Wood “BAR-15” Build Day 1
Today we entered the wood shop to make the first cuts on our newest Wood AR-15 Build that we are calling the “BAR-15.” Why the “B?” Great question. The inspiration for this build comes from the famous M1918 BAR, so we thought BAR-15 was fitting.
One of the most iconic components of the M1918 BAR is its solid wood foregrip. Any rifle built as a nod to the BAR must have a similar foregrip and we knew the only way to pull this off on an AR-15 is with Aero Precision’s C.O.P. Upper. The C.O.P. has a monolithic free float rail with a variety of attachments that bolt onto the bottom of the rail and offer the user tremendous flexibility in exact rail layout. The monolithic upper rail section means that you can mount an optic far further forward than you can on a traditional upper and rail combo without sacrificing consistency of zero.
What most excited us about the C.O.P. is that the detachable bottom rail design, opens the door for an attachable wood foregrip. We could design a wood foregrip that is very similar to the BAR’s and have it attach as a part of the rail, rather than just wrap around a traditional AR-15 rail. A number of wood AR-15s have been built with wood handguards that wrap a rail. We wanted to take it a step further.
One note before moving on, we are impressed with the quality of the C.O.P. Upper. We have worked with Aero Precision’s products before, so we weren’t surprised by the Upper’s quality. It is however, a pleasure to work with quality pieces and it is worth calling them as you see them. Back to the build process….
After spending the past few months casting the vision for this project, as well as designing and prototyping each of the rifle’s wood components, it was very exciting to finally get in the shop and start building the BAR-15’s wood furniture.
Below are a few images of the foregrip after our first few hours of work.
Making the first cuts on the Black Walnut.
Sanding the foregrip block to its general shape.
First fit of the BAR-15's wood foregrip.
Foregrip block fitted tightly to the C.O.P. Upper.
We’d like to give a special thanks to Aero Precision for sponsoring the C.O.P. Upper for the build. As we mentioned above, their upper is the only one that would enable the type of wood furniture we had planned for the BAR-15.
