The Best AR-15 Pistols You Need to Buy

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A number of companies eliminated AR-15 pistols from their catalogs while the future of pistol arm braces was uncertain, but now that the BATFE’s legally indefensible (not to mention wholly unconstitutional) brace rule has been thrown out by sensible federal courts, AR pistols are now back on the menu.  Most companies that were offering them before once again have them in their catalogs, and several others are planning their return. Arm braces revolutionized and popularized AR pistols, and you’ve got a lot of choices out there.  Here are a few quality recommendations:

Smith & Wesson M&P 15 Pistol

I’m including the Smith & Wesson here because it is a solid product from the biggest firearms manufacturer in America, at a surprisingly affordable price.  S&W reintroduced pistols into their lineup about a year ago, and currently they have two versions which differ only in which braces can be found on the back end.

One version has a fixed arm brace mounted at the end of a featureless buffer tube.  I prefer the other model, which offers an SB Tactical (the inventors of the pistol arm brace) SBA3 brace on a six-position adjustable buffer tube.  Either choice has an MSRP of just $916, which means you’re going to be seeing them on sale for $850 or so, which is a great deal.

This pistol is shorter than any of the others on this list.  It has a 7.5-inch barrel tipped with a blast diverter, which sends all of the gases exiting the muzzle straight downrange—this does a good job taming this noisy gun.  It fits on standard 1/2x28 threads, so if you want to replace it with a suppressor, you’re all set (provided the suppressor fits underneath the handguard).  The barrel has a 1:7 twist and a 5.56 NATO chamber, and free floats inside a handguard with M-LOK accessory mounting slots at 3, 6, and 9 o’clock.  This pistol weighs 5.5 lbs and with the brace collapsed is just 23.5-inches long.

One feature which makes this pistol stand out in a crowd is the M&P pistol grip.  The pistol grip is the same as found on the standard M&P pistols, complete with interchangeable backstraps.  Personally, I don’t like the look or the feel of this grip on an AR but considering you can swap out grips in two minutes just using a screwdriver, that’s a non-issue.

You get a flat trigger with this pistol, which looks good and feels nice under the finger.  Both the caliber and the barrel twist are laser-etched in white on the left side of the upper receiver, underneath the charging handle.  This makes me suspect they plan on introducing a 300 Blackout version, but that’s just a guess.

Geissele Super Duty AR-15 Pistol

The internet slogan is “Geissele all the things”, and if you know, you know.

Of the people I know in and around the industry who are serious shooters and have combat backgrounds, if given an unlimited budget to buy an “end of the world AR”, the majority of them would choose Geissele.  Heck, most of them already own Geissele ARs, and for good reason.  Geissele Super Duty ARs are not cheap, but they are nowhere near the most expensive on the market, but in this case, you get everything you pay for and more.

Bill Geissele is a former railroad engineer (designer, not driver) who has numerous patents from that industry under his belt.  He got into the gun industry designing a match trigger—mostly for himself when he was competing at Camp Perry.  His trigger attracted the attention of (ultimately) the famed Delta Force, and the rest, as they say, is history. Bill is a perfectionist, and every time he finds something in the market that is either poorly manufactured or poorly designed, he ends up making his own, which is why just about everything on his Super Duty rifles and pistol, but a few pins and springs is made in-house at the Geissele facility in Pennsylvania.

Geissele SBRs nearly identical to the pistols they sell commercially are in-use by SOCOM.  You can find 5.56 pistols with 12.5”, 11.5”, and 10.3” barrels, and 300 Blackout pistols with 8-inch barrels. Most of them are available in black, OD green, or DDC—Desert Dirt Color, Geissele’s version of FDE.  At the rear is a color-coordinated SBA3 brace.  Prices range from $2244 to $2474, but like I said, you get what you pay for—although it might not be obvious, as almost all the improvements Geissele does to the design are internal.

I bought a first-generation 11.5-inch 5.56 Geissele pistol five years ago (which I’ve since SBR’d), so I’ll cover it for this article, but all their 5.56 pistols have the same construction.  Other than the muzzle device (HUXWRX now instead of Surefire) they haven’t really changed anything on the outside.  On the inside they’ve improved their coatings, now using Geissele’s patented Nanoweapon coating on the bolt carrier group.

