new buffer to make sure it's solid, but it appears to be good to go.
image.jpeg
 
J.Boyette

J.Boyette

Newbie
Question,

Since this is for a non-fed LEO dept the TTB 11% is waved.

The price point you bring up did not say they waved TTB.

If they did not include the TTB tax you need to know that, or get it removed for a real cost.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Random Factor of the K Power
@J.Boyette those prices do not include FET, which as you mentioned is waived for LEAs and individual officers on letterhead.

LEOs with creds but without letterhead have to pay FET, which adds about $100 to the price.

Creds and/or letterhead are required to get the special pricing.
 
Bill Blowers

Bill Blowers

Sausage Six Actual
VIP
J. Boyette - We are Non-Federal and we do NOT pay FET as Chris stated.

Andrew Y. - The DBAL-A4 is legit, the IR settings are impressive. The 500 Lumen white light fills a room nicely, but throw at longer distances with the white light is pretty diffused. I would definitely take it as is, but it would be nice if they could focus the white light beam a bit more. It has a high, low and strobe setting. I could definitely do without the strobe feature.

Controls are easy to use/manipulate. The White/Vis emergency override is pretty slick and if you're not a pressure pad guy, Fire buttons on both side of the unit make it user friendly on either shoulder.

I don't think they are available for purchase until June, but I plan on buying them for my guys to replace our CQB-L's. Those will gun on breaching guns and gas guns.

I put another 30 rounds through the gun yesterday, round count is 2250 with zero gun related malfunctions.
 
J.Boyette

J.Boyette

Newbie
Chris Taylor said:
@J.Boyette those prices do not include FET, which as you mentioned is waived for LEAs and individual officers on letterhead.

LEOs with creds but without letterhead have to pay FET, which adds about $100 to the price.

Creds and/or letterhead are required to get the special pricing.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the follow up. I did not see it listed. Looks like a great rifle. I do ATF compliance for manufactures on the side so thats why I asked. ;)
 
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