There have been a lot of grumblings about the US military's M4 carbine, and it is no secret that the Army has gone out looking for a replacement. So far, the three top contenders for the replacement of the M4 are:
The HK 416:
The FN SCAR-L:
And the HK XM8:
To this list comes the Bushmaster ACR (Adaptave Combat Rifle), formally known as the Magpul Masada:
Apparently, Magpul, without any kind of goverment money or assistance, had been trying to find a way to maximize performace from the M4/AR15 platform to wring the best rifle possible from it. After years of research, one of the developers finally stated "The best way to improve the AR15 platform is to unscrew the front sight post and put a new weapon under it." So, that is what they did. And, after only 4 months of work, produced the prototype for the Magpul Masada:
It was introduced at the 2007 SHOT Show to rave reviews. It was a new creation, shamelessly borrowing whatever worked well from other platforms and intigrating all of these features onto a single rifle system.
Here is a link to a PDF file that compares the features of the Masada and some of its competitors:
http://www.magpul.com/pdfs/masadaback.pdf
Just before the 2008 SHOT Show, Magpul and Bushmaster anounced that Magpul was turning over production of the Masada to Bushmaster, where it would now be the Adaptave Combat Rifle (ACR):
Here are some videos of what this rifel system is capable of:
And here are the technical specs on the original Masada (again, a PDF):
http://www.magpul.com/pdfs/masada_technote.pdf
I know there are those who prefer some of the other systems. What do you think?
The HK 416:
The FN SCAR-L:
And the HK XM8:
To this list comes the Bushmaster ACR (Adaptave Combat Rifle), formally known as the Magpul Masada:
Apparently, Magpul, without any kind of goverment money or assistance, had been trying to find a way to maximize performace from the M4/AR15 platform to wring the best rifle possible from it. After years of research, one of the developers finally stated "The best way to improve the AR15 platform is to unscrew the front sight post and put a new weapon under it." So, that is what they did. And, after only 4 months of work, produced the prototype for the Magpul Masada:
It was introduced at the 2007 SHOT Show to rave reviews. It was a new creation, shamelessly borrowing whatever worked well from other platforms and intigrating all of these features onto a single rifle system.
Here is a link to a PDF file that compares the features of the Masada and some of its competitors:
http://www.magpul.com/pdfs/masadaback.pdf
Just before the 2008 SHOT Show, Magpul and Bushmaster anounced that Magpul was turning over production of the Masada to Bushmaster, where it would now be the Adaptave Combat Rifle (ACR):
Here are some videos of what this rifel system is capable of:
And here are the technical specs on the original Masada (again, a PDF):
http://www.magpul.com/pdfs/masada_technote.pdf
I know there are those who prefer some of the other systems. What do you think?
