Beretta ARX-100 current production

[Aries144]

That's the one thing that I don't like about the ARX-100. I don't understand why they put the rails on the hand guard without the ability to completely remove them.

I don't get the complaint. The rails are the best thing to hold onto, since the front end is too tall to wrap your hand around. Just hook your first two fingers around the steps at the front bottom of the receiver and lay your thumb across the top.

[HKGuns]

I own several Beretta shotguns and they are all absolutely great guns. It amazes me I'm not attracted more to their rifles and pistols. (Excepting the 92 series pistols of which I own an Inox and an M4A3) Surprising this rifle isn't more accurate, it must be something inherent in the design.

Their shotguns are top shelf.

[Aries144]

The precision of ARX rifles is very inconsistent from example to example. Greg Bell's ARX100 seems to do around 2 MOA. My first example was 6+ and my new one has a bad crown, shoots to the right, and seems to struggle to maintain 4 MOA. There's a video on youtube of some guy outside the US shooting an ARX160A1 at an indoor range and getting a sub MOA, 20 shot group with 73gr (?) Fiochi. Then, there's a written report from a Turkish reviewer that showed an 11" bbl ARX160A3 shooting 4 MOA. Ammunition and shooter variables aside, my experience with the ARX100 is that it is a crapshoot for accuracy.

I have identified three elements of the ARX100 design that would be most likely to cause substandard accuracy or precision:

1. The internal quality of the barrel itself (as with all rifles). BUSA chose to use cold hammer forging instead of other methods better understood here in the US, I suspect not realizing how difficult it could be to produce consistently accurate barrels with it.
2. The barrel is held in place primarily at its rear end by features of the receiver that hold it tightly via friction and lugs that prevent rotation, and at its front at the ring around the gas block. If the fit of the barrel into the polymer receiver isn't very tight, it means the barrel can flop around during recoil and vary slightly in resting position from shot to shot.
3. The 12 o' clock 1913 rail, which is only firmly attached at the front of the receiver to the plastic receiver dovetail it is attached to. If the rail doesn't return to it's original position after being flexed by impact or recoil, that will contribute to poor accuracy/precision.

I tested my ARX's 12 o' clock rail by placing a 5x optic at the rear of the rail and a red dot at the front of the rail. The dot could clearly be seen through the 5x optic and, in comparison to the scope's reticle, used to note differences in the two optics' alignment. One interesting revelation was finding that the friction introduced by the added roll pin near the rear of the rail, which is not present on any military version of the rifle, caused the rail to not return true after being flexed left or right then released. This may not have mattered when shooting, as perhaps the recoil would have been violent enough to help the rail return to the same point each time despite the roll pin's added friction, but it was an issue when simply flexing the rear mounted 5x scope and releasing it. With the pin removed, the optic would repeatably return to within 1 MOA of its starting point after the rail was flexed. I have left it out.

I tested my ARX's barrel to see how well it retained it's point of aim by mounting a red dot directly to the barrel via an Ultimak AK gas tube mount and a micro red dot with a lower 1/3 cowitness mount, along with mounting a 5x optic to the rifle's rail. I rezeroed the red dot so that the dot co aligned with a dot in the 5x scope's reticle, which would make any movement of the barrel readily apparent. I then flexed the barrel in each direction, watching the red dot move in the 5x scope's field of view as I did so. To my surprise, the dot returned exactly into alignment with the chosen dot in the scope reticle each time, with no deviation detectable to my eye.

The results of these tests indicate to me that my 4 MOA result was due to some factor other than my ARX's barrel retention. This is a change from my previous example, whose barrel could be seen to visibly change POA and remain changed a certain amount when flexed utilizing the exact same test. Should recrowning the barrel and retesting, also post removing the rail pin, prove not to provide any improvement in dispersion, I may explore have a replacement barrel made from a blank. The barrel extension and gas block are removeable and could be transplanted to a new barrel easily.

[The Dumb Gun Collector]

I will do my damndest to do another couple of 5 shot groups and maybe use my Colt Socom'd barreled AR as a ref

[Bret]

I don't get the complaint.

I don’t like hand guards that are too wide. The rails prevent me from getting my hands up high enough unless I grab on to them. If I do, it’s too wide and feels like I’m grabbing a cheese grater. For comparison, I like the feel of krink hand guards better than Galil Ace hand guards even though the Ace is a superior weapon overall.

