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There’s no denying that the BAR is a dead sexy design. And if not sexy, then at least iconic. The guys at Ohio Ordnance Works realized this and have re-engineered John Browning’s iconic design for the modern age. The new design knocks a whole bunch of weight off the gun, increases the cooling capability, and makes it more accurate. They say that it’s 1 MoA all the way to 1,000 yards, but we’ll need to test that out for ourselves.

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They’ve also re-engineered the magazines to have a 30 round capacity instead of 20, which is nice. The whole package will retail for $3,600 sometime in Q2 of 2014.

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103 COMMENTS

  1. That is really, really bad ass looking, but the fact that I can never own it in full auto makes it completely, utterly useless and pointless to me. I can think of 3600 better things to do with $3600 than buy that thing.

  2. Are they taking originol BAR’s and doing this? Or are these built from scratch? Also, will the new 30 round mags work in a GI issue BAR?

  3. So since it’s semi auto only, it’s basically a really really heavy M1A? Still looks awesome and if i could afford it i’d buy it. Don’t get me wrong, i like the tacticool version pictured, but they need to make a “Classic” version though that looks just like the original.

  6. Maybe I’ve read too much Larry Correia… but I wouldn’t mind seeing Sullivan’s bullpup BAR made manifest.

  7. The Hughes amendment needs to go away so we can get these in full auto. Although buying ammo to feed it would suck. The CMP is cracking down on how many cans of ammo you can buy in a year now too.

  9. Get an old Garrand and haul it all over Montanna hillsides for a week or so, and you will know exactly why you should get one of these. That and saving the end of your load thumb every time you get low on ammo ..
    Robert Seddon

  10. Blasphemy. Utter blasphemy. What’s next, rails on an M1? I don’t understand the need to slap rails and the word tactical on every new product coming out.

      • I’ve been told I’m an old fart because I still believe $40 is a LOT of money. But the $185 for that M1 rail is something I could see spending. I’ve wanted to mount a scope on my M1 for over 20 years, but the mounts I found available looked like they would never hold zero, or required lots of modifying of my rifle. My Garand isn’t anything special. I got it from the DCM back in the 1980s and it’s a hodge podge of mixed parts that happens to shoot 2″ 8 shot groups at 100 yards with open sights (back when my eyes were really good). Thanks for the link to that, most appreciated.

  12. Ohio Ordnance has made 80% BAR receivers for years, but you would need a degree in machine shop to finish one. About 1984 I was about to pull the trigger anyway, but the parts kits dried up. Then there was a bunch of FN model D stuff on the market, but the parts don’t interchange with the BAR.

    I always wanted a BAR. I think it has something to do with Little John in the TV series Combat.

    Charlie

  13. Nothing wrong with the rifle, but I prefer the original design. I’ll buy the mags if they’re interchangeable though.

  15. Too cool!

    I love the 30-06, yeah I know the .308 is effectively the same thing, but I don’t care, I like the 30-06.

  16. For $3600 I’d rather save up a few hundred more and get
    an original model. Still, I’d be okay with one of these.

  17. the current BAR and FNAR are the same gun. This looked at first to be a hotrodded version of the original. $2k is a big premium to pay for tactitard rails and coyote tan cerakote if you’re going for that look.

    • Heel to! I could FEEL my credit card company high 5iving each other!

      I’m in LOVE!

      BTW, I have very many rounds down range using a WWII BAR…

  20. C, that stuff on the receiver is the patterning left after they’ve CNC-machined away every possible ounce off the receiver in an effort to lighten it.

    Basically it’s a 30-shot M1A in .30’06. With correct ammo, it will make most anything shy of an MRAP its bitch. If you can’t shoot holes in it with this, get a Barrett.

    Yeah, I like the original, but I can’t get lights, lasers, and optics on the conventional M1918A3 semiauto repro. Gimme a light and a Trijicon RMR on here and a lot of people’s cover just got downgraded to concealment.

      • Oh, as a style thing I prefer the original too. My collection has a lot more ’03 Springfields and Garands in it than it does ARs. But OOW can only sell so many classic-style BARs to WWII reenactors, and the supply of WWII GI BAR parts is not infinite.

