focusing on the grouping

Yesterday, I drove six hours, round trip, to spend about seven hours hanging out with some cool guys and bad-ass hardware.
And it was good.
Hero Gear, down on Winchester, TN, is about to launch a whole series of very exciting products, and wanted some feedback from the people who may prove to be customers in the future. So a few of us from a Tennessee firearm forum, a few of us from AR-15.com, and a few other random folks showed up, and shared what we thought.
Joe, the proprietor of Hero Gear, shared with us his toys. I think we got the better end of the bargain.
So… what can I tell/show you? Unfortunately, Joe had us all sign very comphrensive, if somewhat vague, non-disclosure agreements, so I cannot really tell you much… apart from pretty much everything I remember. Shortly after signing the agreements, he pretty much said that 90% of what he told us is fair game, so off we go. If, however, you are looking for pictures, you will need to check back in the next few days… I took… a few… and will need time to sort through them and tweak them.
First up, and our real reason for being there, was the Hero-15 – Hero Gear’s new AR-15 platform. Well, “what is ‘new’ about it?” you are probably asking. In the strictest sense – nothing. As far as I know, each of the individual bits, pieces, and features going into the rifle have been done before individually or in limited sets elsewhere… but this is probably the first time they have all been put together in an all-up package.
To begin with, neither the bare lower nor the bare upper are what I would call ‘standard’, and they are significantly more than just some gun shop contracting out to have their name stamped on the side of someone else’s hardware. First off, both pieces start out their lives as solid blocks of aluminum, and a CNC machine cuts and shaves and slices the blocks down into the recognizeable parts. Second, both parts are beefy – it is not as noticeable on the lower, but the upper has a distinctive truncated-octagon profile from fore and aft, and if you hold either of them side-by-side against a “normal” lower/upper, the differences are obvious. Joe said specific high-stress points on both had been beefed up 10-15%, and I believe it. One random addition to the lower is a set-screw designed to hold tension on the rear takdown pin, and remove the “need” for an Accuwedge – not a bad idea, really. Oh, and if you swing that way, the uppers and lowers can be hard-anodized and teflon-coated in pretty darn near any color you want (the blue was pretty).
From that point on, however, the rifle pretty much becomes whatever you want it to be. Joe plans on offering any length barrel from about 10.5″ up to 24″ (if I remember right), with turns ranging from 1 in 7″ to 1 in 15″; barrels will be hand-turned individually from stainless steel blanks, and will be available in M4 or heavy profiles (but probably not bull); forearms will be whatever kind of non-plastic, probably-railed system you want of whatever length; stocks will be six-position adjustable, of whatever make/model you want (though Joe hates things that rattle, like the VLTOR system, apparently); the gas system options will be carbine- or rifle-length (mid-length is doable, but not something he seemed keen on – and piston will be an option, but not an encouraged one); A1/2-style FSBs will be avoided, and instead replaced with either full-up BUIS, gas blocks with rails, or gas blocks with folding sights; triggers will come in GI (for the carbines) or 2-stage NM; chromed, properly-staked BCGs and bolts will be standard; and grips will probably be Magpul MIADs.
Basically, you can make this thing into whatever you want it to be, all the way from a personal-defense SBR all the way up to a bipod-mounted DMR; however, one thing will be constant among all rifles in all formats – they will shoot well. That is pretty much Joe’s requirement on their production, and he actually plans on designing special hang tags for the rifles that have a target printed on them, since he plans on having every rifle test-fired with a five-shot group, and what better place to have that displayed than right under the rifle’s price?
Shooting them was just like shooting any other AR-15 – the extra material on the upper and lower did not translate into any noticeable increase in weight (of course, my AR already weighs more than it probably should, so you might not want to listen to me), and they were easily as accurate as advertised.
So now, the big question: price. Well, you are getting a custom-CNC’d upper and lower, built into a custom rifle, constructed to your specifications, and capable of shooting quite well, assuming you are doing your part. Figure $1800 to $2400, depending on configuration, which, in my mind, is fairly competitive.
Second, Hero Gear plans on offering wood furniture for AR-15s in the near future. Yes, wood pistol grips, forearms, and stocks. Granted, they are currently A-2 style stocks, and the forearms are completely bereft or rails, but if you want an old-skool, classic-looking, “gentleman’s” AR-15, this will definitely get you there. They are currently planning on offering AAA display-grade walnut burl and laminate in various colors, all of which will be configured for rifle-length firearms, and none of which will be free-floating (the wood would have to be too thin, and would not hold up).
And let me tell you – they look nice.
Granted, I would never purchase a set for myself, unless I had an AR-15 I wanted as a display piece, but for either (hopefully somewhere around) $299 for the laminate or (hopefully somewhere around) $399 for the walnut, if you want a 20-inch woodie, you can have a 20-inch woodie.
Third, Hero Gear is planning on launching their own custom line of 1911s as well. Granted, these will be based off the standard 1911 frame and slide, so no re-engineered, over-molded metal here (the frames and slides, in fact, will be fabricated out of carbon steel by Caspian Arms and Fusion, respectively). However, if you want custom-fitted Kart NM barrels, a mixture of Ed Brown, Cylinder and Slide, and Wilson Combat internal parts, and custom features done to your specifications (checkering, serrated slide top, finishings, night sights, etc.), this will have it. Configurations available will be “government” (5″ slide, full size frame), “tactical” (5″ slide, full size frame with rail), “commander bobtail” (4.25″ slide, full size frame featuring Ed Brown bobtail), and “commander” (4.25″ frame, full size frame).
And these are nice guns as well… the trigger on both they had at the range had a relatively short, easy take up, and a very, very clean break, tuned in at somewhere around 3.5 pounds. Despite the slightly increased kick (probably attributable to the decreased weight compared to the “government” configuration), I am really digging the “commander bobtail”… Light, controllable, and as accurate as I ever am with a sidearm… and it looked darned nice to boot.
The price weighs in somewhere around $1800, depending on configuration, which, again, is fairly competitive.
Oh, and finally, Hero Gear is planning on launching a line of completely-made-in-America nylon tactical gear. And by “completely”, Joe means completely, from the nylon itself, to the buckles, to the stitching. He had a tan backpack with him that I would guess was somewhere in the 1300 cubic inch range, complete with all of the necessary straps and webbing to attach other things to it, and said they were planning on offering it at somewhere around $109 in the near future.
(This should go without saying, but all prices quoted above are estimates – none of the products are actually on the market yet, and Hero Gear is still working out what the exact costs will be. No guarantee is implied or stated by the above price estimations.)
So, after introducing us to all of these various new endeavours, Joe took us out to a range (i.e. an empty piece of land owned by a very gracious gentleman whose name I cannot remember… sorry) and let us shoot them all. My short-and-sweet shooting experiences with each platform are mentioned above, but in the interests of honesty, I will also touch on the problems. One of the four Hero-15 platforms taken out to the range was having a consistent double-feed problem. The Hero Gear folks worked on it a bit, tried it again, worked on it a bit more, and finally gave up and racked it. I honestly have no idea what caused the problem, but I seriously doubt it was the new design of the upper and lower – 95% of the changes were external. Additionally, one of the two Hero 1911s they brought out would not consistently keep the slide back on an empty magazine. Their in-house 1911 tech was fiddling with it a lot, but I do not know if the problem was ever corrected.
[1840 UPDATE]I got some explanations from Joe concerning what was going on with those two particular firearms:

