May 18th, 2008

Remington Introduces AR10-based Hunting Rifle

As most of you know, Cerberus Capital Management acquired Bushmaster Firearms, a leading maker of AR-platform rifles, in April 2006. A year later, Cerberus acquired Remington Arms. Not surprisingly, Cerberus has merged the product lines of these two companies, so AR-style rifles are now marketed under the Remington label.

Yesterday, at the NRA Annual Meeting in Louisville, KY, Remington unveiled its latest semi-auto rifle, dubbed the Remington R-25. The R-25 is based on the AR-10, the “big brother” of the AR15, a heavier, beefier rifle designed to shoot the .308 Winchester and similar cartridges. The R-25 will be offered in three chamberings: .308 Win, .243 Win, and 7mm-08. We were hoping Remington might also offer the .260 Remington or other 6.5mm caliber such as the 6.5 Creedmoor, but right now Remington is sticking to the more mainstream hunting calibers. However, Remington reps indicated that Short Magnum calibers might be added to the line-up in the future.

The basic R-25 features a flat-top receiver and metal float tube. The whole rig is decked out in Mossy Oak® Treestand™ Camo. Barrels for all three calibers are 20″ in length, with a 1:10″ twist rate. Barrels are fluted ahead of the gas block but that’s more for looks than anything else. Remington chose a fairly light barrel contour, keeping the gun’s weight down to 8.75 pounds, without optics. The trigger is a single-stage unit set at 4.5-5 pounds. That’s pretty disappointing, and we expect the first thing many R-25 owners do is modify or swap out the trigger to reduce pull weight. The R-25 ships with a 4-round magazine, but will use any standard AR-10 mag.

The Remington R-25 is priced at $1532 MSRP, and the first units are expected to ship in July 2008. At first blush, the price seems high for a pretty average rifle with a heavy trigger and what, we predict, is a mediocre barrel. Shooters wanting a .308 cartridge-size semi-auto platform for a cross the course rifle or space gun should consider other, less expensive sources such as Armalite for a separate AR-10 lower. Match AR-10 uppers are available from a variety of boutique makers such as Fulton Armory.

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