By David Crane
defrev (at) gmail (dot) com
All photos and video contained in this article were shot by DefenseReview.com, and are copyrighted. DefenseReview.com owns the copyright on these photos. The photos and video clips embedded below were shot with a Canon PowerShot S90 10-megapixel digital camera (still camera with video capability).
April 2, 2012
While we were zipping around SHOT Show 2012, DefenseReview (DR) stopped by the Barrett Firearms booth to interview Kevin Fry real quick on a couple of Barrett products. One of those products was the NRA/Shooting Illustrated Golden Bullseye Award for “2012 Rifle of the Year “, the Barrett MRAD (Multi-Role Adaptive Design) multi-caliber .338 Lapua Magnum bolt-action anti-materiel/sniper rifle, which is quick-adaptable caliber and barrel-wise for any mission-specific anti-materiel or sniping application you may have below the requirements of a .50 BMG rifle. The MRAD can be configured for .338 Lapua Magnum, .300 Winchester Magnum, and/or 7.62mm NATO (7.62x51mm NATO)/.308 Win. Just swap out the barrel and the bolt face, and you’re GTG (Good To Go).
The Barrett MRAD’s “user-changeable barrel system” allows the operator to swap barrels out by unscrewing two bolts using a standard Torx wrench. The bolt face is also hot-swappable. The MRAD .338’s drop-fire-proof trigger module is “easily accessed”, and the thumb-operated manual safety lever can be configured for right-hand or left-hand shooters. The MRAD’s mag release (magazine release) is ambidextrous.
As you can see from the photos, the Barrett MRAD .338 Lapua Magnum multi-caliber rifle’s 7000-series (7075-T6?) aluminum receiver sports a full-length Mil-Std-1913 “Picatinny” top rail. What you may not notice is that the rail has a 30 MOA taper and provides 21.75″ (21.75 inches) of rail space for combat optics (tactical scope, thermal/IR weapon sight, night vision weapon sight, etc.).
The MRAD’s folding buttstock with adjustable cheek piece looks well-designed, but Defense Review hasn’t yet had the pleasure of running the gun at the range, so we can’t yet confirm this.
Overall, the MRAD looks well-executed, and the bolt-action’s operation looked pretty smooth, but DR would like to T&E the weapon and get some military operator feedback from the field to find out what professional trigger-pullers think of the MRAD. The weapon’s rich brown “Barrett Multi-Role Brown” color looks appropriate.
MSRP on the weapon without optics is currently listed at $6,000 USD, regardless of barrel length, as of this writing. Add a Leupold tactical scope and Barrett Ultra-High Scope Rings, and you’re at $7,370 USD. Add a Leupold tactical scope, Barrett Ultra-High Scope Rings and Barrett Optical Ranging System (BORS), and you’re up to $8,769.USD.
Btw, during a previous stop at the booth, DR managed to film the G4tv crew filming a G4tv personality named Weston Scott Weston Scott interviewing Chris Barrett on the MRAD for Attack of the Show. DR’s video footage of this AND Scott’s SHOT Show 2012 report (including the MRAD interview) for G4tv’s Attack of the Show are both embedded below.
Editor’s Note: In case anyone’s wondering what that little bit of brown stuff on my left hand is in the second video down, that’s New Skin Liquid Bandage. It worked well, and would appear to be a good product. I should perhaps also note that I filmed the first two videos (top two videos) below at the tail end of the show on the last day, so I was pretty tired by that point.
Click here to view Weston Scott’s SHOT Show 2012 report for G4tv.
Company Contact Info:
Barrett Firearms
P.O. Box 1077
Murfreesboro, TN 37133
Phone: 615.896.2938
Fax: 615.896.7313
Email Contact Page: http://barrett.net/support/contact
Email Military: military@barrett.net
Email Law Enforcement le@barrett.net
Email International: international@barrett.net
Email Training: training@barrett.net
Website: http://barrett.net
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