National Match AR15s - RRA vs Armalite vs Bushy

[whitebear]

HELP!?! National Match AR15s - RRA vs Armalite vs Bushy

OK, so I'm looking into buying a NM AR15 for my son who competes on our club's Junior team.

RRA and Armalite offer significant discounts to Junior Team members, and the Bushy is available through the CMP at an excellent price.

I have heard on some other boards that the Bushy has some trigger durability issues; can the Brain Trust here at THR give me the pros and cons on these three rifles?

Thanks!

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I believe the RRA is the hot item for National Match competition at the moment. Good price and a box stock RRA has been used to win at Camp Perry IIRC.

I have the RRA trigger myself (in a Bushmaster) and it is a good value two-stage trigger. There are better triggers out there; but not at that price and IMO, Bushmaster isn't one of those triggers anyway.

 

[Gary G23]

RRA is the way to go for a NM rifle.

 

[Steve Smith]

Go with the RRA. While there are problems with both the RRA and the Bushy, the RRA is more livable.

 

[whitebear]

Steve -

What are the specific problems with the RRA?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Thanks!

 

[Houndawg]

I'm surprised Steve didn't have you contact http://www.whiteoakarmament.com to see if they had any deals going.

 

[Steve Smith]

I should have recommended White Oak. My friend John Holliger builds a great Highpower gun, with no issues.

When I got my first HP rifle it was a RRA that John had gone over. They had good parts back then, but even then there was an issue. The rear sight had 1/3 MOA elevation adjustment. Now, who on earth uses 1/3 MOA? They'd tell you it was 1/4 but they drilled the detents wrong or set the thread pitch wrong, I've forgotten. Either way, it was 1/3 MOA. That's fine if you're all by yourself, but with a team, it's messed up. I wouldn't be surprised if it is still that way. These are not issues that will cause problems for the HP newbie, and you can get it corrected by John at any time. The RRA trigger IS the best readily available trigger on the market.

John stopped using RRA parts on his production quality gun a year or so ago. He started seeing machining on bolts and sights that didn't meet his requirements. John is pretty particular. He is having parts built to his specs now, and his "production quality" upper is really very nice. I run two of his custom level uppers and one production level as an NTIT gun now, and I love all the work he's done for me.

 

[Jon Coppenbarger]

This is not a sales pitch but everything steve says is true.
Rock river gives you a good rifle for the money for highpower sevice rifle and they have great club prices and if you shoot highpower and belong to a club and meet all of the cmp qualifications they will sell you a rifle at less cost than you can get from bushmaster with a better trigger.
bushmaster triggers work great and feel great when they are right but they have had big problems with them and as you can read from another post I stated what happened to some of ours, but they fixed them right away so I was very happy with the service, gave them 3 lowers to fix one day at perry and got them all back the next as the guy replaced parts and tinkered into the night, Do not know many that would do what he did and they were great.

We had a choice of being a dealer for any of them and do place orders for all of them but We are one of 33 nation wide stocking dealers for rock river arms and we are on their web sight under stocking dealers and look under Colorado and Hickman Rifles for more info.
That being said as Steve can attest to I have 3 of John Holligers rifles in our safe and one dave sullivan built upper. got my 18 leg points this year with two different holliger uppers, shot left swing in the NTIT at the nationals with even another of uppers made for me by John and shot the rest of the matches with my sullivan built upper.
Have like 5 matches left this year and they will be shot with at least 3 different rifles.
Just go by Steves word and yes they are suppossed to be 1/4x1/4 true now.
Thanks Jon

 

[whitebear]

Thanks for your input, guys!

I've started the purchase process on the RRA NM.

 

[Kharn]

Speaking of NM ARs, are there any rumblings that after the sunset they'll go back to requiring a flashhider on the rifles, or will that rule be here to stay?

Kharn