[556Cliff]

One interesting revelation was finding that the friction introduced by the added roll pin near the rear of the rail, which is not present on any military version of the rifle, caused the rail to not return true after being flexed left or right then released. This may not have mattered when shooting, as perhaps the recoil would have been violent enough to help the rail return to the same point each time despite the roll pin's added friction, but it was an issue when simply flexing the rear mounted 5x scope and releasing it. With the pin removed, the optic would repeatably return to within 1 MOA of its starting point after the rail was flexed. I have left it out.

Beretta USA adding that roll pin was a poorly conceived solution to a non existent problem... The whole thing was brought about because of early initial reviews of poor accuracy and the top rail being easily flexed because of it's design... It wasn't that the rail was actually loose, but people actually started trying to tighten the screws to take out the flex (BAD idea). Once Larry Vickers came out with his review and mentioned the flex in the rail Beretta marketing thought they had to do something by adding the window dressing of the roll pin, since there was already a pointless hole in the receiver just under the rail meant for the integrated sights of earlier Italian military ARX-160 models they figured "what the heck, might as well fill it with something." My problem was that they lied about it and claimed that it was just a part the design that they forgot on the first batch due to being lost in translation from Italian to English. Just pure BS with all of those Italian made military ARX-160A3s out there (from which the ARX-100 is based) with no roll pin present under the rail.

It was just a save face move because of uninformed initial reviews that might have kept people from even considering the ARX... In the end, the pin should not be used and it is not part of the design. Like you noted it actually can cause the issue of the rail not returning to center when flexed one way or the other.

[Aries144]

I don’t like hand guards that are too wide. The rails prevent me from getting my hands up high enough unless I grab on to them. If I do, it’s too wide and feels like I’m grabbing a cheese grater. For comparison, I like the feel of krink hand guards better than Galil Ace hand guards even though the Ace is a superior weapon overall.

I guess if I imagine taking off those side rails, I imagine everything being too smooth and big to grip firmly. Gripping the area I showed seems to solve the problem for me by effectively making the grip area smaller, since now I only have to span the distance from the top of the side rail to the bottom front of the fore end. Squeezing top-to-bottom, instead of side-to-side.

I get the cheese grater thing. Some minimalist ladder type rail covers would alleviate that well enough for me, I think.

Beretta USA adding that roll pin was a poorly conceived solution to a non existent problem... The whole thing was brought about because of early initial reviews of poor accuracy and the top rail being easily flexed because of it's design... It wasn't that the rail was actually loose, but people actually started trying to tighten the screws to take out the flex (BAD idea). Once Larry Vickers came out with his review and mentioned the flex in the rail Beretta marketing thought they had to do something by adding the window dressing of the roll pin, since there was already a pointless hole in the receiver just under the rail meant for the integrated sights of earlier Italian military ARX-160 models they figured "what the heck, might as well fill it with something." My problem was that they lied about it and claimed that it was just a part the design that they forgot on the first batch due to being lost in translation from Italian to English. Just pure BS with all of those Italian made military ARX-160A3s out there (from which the ARX-100 is based) with no roll pin present under the rail.

It was just a save face move because of uninformed initial reviews that might have kept people from even considering the ARX... In the end, the pin should not be used and it is not part of the design. Like you noted it actually can cause the issue of the rail not returning to center when flexed one way or the other.

Yeah, I think you're right. BUSA's reputation is dying and will continue to do so unless someone puts someone with some integrity and passion for their products into their Customer Service leadership.

[Aries144]

Gave my ARX' barrel to a local gunsmith to have it recrowned. He decided to do an 11* crown. This is how it looks now.




The barrel face is not perpendicular to the bore, the crown still has a big dip in it, and now the barrel OAL is 16 1/16".

Also, ADCO isn't taking work right now because their head machinist just died.

Is this enough to qualify for an SME (Shit Magnet Extraordinaire) tag?

Maybe I can turn this into something... Could this be segued into some kind of protection racket where I threaten to buy things from people and review them if they don't pay me a monthly fee?

[Bret]

I hope he didn't charge you.

[556Cliff]

Jesus...

Aries, you have terrible luck, but I don't think I've ever heard of a single case of someone having a local gunsmith work on a gun that's ever not turned out to be a complete disaster.