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Hi guys. Been looking at ARs a little more closely after the latest push to ban them seems to have Trump and even the NRA softening on the issue. Long story short, we have acquaintances in law enforcement, and on the topic of "my first AR", the consensus among them was that if we wanted an AR that we wouldn't easily outshoot or otherwise want to upgrade out of the box (besides the usual bolt-ons like an optic), we wanted the Savage MSR 15 Recon. A little more expensive than the entry-levels like the S&W M&P15 Sport or Ruger AR556, but the money went to the right places. Most common complaint is the trigger isn't that much better than mil-spec, but as one review said, much easier and cheaper to replace that than to swap out the forend of your average M16-type or quadrail AR for the M-LOK this one has stock.

However, after a fairly extensive search, I'd have settled for the Patrol, if I could just find either of them. CTD, Bud's, GaG, Bass, Cabela's, all of them list the thing, none of them have any and don't know when they're getting any. I managed to find one, maybe a bit more expensive than online but it saves me FFL transfer fees, supports an FLGS, and, hey, they actually had it where all the sites pricing it cheaper couldn't actually put one on a truck for me.

Is this a common experience among other AR-seekers? Any other problematic models along the same lines as the Savages? What seems to be the cause? I'm thinking the combination of the "Trump slump" followed by Parkland and new calls for a ban are the major factors at play; most AR manufacturers were ramping down through 2017, calling the market saturated.

I came up a dry hole too. I did find one site where you can "Create an alert", presumably for when someplace reports it in stock.

https://gun.deals/search/apachesolr_sea ... upc_only=1

I have the Recon and it is an excellent weapon. It is my first AR.

I bought mine from Grab a Gun. You might check their website to see if they have any stock.

Joe

Just for reference (nothing wrong with the savage at all) the reason you expressed wanting the savage recon (free float m-lok hand guard, due to the difficulty of swapping barrel nuts/gas blocks etc. mostly defeats the purpose of you buying the patrol. At that point you'd more than likely be just as happy with the SW MP Sport. Anyway, savage makes fine weapons.

Sorry. I bought a Savage msr15 .223 Wylde from grabagun last wednesday for $608.41. It’s supposed to arrive to my lgs tomorrow. They went out of stock the day after I bought it. Savage is a pretty busy company and I expect you’ll be able to find one in stock soon.

Right after the last shooting I bought two of those for customers, at that time my distributor was loaded up with them (the stock count showed 100 but it maxes out at 100 so they had more than 100). I checked two days after ordering and they were all gone.

Mil-spec triggers on ARs aren’t really that bad .... they just leave some room for improvement. But so do a lot of bolt-actions, which are supposed to already have better triggers than semiautos. The good news is that you can upgrade an AR’s trigger (or bolt-action’s for that matter) fairly easily. The only question is brand and cost of your aftermarket trigger. I personally went with Timney’s because I like the way they just drop right in, already tuned from the factory, but a lot of people like Geissele triggers, and there are several other manufacturers with improved triggers that are less expensive than either Timney or Geissele.

You might want to also consider the Springfield Armory “Saint”, which entered the market right about the same time as Savage’s MSR, and at roughly the same price. I don’t know which is the better rifle between those two, but feature for feature, they seem to be roughly the same - both having melonite coated barrels, 1:8 rifling, enhanced triggers, included sights, slightly upgraded handguards with either M-Lok or Keymod slots, and upgraded buttstocks, ambidextrous fire control, etc. Savage makes excellent barrels, but as anyone who has ever owned an M1A (I have) will tell you, Springfield knows how to make excellent barrels too. Two of my rifles have 5R rifling, and it does make it a little bit easier to clean than standard rifling, but it’s not as easy to clean as my polygonal-rifled barrels.

IF I were on the market for a factory AR15 for under $1000.00, I would be equally comfortable with either of those two. Here’s a link to Gun-Tests Magazine’s review of the Saint, comparing it to a Sig and a CMMG carbine. They gave the CMMG a “B” grade, the Sig M400 an “A-“ grade, and the Springfield an “A” grade - calling the Springfield “the gun for everyone”: https://www.gun-tests.com/issues/29_4/f ... s=GRDetail. “The gun for everyone” is heady praise when matched against carbines as good as the Sig M400. Other features for the Saint included BCM’s “Gunfighter” stock and handguard, and nickel-boron coated steel trigger and hammer.

The Savage seems to have a slightly sleeker look, thanks to a lower profile handguard, but the Saint isn’t exactly a porker. I like them both.