First off I love shooting an HBAR A2 setup. It's one of my favorite setups for an AR. I took an M16A1 semi and an A2 HBAR, built on an 80% lower, parts kit bought from (Blackthorne), back in November, 13. today was the first day of having it out. Shot low first 5 shots, lower front post down 3 clicks, shot right on. an easy 3 inch group from a standing position. I didn't do much better at a rest, but I am pleased with its performance. No FTF, stove piping, things falling off, exploding, etc, etc, that I've heard so many other people complain about with this company.

So, give me your take on the ole HBAR A2 and who's got a functioning accurate Blackthorne? LOL


I've heard these parts are LMT, and Wilson or Mossberg barrels.

By blackthorn wouldn't fire right out of the box.  The headspace was so great the extractor would not clip over the rim of the case.  The round would bottom out in the chamber and still have a gap between the boltface and the bottom of the round so of course the firing pin wouldn't reach the primer either.



I did a little research on Blackthorn after this incident and knowing what I know now, I will never do business with them again!



If you're happy with your rifle I'm glad for you, you might have gotten one of their good ones.

Yeah, probably New customer's luck, and I can't believe they're still in business with all the bad stuff.

I believe they purchase large quantity of blem and off spec parts off several companies and incorperate them into kits, more people have issues with anything they have bought from Vulcan/Hesse/Blackthorn than those who do not. It's pretty bad to have to change your company name numerous times to coverup your bad reputation, If you google any of their business names you will find threads of hundreds of people who have reeceived absolute trash. I try to learn from other people's mistakes, so I researched them and decided they will never get my business. With the AR15 market as flooded as it is now, theres no reason to use such a business.

ETA: I prefer gov. profile 1x7 twist A2 barrels, but HBARs are good for benchrest shooting at long distances with a nice scope. It's definately not something you wanna be humping around in the woods and shooting offhand at multiple targets, they don't swing from target to target as smooth as A1 pencils and A2 Government profile barrels

Yeah, this one is definite hbar, but govt profile is my favorite.

I built my A2 from  blackthorne kit, Feb/14; I had a couple FTF during the first 100 rounds or so, and the rifle seemed  "gritty" at first, but it's smoothed out and shoots very well. The only real issue is that the FA isn't functioning properly and the dust cover spring is on backwards, neither of which I've bothered to fix because they don't affect performance. The upper receiver was either a blem or they handled it poorly because it has some light shelf wear on it, but other than that the parts are all good thus far.

Then I built my dissy, using selected parts, and assembling myself. It was pretty, slick, and smooth from the 1st shot and just plain runs. Happy with both rifles, the dissy cost almost 2x what the A2 did, so I'd be disappointed if it weren't "better".

Friend of mine ordered a Vulcan/Hesse M4 kit back before they were blackthorn and received a decent lower, only the trigger and hammer pin holes had to be reamed out. He knew I had all the tools and knowledge to get it working if it wasn't too badly F'd up. To my surprise it had a nice ER Shaw M4 barrel, an unmarked BCG with stakes that I had to redo, but functioned just fine (I put an O-Ring in the extractor just to be safe). The LPK was trash, I think I threw the FCG away and just kept the springs, it was missing the PG screw, and few roll pins. Luckily I had a spare Colt FCG and rollpins, A2 upper was fine, the rear sight assembly was pre installed, so was the FA, and dustcover. The Delta ring was so cheap it was plastic and shiney. It didn't come with a muzzle device, and at the time had were 3 prong FH's, so thats what we put on it. I took it out immediately to test fire and it ran great, I beat on it to make sure it would run under stress and it was GTG. Turned out to be a fun little carbine for a total of $379.00 total with 2 30 rounders. Again I don't recommend bying anything from Blackthorn but some people get lucky.

Bought a couple kits from them, a number of years back. There were lots of small issues with the parts, and I've gradually culled everything form my herd. Things like commercial buffers with odd-fitting stocks, sloppy melds, etc. They worked OK, but were kind of a hassle to deal with.

But I do wish I'd kept the 7.62x39 AR. For some reason, that thing ran like a raped ape. It shot everything I fed through it, without a hiccup. And, when I put a decent optic on it, it actually shot one batch of Wolfe ammo that I ran through it pretty close to MOA (other batches didn't fare as well, but were still pretty good). Really, I should have kept that thing. But I was glad to dump the rest of the stuff.