The ACR is back (sort of)...

[Slater]

Presumably a 5.56mm version is on their list?

https://www.bushmaster.com/acr-450-bushmaster/

[BoringGuy45]

I just wonder who at Bushmaster said "Yes, an ACR in .450 Bushmaster fills a needed niche in civilian, sporting, LE, and/or military market and we will sell enough rifles to justify its existence."

[ABNAK]

I just wonder who at Bushmaster said "Yes, an ACR in .450 Bushmaster fills a needed niche in civilian, sporting, LE, and/or military market and we will sell enough rifles to justify its existence."

Yeah, that has me wondering too. WTF would offer that in anything but 5.56, at least initially? Seems about as fated as the original (and MUCH-hyped) version that essentially became vaporware with a few later-on commercial attempts that flopped. They could have sold a shit-ton of 5.56 weapons when the anticipation was high. Just make it with chrome lined, 1:7 twist barrels. Or hell, just make it already! I bet they miss the boat this time too.

[GNXII]

You'd think that there were some "leftover" BM employees around to say "Uhhhh boss, maybe thats not a good move !" As stated above, 5.56, 1/7Bbls, lightweight fore end/rails and intro .300 BO guns in a totally different color (FDE etc etc) than the 5.56 guns with a decent amount of markings on the gun to indicate cal. Maybe even avoid introducing the whole "pistol or SBR" issue until sales start moving in the right direction. Just a thought...

[jesuvuah]

It also says it comes with a bfsiii binary trigger.

A 450 with a binary trigger is a very odd duck.

Soli Deo Gloria

[TehLlama]

At this point, I feel like the only hope of us getting the Masada back as a concept is going to be somebody buying up the whole Rem/Bushy group, and deciding to actually rework that IP into something it had promised to be.

I'm still working through the first barrels on stuff I bought instead with all the money I had set aside to pick up a pair of these... the promise was real, but should absolutely needed to just have a usable fighting setup on offer within 133% of the planned price point, and we'd be happy.

[SteyrAUG]

Yeah, that has me wondering too. WTF would offer that in anything but 5.56, at least initially? Seems about as fated as the original (and MUCH-hyped) version that essentially became vaporware with a few later-on commercial attempts that flopped. They could have sold a shit-ton of 5.56 weapons when the anticipation was high. Just make it with chrome lined, 1:7 twist barrels. Or hell, just make it already! I bet they miss the boat this time too.

And that is enough to keep me away from all of their products forever.

It's a shame, back in the 1990 days Bushmaster made a pretty solid alternate AR offering. I ran a Bushmaster Entry simply because it was a 11.5" when Colt didn't offer one and it was damn reliable. Not sure I'd buy the same rifle today or anything else.

What was done to the Magpul rifle was almost criminal. It really could have been "something." Probably the most innovative step forward in the first decade when we were fooling around with XM8s and all the other new space guns.

[BoringGuy45]

It also says it comes with a bfsiii binary trigger.

A 450 with a binary trigger is a very odd duck.

Soli Deo Gloria

The gun industry is often like Jurassic Park when it comes to developing guns: They're so preoccupied with whether or not they can that they don't stop and think if they should. It seems like the many of big companies are more about making novelty products than products that actually fill any kind of need. This kind of gun will get attention from a small number of neckbeards and rednecks, but likely only a few will actually shell out the money for it.

[Bret]

Perhaps they're intentionally starting with a product that they know will sell slowly so that they can ramp up their production in to a 5.56x45 offering.

[Defaultmp3]

What was done to the Magpul rifle was almost criminal. It really could have been "something." Probably the most innovative step forward in the first decade when we were fooling around with XM8s and all the other new space guns.

Some interesting backstory from forum member NickB:

Back story here…my very first meeting with the founder of Magpul, Richard Fitzpatrick, was breakfast at Denny’s after messaging him on arfcom looking for a job in mid-2006. He then took me back to headquarters where he, Mike Mayberry (owner & industrial designer), Brian Nakayama (engineer), Eric Nakayama (engineer), Doug Smith (COO), Drake Clark (head of sales), and I passed around a 3D printed, non-functional Masada prototype. The engineering team took the design from plastic toy to functional machine-gun in a matter of weeks, it was very impressive, but we/Magpul didn’t know what we didn’t know when it comes to engineering a brand new weapon system. We made grandiose claims about pricing, delivery timeframe, parts compatibility, etc. etc. etc., almost all of which ended up being wrong. Doug Smith saw the writing on the wall and understood that manufacturing a gun was probably the dumbest financial decision Magpul could possibly make, so he encouraged the team to find a partner who was willing to undertake that financial/liability risk.

So, enter Bushmaster. The honest answer as to why Magpul licensed the Masada/ACR to Bushmaster is because nobody else wanted it, at least nobody who could actually bring the gun to market in a big way. All of the major players saw the design, thought it was cool, but recognized that it would be a multi-year, multi-million dollar development project. The gun simply wasn’t finished, but because Bushmaster didn’t actually engineer or manufacture anything, they didn’t realize how much time/money needed to be invested to make the Masada work. Honestly, they simply didn’t have any competent engineers to look at the design and say holy shit, that tolerance call out literally says “must fit with”. Not joking here, after I went to work for Remington I learned that the Masada prints were a running joke within Remington R&D because they used “must fit with” as tolerance call outs.

Bushmaster signs the license deal right around the time they are acquired by Remington. Remington R&D gets ahold of the design and basically says “holy shit, what did you idiots get us in to?!” In order to make the gun function and be manufacturable, Remington basically dumped a few million dollars re-engineering everything other than the aesthetics. Now, to be clear, Remington is as ****ed up as a football bat, so it shouldn’t have taken that long or cost that much. I worked there for 11 months after my Magpul stint, and the R&D team told me we needed 250,000 rounds of ammunition to test a set of back up sights… So in the process of making the gun work, it basically doubled in price from what we told people at SHOT 2007, added about 3 pounds of weight, and lost features/parts compatibility that kinda made it cool in the first place. We (Magpul) were PISSED to the point of actually talking about buying the design back and bringing it to market ourselves. Obviously that was an emotional reaction, and not a good financial decision, so ultimately Doug Smith’s cool head won the day and kept the company from doing anything stupid.

So the ACR stumbles to market under the Bushmaster name, very lack luster, mediocre sales, terrible margin, etc. But then the US Army decides maybe the M4 needs to be replaced in a program dubbed “Individual Carbine”. Remington Defense fast tracks development on two systems: the ACR-IC and the Remington Gas Piston (RGP). They add a metal lower, new hand guard, take away the quick change barrel, tweak the gas system, and ultimately shave something like 2-3 pounds out of the gun and make a badass carbine for submission to the Army. Not only is it lighter and better, it’s also hundreds of dollars less to manufacture. I pushed the CEO of Remington hard to let me sell it commercially, but the Defense team didn’t want to give it up to Bushmaster for fear of them totally screwing it up with cheap parts. I have one of maybe 15-20 ACR-IC rifles in public hands, and it is almost exactly what the Masada was intended to be, but it will probably never be produced again.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/9299...89422391161134