1. The Hero-15 rifle which was double feeding was actually a LMT 10.5″ upper (MRP CQB) which was thrown onto one of our factory SBR receivers at the last minute.
I was up all night the night before building rifles, and the SBR was the last one, and frankly, I didnt have the energy to put another upper together and dial it in.
Learning point: Don’t cut corners. I should have left the SBR out of the presentation.

2. The Hero-1911s were not locking back on the mags we had selected.
We will dial the mags/gun relationship down on these test mules (Sunday was the first day they had been fired, so I am still very pleased with the results)
I was very pleased with the accuracy, having put 7 shots in a quarter sized hole!

In that case, you definitely cannot blame the newly-designed upper, since it was not even mounted on the SBR! [/UPDATE]
All said, the Hero-15 focus group was a uniquely American experience – prospective future customers providing feedback to a manufacturer concerning a firearm, and then testing out said firearm themselves. Along with the Hero-15s, Joe brought out of some of his full-automatic firearms, as did other folks in the focus group. Additionally, a Barrett M82A1 made an appearance and was available to shoot, at $5 a throw. Equipment ranged from a replica 18-something blackpowder rifle, all the way up to a fully-automatic H&K somethingoranother and beyond.
And despite all of these “bullet-spraying”, “high-caliber”, “shoot-from-the-hip” “tools of death” around us, and being used by us, none of us were siezed by the overwhelming desire to mow down everyone else, none of us managed to knock down any airliners, and none of us even hurt ourselves. So strange… you would almost think that firearms, when used in a responsible and deliberate manner, were a safe way to have a lot of fun…
For my part, I confirmed B.O.M.B.E.R.’s zero by convincing an acetylene tank about 100 yards away to ding 25 times out of a 30-round magazine… not too bad, considering the operator behind the rifle.
In closing, I would like to thank Joe and all of his employees at Hero Gear for putting together this little shindig. A lot of stuff was learned, hopefully by both sides, and I certainly think it was worth our time. I promise to have pictures up by next weekend, and if you want to be notified by email about them, drop me a line.