2016 Training Calendar

Jan 11 Closed Pistol

Feb 15-16 Tactical Pistol, Kent WA

March 14-16 Closed HR

April 18-22 Handgun Instructor, Kent WA

May 19-20 Mechanical/Ballistic Breaching Spokane, WA

June 13-17 Carbine/Subgun Instructor Kent WA

June 30-July 1 Designated Marksman, Kent WA

July 18-20, Carbine/Subgun User Kent WA

August 22-26 Basic SWAT, Spokane WA

Sept 12-13 Tactical Pistol, Kent WA

Oct 17-18 Tactical Pistol, Spokane WA

Oct 19-21 Carbine/Subgun User, Spokane WA

Nov 14-16 Hostage Rescue, Spokane WA

Dec 19-21 SWAT Team Leader, Spokane WA

I wear two hats, one of them is the supervisor of my agencies training unit and range, with a side job as a SWAT team member. The other hat is the owner/operator of a Tactical Training Company. The real job requires me to approve purchases of our department rifles and supporting gear. We are not a large agency, roughly 160 sworn but we issue a rifle to damn near everyone. So, we have approximately 140-150 guns issued and a handful of pool rifles to be used by new guys and officers whose gun is down for maintenance or in evidence during OIS investigations.

We currently issue a Colt Commando 11.5” rifle. Supporting equipment is a T-2, a Surefire Fury, a VCAS or VTAC sling and an MOE handguard to mount everything to. SWAT guns are a different animal with the SWAT dudes picking and choosing (with some direction) bits and pieces for their setups. Our team is regional so my agency only provides 6 guys to the 36 man regional team. The team has a service population of roughly 500,000.

While reading up on guns and gun shit, I came across Archer arms and their products. http://www.archer-mfg.com/ Archer is a new gun company, several things intrigued me about them. First was that the dudes involved were well known gunsmiths and gun dudes. I do not know all of them, but I was aware of their street creds. Second is that they are Making billet uppers and lowers in house, final machining forged receivers, Shilen Match bbls with their APR internals turned in house to their contours. My personal class gun was getting tired, so I was looking for something new. I was fortunate to have direct access to one of Archers gunsmiths, Chris Taylor for some questions. While we were talking, Chris mentioned that Archer was putting out a complete patrol rifle. The rifle would be turnkey with optic, light, and a bunch of upgrades over a stock Colt gun. It also includes a soft and hard case. As we were talking I kept thinking “What the hell is this gonna cost”. Chris asked me to come up with a price for our current issue guns.

After crunching numbers, our total cost is $1995 for the complete gun. A couple of things to consider are that I did not include employee wages to get our guns ready. We currently piece meal and order different things from different vendors, it takes a bit of time to research prices and then fill out the appropriate paperwork. Since those requisitions are individual pieces of paper, they sometimes don’t get approved all at once, or get lost in the shuffle requiring someone to go looking. Once everything shows up, inventory and inspection needs to occur. I also lose employee time assembling the gun and getting them on paper for the officer to finalize zero. It’s not a ton of time, but it does take time which in turn costs the agency in terms of wages.

I think we are issuing pretty damn good rifles to our guys, so the other issue was why switch and/or pay more for potentially less gun? Chris sent me a run down on what they’re doing.

Full specs on their stock Archer patrol rifle are as follows:

Patrol Rifle
– 14.5″ w/ perm attached muzzle device or 16″ barrel lightweight RECCE contour
– 13″ ALG EMR rail
– AimPoint PRO with mount
– MBUS BUIS
– ALG QMS trigger and LPK
– Daniel Defense-SSD flash hider (extended 1.5″ on 14.5″ barrels)
– MagPul CTR stock
– A2 grip
– MagPul trigger guard
– M600U with mount

*All rifles have QPQd Shilen Match 1:7 barrels with the Archer Proprietary Rifling (APR) internal dimensions, HP/MPI SOPMOD BCG with lifetime warranty and a bolt rebuild kit with each rifle. Lifetime warranty against manufacturer defects on the finished rifle, with a loaner rifle program if the gun comes back for warranty work.

