Hi guys
Thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWweapons.com I'm Ian McCollum and I'm here today at the Rock Island Auction Company
Taking a look at some of the guns that they are going to be selling in their upcoming September of 2017
Firearms auction, and the one we're looking at today is another survivor of the dreaded assault weapons ban here in the US. So from
1994 until 2004 the Assault Weapons Ban
was on the books and it prohibited the manufacture of
semi-automatic rifles and pistols and shotguns although
We're not going to get into shotguns today that had a specific combination of features
So, in a nutshell, these were guns
That were semi-automatic and had detachable magazines. In the case of pistols it had to be a detachable magazine
outside of the pistol grip of the gun
And then if the gun had a certain combination of characteristics it would be prohibited. And when it came to pistols
One of those characteristics was a weight over 50 ounces.
Also a barrel shroud that would protect your hand was one of the characteristics and a threaded muzzle was one of the characteristics. So a
couple of different companies came up with designs for
AR-15 based
handguns that would skirt that definition.
We looked at one a little while ago
The Olympic arms oh a 98 and one of the others that showed up on the market was the Professional Ordnance Carbon 15.
Now, I don't have one of the pistol versions
But I do have one of the rifle versions. The pistol version...the AR-15 pistols of all types are
Basically pointless guns. They're nothing but range toys and kind of impractical even as range toys, in my opinion
But what Professional Ordinance did was they took their pistol design which came in at something like
46 or 48 ounces. It was a very light pistol and they actually marketed a rifle version of it as well and
This thing as a rifle weighs like literally 4 pounds
This is a 1.8 kilo rifle in 5.56, and that is really interesting.
This is a very early example of a super lightweight
AR-15 I mean, we're talking 2/3 the weight of a Colt SP1, which was specifically designed to be a lightweight gun in the first place
So I find while the pistol is dumb
I find the rifle version of this to be really kind of an intriguing gun. Now the Professional Ordinance existed from I believe
1996 until 2003 when they were failing and were bought out by Bushmaster.
Bushmaster maintained the brand with a Carbon 15 trademark and brand name. However, they made a bunch of modifications
That would make these guns compatible with standard AR-15 parts which this one is not
This is a Professional Ordnance Type 97 rifle
And what bushmaster did really
Eliminated the interesting aspect of this gun, in my opinion, because it's no longer in Bushmaster's hand
It's no longer quite so ludicrously lightweight of a gun, and that's what I think is interesting about these
What allowed Professional Ordnance to make such an incredibly lightweight gun. I mean this thing is just
Ludicrously light when you pick it up. It feels like a toy...rather it feels too light to be a toy
What allowed them to do that was
extensive almost complete use of polymers. Now from the name Carbon 15 you might think that this is made of carbon fiber and
Get this image of you know that like woven pattern
Material that they use in really fancy high-end sports cars and such and spaceships, and that's not actually what they're using
This was really a polymer filled or a carbon fiber filled
Polymer and
These parts are not particularly robust. We'll get to some of those problems in a few minutes
But it is a polymer lower. It's a polymer upper. A polymer butt stock. A polymer hand guard
virtually everything
the optics rail up here is actually aluminum, but screwed into the polymer upper so
Potential issues for there, I don't I don't know how
How durable of an optics mounting platform that can really be
It is super appropriate for this to have a polymer thermal magazine by the way
In order to meet their weight goal, Professional Ordinance had to redesign a bunch of the internal parts of the rifle
Everything had to be pared down
Where Olympic Arms redesigned the recoil system to go above the action and thus eliminate the need for a buffer tube in the back
Professional Ordnance stuck with the Standard Basic AR-15 style of action
But made some of the parts a non-standard in order to make them lighter. So let's pull this apart, and I'll show you those
It does come apart with the traditional two pins although because of the
Recoil buffer, you have to take the lower completely off. You can't just pivot it open around the front
Those two pins removed, I can pull this off.
