I happened to be in a gunshop last Friday with my wife.  She picked up a Bushmast Carbon 15 and loved it.  This was the version with the oval shaped forend and a short, slightly raised reciever length rail.  I have some questions about this;

1.  It looks nothing like the current Carbon 15's on the bushmaster website.  How old is this version?
2.  I've seen full length (to the end of the foreend) top rails for this when I do a google image search.  Can such a thing be added after the fact?

Stay away from the old Professional Ordnance rifles, except for the type 97S. All others had many issues. I do not know if Bushmaster solved them after they bought them.

The top rail on mine can be removed, probably to add that taller type, this one is 2 years old

What is the easiest ways to tell if this one is a Professinal Ordinance rifle?  If it is the handguard design, I've seen three different versions over the years.

The receiver will say 97S on it. The hand guard should be oval shaped and the barrel fluted as I don't think the regular 97's had fluted barrels.





 

I think this one was a type 21 which looks like the 97 but with a much shorter rail and no irons.   I'm *pretty sure* it said Bushmaster on the side.

Did the forearm look like this?


The early Bushmaster guns had some issues.  Mine wore down the charging handle notch until I started lubricating the handle and it wore in smooth.  This was a pretty common issue, and would result in things like failure to feed and failure to eject, as charging handle would bind on the upper receiver track, and the bolt would bind on the charging handle.

The older ones also had more 'unique' parts, like barrel nuts & buffer tubes and funky QD muzzle brakes, that often required a bit of work to adapt to conventional AR parts.  I was still able to dress mine up, though.


They are light weight, which is nice when running around with one.  However, because they lack the mass, they don't soak up as much recoil.  In my experience, many women shooters felt that they 'kicked' too much.  The other thing to warn you about is that if you have the muzzle brake, you will often find you have plenty of elbow room at the range.  Standing slightly to the right or left of you, it sounds like a .308.  It is the loudest brake I have ever heard.

In general, the Carbon 15 is not very popular around here.  Part of it is unreasonable expectations; this is a light weight rifle styled like an AR15, but it is not an AR15.  It can be buggy and quirky while being broken in, as well.  If you already have an AR and reasonable expectations, you may enjoy the Carbon 15 quite a bit.  Otherwise, it is probably not something I'd invest my hard-earned cash in.

Trash.

Always a pleasure to see you back to old form.

Yup, that's it.  It didn't have the full length top rail or iron sights though.  

I was just excited that my wife found a centerfire rifle she actually likes.  This has been a difficult process finding one.  She shoots 20 gauge from a Rossi single shot shotgun (which doesn't weigh much), so I'm fairly certain she could take the recoil from a .223 in a lighter frame.

My AR has less felt recoil than my aunts 20 ga mossy 500.  Have her try a regular AR, my wife loves shooting mine, the recoil is not an issue.

I had heard a lot of bad things about Carbon 15 lowers so I combined a C-15 Upper with a Cav Arms Lower and the combination works great and weighs next to nothing.  

Is Cavarms selling lowers again?  Their webpage makes me think not.  :-(

I just picked one up from a guy on Gunbroker for $150.

Anyone know where I can get a carbon-15 stripped upper WITHOUT the forward assist and ejection port door????
I JUST received a brand new stripped carbon-15 upper direct from Bushmaster with a standard port door and forward assist, but I would prefer one that doesn't have all that crap.