*All packages include a Patriot Cases hard case, Armageddon Gear soft Carbine Carry Bag, Armageddon Gear or BFG 2 point sling, and a 3pc SLiP2000 cleaning kit.

If you’re like me you’re going, sounds badass, what’s it cost???

Dig this MFer’s, the gun listed above is $1895! If you upgrade to a T-2 it’s only $2195. Now I’m no financial whiz kid, but selling this to any cop boss in America should be easy as hell unless you are a total Goober. No more DRMO hodge-podge crap, and no more sub-standard crap at all. That price is subject to change like everything else, but Archer intends to keep it there unless Aimpoint prices go up. (Note: The gun in the picture is NOT the test gun, I will post pics of that in future in installments)

Now comes the question; “Is that bitch duty capable?” Well that’s why I’m posting this. I will be starting a lengthy field trial of their patrol gun, I have elected to upgrade to the T-2, but other than that it will be what is listed above. I don’t work for Archer in any capacity and the trial is for my PD, not my business.

Although I am not assigned to patrol, I am on SWAT. The Archer gun will take the place of my current duty gun and be my primary AND class gun for 90 days. My team trains 30 hours a month with one of those days being a ten hour range day. That alone will put 2500 rounds through it during normal training. With any new gun, I generally shoot 500 rounds of duty through it to ensure it is eating those pills reliably.  I will be as accurate in the round count during the 90 day test as I can, but I think it will see approx. 4-5K during that time. In addition it will also be converted for FoF training for 60 hours and a run through DARC’s LECTC course.

I think if it can handle that 90 day run, it will be “duty” capable. I know that far surpasses what any patrol dude will put it through and likely surpass most SWAT guys on round count as well. I will NOT be doing dumbshit like intentionally blazing through 100 mags, or shooting it dry or without cleaning for the 90 days. That shit is stupid. It will get my normal maintenance and lube that I have been doing to AR’s for the last 30 years. Wipe it off about once a month and keep it wet.

There are days when we absolutely put the guns through hard heat/cool cycles, and others not so much. One concern I have heard is whether the QPQ barrel can withstand hard use. From personal research and use from a different manufacturer, I am not concerned. I intend to lay down base line groups at 100 yards and then continue to try and match them throughout the test.

Here’s where you guys come in. If there is something specific that you want me to do with it, let me know and I will try to get it done. It has to be something that a hard use duty gun would reasonably be exposed to. I will continue to update this post with facebook notifications that something new was added. It will include pictures, # of stoppages (if any), round count, and training that me and my new battle buddy go through.

More info on Archer guns is listed below. We will also be putting a 10.3 upper through its paces simultaneous to my test. I will report out stats on that as well.  The first 90 days will be thoroughly documented, I may continue with quarterly updates until January 1, 2016 if there is interest.

SBR
-10.3″ bbl
– 9″ Geissele Mk4 rail and gas block
– MagPul MBUS BUIS
– Aimpoint PRO with mount
– ALG QMS trigger and LPK
– Daniel Defense Superior Suppression Device muzzle device
– MagPul CTR stock
– A2 grip
– MagPul trigger guard
– Surefire M600U with mount WML

SPR/DMR
– 14.5″ w/ perm attached muzzle device,16″, or 18″ medium heavy barrel
– 13″ Geissele Mk8 rail and gas block
– AimPoint PRO with mount
– MBUS BUIS
– ALG QMS trigger and LPK
– Daniel Defense-SSD muzzle device
– MagPul CTR stock
– A2 grip
– MagPul trigger guard
– M600U with mount.

Optics Upgrades available per rifle
– AimPoint T2 with mount
– Vortex Viper PST 1-4×24
– Vortex Razor Gen2 HD 1-4×24
– Trijicon VCOG 1-6×24
– Trijicon MRO 1×25

Additional upgrades per rifle
– Inconel gas tube for 10.3″ guns
– Geissele SSA triggers
– BattleComp 1.0 or 1.5, or suppresser specific, muzzle devices
– MBUS Pro BUIS
– MagPul MIAD grips
– MagPul UBR stock (For SPR/DMR builds)
– SureFire P3X tactical and mount