        I see them selling a few of these to departments that feel the need to stop cars the hard way.

  24. I don’t think some of the commenters know much about laws and firearms and components. If it was fully auto an ordinary citizen couldn’t buy one as per the NFA laws. The rifle doesn’t have a slide fire stock you can see the trigger assembly doesn’t have it around it. I don’t mean to be rude but I hope people aren’t as ignorant when they do own a weapon in regards to some of the posts. I’d buy one of these

    • About the slide fire stock. I wasn’t suggesting that it had one, as would seem obvious by my comment about An AR stock not working and a new design being needed.

  25. I was just saying that if you go up against 10 bad guys nothing short of a BAR is going help. I see someone provided a solution to my problem.

  26. I was going to comment but all I can think about now is the Delsym Video ad that just starting playing and ended insome snoopy piano music wtf.

    EDIT: Oh yea, this is still so much better looking than the damn Jesse James BAR. I wonder how difficult the magazine is to change etc, otherwise seems pretty sweet. ALWAYS wanted to play with a SOCOM II or other M1A, this is like a love child of sorts.

  27. It’s tan, 30.06, 30 round mag, and I unashamedly want one. Still haven’t seen the Desert Tech bullpup price so this may be my ludicrous gun to chase for the year

  28. The only thing that would be cooler is if it was about a $1500 less, and they showed off a re-done Bren to go with it.

  29. Ugh. It just doesn’t have the spirit (or select fire, presumably) of a BAR to me. Just looks like another tacticool plastic gun.

    Now, don’t get me wrong, they can be awesome… but the BAR was something apart. Sorta like comparing a modern gattling gun to a civil war piece.

  32. Polarizing to be sure. I want to like the addition of rails for their actual usefulness, nobody is hauling a repro BAR out for, say, hog hunting, so I hesitate to cry tacticool. I get the changes, but the baseline is so iconic, it’s hard to get past the initial shock that this is the most badass example of American design philosophy since… can I say the original GT40? I know that’s backwards chronology, but I need something to fit at the end of that thought. Try to picture Henry Ford giving Ferrari both middle fingers a la Homer Simpson in the sandbox, but instead of Ford and Ferrari it’s Browning and Hitler. Too many metaphors?

    It’s like a 1911, baked into an apple pie, cooling on the passenger seat of a Boss 302, driven by Neil Armstrong, who is also eating a hot dog while listening to the Superbowl on the radio. And the pie is actually on Jennifer Lawrence’s lap.

  33. There’s a video somewhere on YouTube of this sonovabitch being fired. It’s… Unreal sounding. I was on the fence until I heard it roar. This gun will be in my safe eventually.

  34. Why is the BAR so popular? Its a primitive and most definitely obsolete light machine gun designed for walking fire in WW1, featuring a 20 round magazine located in the most awkward place to reload in a fire fight, no detachable barrel and therefore no ability to maintain a high rate of fire when you need it.

    • The BAR had weight, a low cyclic rate, and a very heavy barrel going for it when it comes to both accurate automatic fire, and sustaining fire for longer periods. But really, it’s mostly that it’s awesome.

      • BAR is not obsolete. Just heavy. This new iteration has a lot of promise, trying to convince one of my “rich” gun collector friends to get on the list for one so I can find out first hand how well it operates.

  35. That one looks better than the bastardized monstrosity that Sons of Guns crapped together for that Jesse James guy.
    Still, some guns shouldn’t be changed from stock.

  37. COOL and is it 3006 and will it still use surplus BAR magazines…? Someone please test it and report back …

  38. Okay so it’s JMB’s baby in mall ninja form. It’s ugly, it’s blasphemous, it’s expensive.

    And I fucking want it. Want it so hard. Especially if it can handle modern .30-06 loads. This makes the M1A I’ve been lusting for look like a lightweight.

  39. Loves me some BAR! Have had 3 different OOW repros in my hands as well as couple of original full-autos and a Monitor. This new iteration is fugly. We like fugly. Not to wild about all the surface striations on the main body, do like the non-reflective finish.

    The magazine rework is an idea that I really like, interchangeability is always a good thing.