That is very much a non-standard
recoil buffer
You'll notice in here there is no buffer retention detent so that's why the buffer
Just came out forward when I took the the upper and lower apart
Now, in theory you can flip this lever down and you can take the butt stock off
But it doesn't really want to come off for me, and I'll be honest
I'm a little afraid of breaking it because it feels kind of fragile and I kind of know that it actually is quite fragile
So I'm going to leave the butt stock on
You can see down there, it has a guide rod built into the stock for the recoil spring,
and the recoil spring is right here with its own proprietary
Lightweight buffer because
Having a big heavy buffer in there is going to be a killer when it comes to trying to reduce the overall weight
Taking a look at the upper you can see that
They got rid of the forward assist. They even got rid of the dust cover as a way to save weight
we can pull the charging handle back out and
Take out the bolt carrier group
This is a non-standard bolt carrier. You'll notice there no serrations for the forward assist
although, ironically, cutting those serrations, those ratchet teeth would have actually reduced the weight and
Perhaps most interestingly it actually has rounded locking lugs. So a normal AR-15, these lugs are square and
It's actually kind of an interesting improvement that you see, for example, on some of the modern and Knight's Armament guns
To round the corners of these locking lugs. It's really interesting that Professional Ordnance did that.
I don't know exactly what their motivation was for it. It's not going to be a weight reduction measure
I don't know if they realize that it really was an improvement, or if they did it for some other reason
However, it does mean that because the locking recesses in the barrel are cut to match
You can't put a standard AR-15 bolt into one of these Professional Ordnance guns
Under this somewhat futuristic
Swoopy-looking hand guard is a standard gas system
They used a fluted stainless barrel on this and the barrel is...I think that barrel probably weighs more than the entire rest
Of the gun put together. Then Professional Ordnance has this kind of distinctive looking muzzle break
That they mounted on the rifles
Now these early versions, unfortunately, just don't inspire a lot of confidence when you handle them
They feel very light, which isn't necessarily a problem as long as they're built with materials that are
Actually more durable than they would appear,
which, in this case they really aren't
Unfortunately, but then operating the gun so running the charging handle feels stiff and kind of gritty
really not
doesn't inspire a lot of confidence.
As is typical for AR-15s, all of our markings are here on the magazine well
Professional Ordnance, obviously the more recent versions after being taken over by Bushmaster, would say Bushmaster, and this one was made in Lake Havasu, Arizona
Before they moved there they were being made in Ontario, California. We have our Carbon 15
brand name and caliber down there
The only other markings are the pretty typical fire and safe selector positions.
Oh, and the serial number which is on a metal plate
That is imbedded in the polymer lower receiver
ATF requires serial numbers to be
Engraved in metal and not polymer, so that had to be added in there
They probably tried to come up with a way to have an optics mounting solution
Directly made of polymer, but even Professional Ordnance wasn't able to come up with a solution for that
So they have this aluminum optics rail
Picatinny rail which appears to be attached just by a single screw at the front
It obviously overlaps onto the top of the polymer on a like a dovetail mount or a tee mount up there
But then it's just one little screw holding it in place
I don't know if that would be resilient over the long term, or if it's something that would start to work its way loose
The reason that Professional Ordnance had to be bought out by
Bushmaster, and the reason you can't get one of these anymore on the new market is
because, unfortunately
Professional Ordnance quickly developed a reputation for very poor quality. A lot of their parts
Have a habit of breaking. These guns would
You know, if you talk to say gun shop owners who were distributing these things, they'll tell you that yeah
they they tended to break charging handles, upper receivers, lower receivers, and
bolts or bolt carriers. And that pretty much is the complete list of parts you really don't want to break in a rifle
So that's the reason why the company ended up going out of business and selling out everything to Bushmaster
Which is unfortunate because I think a gun that this light really has some potential
Professional Ordinance was one of the very first companies doing something like this on a mass market scale
Now, they may have been inspired to do it based on this kind of, I think, stupid goal of an assault weapons ban
viable pistol version of the AR
But we can leave that aside because what they came up with as a companion rifle was a really interesting gun
Not interesting enough to survive in the marketplace
But I think it makes for an interesting artifact of that assault weapons ban period, and some of the experiments that people were
Undertaking to get around the arbitrary legislative rules that were put in place
If you agree if you think this would be a cool piece to add to your own collection
Well, it is of course coming up for sale here
Take a look at the description text below and you'll find a link to Rock Island's catalog page on it
That'll have their pictures their description, their price estimates, and everything else that you'll want to know about the gun and
If you decide that you want it
you can
Place a bid on their website, or over the phone, or you can show up live at the auction here in Rock Island and participate
Thanks for watching