The barrel is cold hammer forged, chrome lined, with a carbine-length gas system and a 1:7 twist.  The barrel has what they call a “Geissele profile”, which is a medium-light contour, and as slender in front of the gas block as it is behind, keeping weight down. This and all the barrels found in Geissele’s rifles are made by Geissele in-house.  The material comes in as a raw blank and Geissele turns it into a barrel.  They have a forge, and the only thing they’re not doing in-house is the chrome lining.  Geissele magnetic particle inspects every barrel, and most of them will do 1-1.5 MOA with ammo they like.

11.5-inches is my preferred length for AR pistols and SBRs chambered in 5.56/.223, as I feel it provides the best balance between length and velocity.  11.5-inch guns are also more inherently reliable than 10.3-inch guns, as the gas port isn’t so close to the end of the barrel.

Underneath the handguard you’ll see Geissele’s stainless steel Super Compact Gas Block, which is pinned in place (in addition to having set screws for an additional level of security) in what they call their “bombproof installation”.  If you look close at the top rear of the Geissele gas block, you’ll see a stainless-steel pin set into a notch cut into the top of the barrel.   If you’re going to have a reliability issue with your AR, 99% of the time it’s either your magazine or your gas block coming loose.  The latter simply can’t happen with the Geissele design.

With Geissele ARs you also get Geissele triggers, which provide the reliability and trigger pulls against which all other AR triggers are judged.  In this gun is the SSA-X, which provides a two-stage, crisp 4.5-lb pull. If you’ve got the money, get a Geissele.  They’re worth every penny.

Sons of Liberty Gun Works “Blood Diamond” Pistol

Sons of Liberty Gun Works (SOLGW in shorthand) is one of the best AR companies you might never have heard of.  They’ve been seeing huge success lately and have been working with some impressive people.  Personally, I’d love to get one of their OB1 rifles, produced in partnership with Christian Craighead, Obi-Wan Nairobi himself, and if you don’t know who he is, look him up.  Now.  Seriously.  I’ll wait.

But this article is on AR pistols.  I own one of the original SOLGW Trunk Monkey AR pistols, which perhaps wins the contest for best AR name ever, but unfortunately it seems to have been discontinued.  Instead, let’s cover one of their newer models, the Blood Diamond Pistol.  This pistol is a faithful reproduction of the CAR-15 used by Danny Archer (Leo DiCaprio) in the classic 2006 film Blood Diamond, and if you haven’t seen that movie, you should be embarrassed.  I’m embarrassed for you.  Go watch it now.  I’ll wait right here.  Again.  Seriously, it’s worth it.

The gun in the movie had an unvented muzzle device on the 10.3” barrel, but the SOLGW replaces that with a nearly identical and more functional XM177-ish flash hider.  The pistol has a government profile barrel to keep the weight down, a fixed front sight, CAR round handguard, A2 carry handle upper receiver (LE trade-in Colts, in fact), and a tan camo Cerakote finish.  At the back end of the pistol is a bare buffer tube.  SOLGW sells matching Cerakoted CAR stocks if you decide to Form 1 SBR your pistol.  Danny Archer in the movie was running an Aimpoint mounted on the carry handle, which fits right into the modern trend of mounting optics high off the bore.

Most modern ARs, even pistols, are loaded down with extras.  While most of them provide additional functionality, they also add weight, and if you’ve never handled an old-school CAR-15 like this you might be surprised at how light they are—this gun runs just over five pounds without a stock.  The price (if you can find one) is $1699. SOLGW is perhaps the first company to publicly list the specs for every single one of their components, from coatings to steel, from bolt carrier groups to receivers.  They build everything to true MilSpec if not better and stand by their products in a way few companies do.

