Pencil barrel AR

I have faxons 16" pencil barrel on my AR, good shooter, no POI shift when it gets hot. Cools down quick too.

http://www.gmriflebarrel.com/ar-15-m16-m4-rifle-barrels/

Green Mountain has the 20" pencil barrels in both 1:14 and 1:12.

I built one a while back for a friend. I got a 14.5” retro barrel from Brownell’s for the build.


JSE Surplus has a 20” pencil barrel for $165.
http://www.jsesurplus.com/20556lightweightbarrel1x9nitride625wtower.aspx

GunnyUSMC said:

I built one a while back for a friend. I got a 14.5” retro barrel from Brownell’s for the build.
View attachment 855076

JSE Surplus has a 20” pencil barrel for $165.
http://www.jsesurplus.com/20556lightweightbarrel1x9nitride625wtower.aspx

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That rifle Is an abomination, I love it.

I had, and will soon own again, a Larue PredatAR and that barrel is super light. It was a great shooter and I never should have sold it. Luckily, the guy that bought it never shot it and it’s about to be up for sale again.

I have this lightweight rifle. Its the only AR I have ever owned, I really like it. I would love to own a retro AR like the old A-1 from the Vietnam era. But this works for me.

https://www.dpmsinc.com/LITE-16-A3_ep_139-1.html

Faxxon off the top of my head.

DerMerchant said:

That rifle Is an abomination, I love it.

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My friend was a retired LA. State Trooper. He was short, around 5' 5" with short arms. He had been a firearms instructor and SWAT member for years for the State Police.
He wanted a short, light weight, rifle that he could carry in his vehicle. We sat down one day and picked out the parts he wanted. Here is a list of the parts.
Brownell's 14.5" 1-12 retro pencil barrel.
YHM phantom flash hider, pinned and welded.
Carbine triangle handguards from JSE Surplus.
Aero upper no forward assist.
Anderson Lower.
Nickel Boron BCG, don't remember the brand.
UTG Entry Buttstock kit.
Trimmed and stippled A2 grip by GunnyUSMC
The build cost $600. He bought the parts and I built it.

The first trip to the range my friend put over 300 down range with no problems.
He really loved the gun but threaten to shoot me with it when I told him I was going to call it the T-REX.
My friend passed away a few months later from brain cancer.

BCM makes some nice lightweight barrels and upper assemblies.

BSW

marksman13 said:

and it’s about to be up for sale again.

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I hope you've learned your lesson...
Thou shalt not sell thy firearms!

I'll keep listening to Gunny's teachings.
His lessons on character are absolutely amazing. I hope to be the human he is someday.

Very well done @GunnyUSMC .

Demi-human said:

I hope you've learned your lesson...
Thou shalt not sell thy firearms!

I'll keep listening to Gunny's teachings.
His lessons on character are absolutely amazing. I hope to be the human he is someday.

Very well done @GunnyUSMC .

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I’ve bought and sold and traded a bunch of guns over the years. There’s only been two that I have ever regretted and that’s Larue was one of them. Never again.

GunnyUSMC said:

My friend was a retired LA. State Trooper. He was short, around 5' 5" with short arms. He had been a firearms instructor and SWAT member for years for the State Police.
He wanted a short, light weight, rifle that he could carry in his vehicle. We sat down one day and picked out the parts he wanted. Here is a list of the parts.
Brownell's 14.5" 1-12 retro pencil barrel.
YHM phantom flash hider, pinned and welded.
Carbine triangle handguards from JSE Surplus.
Aero upper no forward assist.
Anderson Lower.
Nickel Boron BCG, don't remember the brand.
UTG Entry Buttstock kit.
Trimmed and stippled A2 grip by GunnyUSMC
The build cost $600. He bought the parts and I built it.

The first trip to the range my friend put over 300 down range with no problems.
He really loved the gun but threaten to shoot me with it when I told him I was going to call it the T-REX.
My friend passed away a few months later from brain cancer.

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My apologies for your loss, sir, glad you have good memories of your friend you can share with us, thank you.

GunnyUSMC said:

My friend was a retired LA. State Trooper. He was short, around 5' 5" with short arms. He had been a firearms instructor and SWAT member for years for the State Police.
He wanted a short, light weight, rifle that he could carry in his vehicle. We sat down one day and picked out the parts he wanted. Here is a list of the parts.
Brownell's 14.5" 1-12 retro pencil barrel.
YHM phantom flash hider, pinned and welded.
Carbine triangle handguards from JSE Surplus.
Aero upper no forward assist.
Anderson Lower.
Nickel Boron BCG, don't remember the brand.
UTG Entry Buttstock kit.
Trimmed and stippled A2 grip by GunnyUSMC
The build cost $600. He bought the parts and I built it.

The first trip to the range my friend put over 300 down range with no problems.
He really loved the gun but threaten to shoot me with it when I told him I was going to call it the T-REX.
My friend passed away a few months later from brain cancer.

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F-Cancer.

Thanks for the kind words guys.
Now back on topic.
A true pencil barrel has a .625 gas block. There are some nice light weight barrels with a .750 gas block but the .625 really cuts down on the weight.
I have a 16" Pencil barrel in my shop waiting for me to come up with a build for it.
If you look around you can find good deals on barrels if you wish to do your own build, and there are complete uppers if your not into building your own.
Here is the Red & Black AR build that I helped my son with. It was his second build. I used a lightweight .750 gas block barrel for the build.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/red-black-ar-build.824308/

fpgt72 said:

F-Cancer.

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Could use this lower for a lightweight build.

I bought a Delton Sport specifically because it was the only budget AR I could find with a pencil barrel and iron sights. I've been very happy with mine so far. Performance wise, it doesn't do anything that any other $500 AR won't, but it feels more balanced and less nose heavy shooting offhand and I love that.

As far as other factory options - I think the Bushmaster QRC is another pencil barreled carbine in the $500 range, but it is set up for optics only. I'm pretty sure the DPMS Oracle is a pencil barrel too, but it is optics only as well, and I wouldn't buy one over the Bushmaster because I hate DPMS's furniture. If you want to spend some more money, Colt offers a pencil barrel 6920 (I forget the exact name. 6720? 6721? 6921?) for $900 - 1 kilobuck. And those are about all that comes to mind right now.

Now if you want a 20" pencil barrel rifle like the Vietnam M16s - good luck. Brownells retro rifles for $1000 are the only pre-built option I can think of.

Believe me, I did a lot of shopping for pencil barrel ARs way back when and the off-the-shelf offerings were pretty slim. It always seemed odd to me. The AR-15 was initially designed to be as light weight of a rifle as possible, but nowadays you have to go off the beaten path just to get a lighter barrel, and I'm not aware of any factory featherweight builds that are even offered. Seems everything is HBAR here and rail there, but I digress...