    Price tag? Wow. It will probably drop a bit if they do well, not much though. These are a collector sort of item, so they will stay relatively high.

  40. Who has seen the prices of the best rifles on the market right now? LWRC REPR in .308: $3,500 and up.

    Yeah, I’ll take a 30-.06 with gas-piston action and stock recoil buffer (Same weight as the REPR) for $3,600 – You bet I will.

  41. Prior to 9/11 and all the trigger time lessons that followed, friends and I learned in the target rich urban sniping environment in and around Sarajevo during the 1992/95 siege, the value of a good mid range semi-auto .30 cal. weapon. At the time we made due with M-1A type WPNS but found they did not hold their accuracy in sustained fire. Urban warfare produces many fleeting targets and is often not one shot one kill stalk the mutt for days stuff. Lots of hurry up and get metal in the meat shots often thru stuff which ruled out 5.56. While todays .30 AR based DMR type rifles are an improvement over the M1/M14 type of semi autos due to their rails and ability to accept optics-lasers yata yata yata. They are still “rifles” that a sustained target rich environment could cause problems for when the five day fight enters its 12th day and there is no end to the mutts who need killing. When asked at a lecture in 1996 at the USMCs War Fighting Lab at Quantico what I thought would be a good choice if I had my choice, I answered a modified version of the old BAR in semi-auto built to take optics. Since the BARs roots were in sustained auto fire, I believed then “and still do” that if properly modified it could provide accurate sustained fire all day-week-month long. Fact is if I again found myself having to run-hump-climb stairs and shoot mutts thru stuff for a living, I would like an Ohio Ordnance new BAR in 30:06 or even .300 Win Mag.

    • As our younger brothers have been learning since late 2001, masonry and cement construction is the norm in the mid-east and a lot of Asia, and when you are trying to drop targets in that type environs you need a bullet with some ass. And a weapon that can take a beating, both from sustained fire and movement. And smashing the occasional noggin, cause they ain’t always out there at 100m.

      A solidly built .30 with the capability to accept modern optics/digital/laser targeting systems is just not something US DoD seems to want to accept, no matter how badly troops need it. They have upped the numbers of specialty sniping rifles in .30, Garrand derivatives, several models of Winchester rifles and AR platform pieces shoehorned up to .30 or one of the hotter hunting calibers.

      DoD keeps putting out fantastical requirements for new weapons, and even when somebody brings them one in .30 that meets and exceeds their wish list they still reject it, cuz it ain’t 5.56.

      I would like to see someone take one of these new BARs and really torture test it. Beat the living sh*t out of it, fire the living sh*t out of it, rinse and repeat ad infinitum. If it can hack it then I would be for a major campaign to get it accepted for US Army and USMC issue. Due to the utter failure of our political apparatus we are going to be fighting in these region for a LONG time, and it is high time we up our ground game.

      Thus endeth the sermon!

      • Reference comments by 2hotel9, I concur in all respects Sir. In Balkans we used AP often since putting 20 fast rounds in and around a window some mutt shot at civilians from was enough to run him off instantly, even if it did not kill him. Stopping firing on civilians right away “not running up ones body count” was the point. Twenty .30 Cal. AP bouncing around his perch would kill, injure or incline most mutts to call it a day. With civilian lives at stake waiting around for the classic “one shot one kill” stuff was not an option.

        • And never forget all those masonry/brick chunks flying around like angry, blood drawing hornets. Tend to encourage a hasty relocation, which always adds to the chance you or your flankers can put some rds in their ass.

          I am a big proponent of aimed fire from all riflemen and saws, but lots of people don’t get that aimed fire is not always at a person if your intention is to force them into moving from cover or stopping their fire at other targets.

          Spray&pray is rarely effective in such situations. Or any others, for the most part. Putting 10rds into the wall 12 inches below the window sill Haji is firing from also don’t do much unless you got something that will tear through it. Another point that is lost on a lot of people, thanks to movies and TV.

  45. It’s a BAR jacka. Who cares and who has a permit for a full auto? The fact that’s it’s a 306 cal. and with a nice super scope, you don’t have to pull it away from your eye to crank in another round with a bolt. While your chasing that elusive target. Price is a bit much. Big cal. big $?

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