BCM 300 BLK RECCE 9 MCMR

Bravo Company Manufacturing (BCM) is a solid company that makes excellent guns and accessories.  They invented KeyMod.  Their Gunfighter charging handle set the standard against which aftermarket charging handles are judged.  The same goes for lightweight aluminum handguards with their KMR/MCMR handguards.  They started the more vertical pistol grip trend with their Gunfighter grip.  You can buy everything but complete guns and lower receivers from their main website, www.bravocompanyusa.com, and their complete firearms can be found at www.bravocompanymfg.com, although they don’t sell direct to the public—you’ll have to go through your local gun shop, if they don’t already have them in stock.

Bravo Company was founded in 2005 by Paul Buffoni, a Marine Corps veteran, to meet the demands of the private PSD (contractor) market at the height of the war on terror. While they were performing missions similar to the military, these contractors were not in the military supply chain and struggled to get good gear. PSDs needed a commercial alternative they could depend on.  The BCM product line was subsequently built with their needs in mind, following the philosophy of ‘no short cuts’. 

Since its introduction the BCM line has proven highly popular among knowledgeable shooters and is a leader in the commercial AR market. Bravo Company is best known for offering quality components which meet or exceed the Mil Spec.  I wanted to highlight BCM, as well as the 300 Blackout cartridge, and BCM sells an excellent 300 Blackout pistol. The 300 Blackout cartridge is a whole ‘nother thing altogether, and I could spend an entire article just on its history.  Even people familiar with 300 BLK sometimes get the details wrong, so let me give you a brief rundown of the basics before we dive into the BCM pistol.

The .300 AAC Blackout (that’s the official full name) is the descendant of several wildcat cartridges, including notably J. D. Jones’ .300 Whisper.  It is available in both subsonic and supersonic loadings.  The initial impetus for its creation was the Navy SEALs looking for a replacement for their aging MP5SDs.  AAC developed the original Honey Badger to meet their needs.  With subsonic ammo the 300 BLK Honey Badger was just as quiet as the famed HK MP5SD while being lighter and having AR-15 controls.

Generally, subsonic 300 BLK loads send a 200-220-grain bullet downrange at just over 1000 fps.  Supersonic BLK loads most commonly feature a 110- or 125-grain bullet travelling 2000+ fps.  But the advantage of supersonic Blackout isn’t that it hits harder than a 5.56, it is that it is optimized for short barrels.  The .300 AAC Blackout cartridge was optimized for a 9-inch barrel and retains far more of its velocity out of uber-short barrels than the 5.56.  Out of a 5.5-inch barrel, a 110-grain 300 BLK provides the same velocity as a 55-grain 5.56 load.  If you want a very very short AR, you’ll be far better served with a 300 Blackout.  And subsonic 300 BLK through a good suppressor is as quiet as quiet gets.

I’m not exactly a fan of the name of the BCM 300 BLK RECCE 9 MCMR but let me decipher it for you—BCM (Bravo Company Manufacturing) 300 Blackout Recce (for Reconnaissance line, used for all their pistols) 9 (for barrel length, nine inches) MCMR (meaning it sports their M-LOK modular rail).  There are other pistols with longer barrels and/or different handguards, but I think this is the best—in fact, I own one of these uppers, and have it mounted on a fancy pistol lower I built up myself.

The 9-inch barrel has a 1:7 twist, the standard (for short-barreled 300 BLKs) pistol-length gas system, is threaded 5/8x24, and is tipped with one of BCM’s Gunfighter muzzle devices, which work more as a muzzle brake than a flash hider. Everything in the upper and lower receivers, including the receivers themselves, is built to MilSpec or tougher.  You get a BCM Gunfighter charging handle, their improved PNT trigger system, and a BCM pistol grip, with an MSRP of $1919.  

Currently the pistols displayed on the website all have bare smooth buffer tubes, but as I said, things are changing. I reached out to Paul Buffoni for this article, and he told me that later this year they would be changing that. I assume BCM will be going with standard 6-position buffer tubes and (most likely) the SBA3 brace, as that’s what they’ve offered before on their pistols (and some of those pre-brace ban pistols can still be found for sale online).  I also wouldn’t be surprised if they offered versions with their product-improved Mk2 upper receivers, as those complete uppers are available for sale separately.  If you can’t bear to wait, you can mount certain braces to a bare tube or swap out the tube yourself.

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