Windham Weaponry AR15 Rifles

Hey guys, welcome back. Today I'm out here shooting two different AR-15s from the same manufacturer. The manufacturer is Wyndham Weaponry and I want to tell you a little bit about this company. A company that's relatively new to the AR scene in terms of manufacturing, but has quite a bit of history in manufacturing AR-15s. I'll explain more here in a few minutes. Anyway, let's get started. Let's take a look at these rifles. The two rifles we have out here this afternoon are the CDI, which we have down here, and the MPC. The MPC is a standard M4 style rifle. The features will mirror that of the M4 military service rifle, including a standard 16-inch barrel. Of course, the military barrel is 14.5 inches, but this is a 16-inch barrel for legality reasons. It has the MTOE 3 step on it, and a standard M16A2 flash hider. The handguards are standard M4 handguards, which have the double heat shielding as well. The barrel has a 1-in-9 twist, which is a right-hand twist, and the barrel is made out of chrome molybdenum steel, and it is chrome lined. It is a DI gun, or direct gas impingement, as well. The aluminum receiver, upper and lower, 7075 T6 aluminum. The buffer tube is a commercial tube, and I'll talk a little bit more about that here in a few minutes, and it has a six-position collapsible buttstock. The A2 carry handle is removable, which is a standard M4 type removable carrying handle, and it has an M16A2 pistol grip. The CDI has a few more options on it. First of all, you'll notice it has a Magpul buttstock. Again, a commercial six-position buffer tube. Has the MOE pistol grip on it. Has diamond head flip-up sights, and a diamond head rail system. It has an AFG vertical forend grip, which is also from Magpul. It has a standard 16-inch barrel with a 1-9 right-hand twist, and it has a Vortex flash hider attached here on the muzzle. Let's take a closer look at the two rifles, including taking a look inside of them. A little bit of history about Wyndham. Wyndham was originally Bushmaster. Bushmaster sold to the Freedom Group relatively recently. When Bushmaster was sold, the Freedom Group moved the manufacturing out of Wyndham, Maine. Wyndham Weaponry was founded by the old employees of Bushmaster that weren't about to take the move of their company lying down. They formed their own company and named it Wyndham Weaponry, which is the town in which Bushmaster was originally founded and manufactured its rifles for a couple of decades. Now, even though these rifles are made by the former Bushmaster employees, I've noticed in shooting these rifles now for about a month that they're different. I would say they're actually a step above in quality if you're used to using Bushmaster rifles or if you're familiar with Bushmaster AR-15. These rifles definitely exhibit better quality control, better manufacturing, better tolerances, and a nicer fit and finish overall, at least in my opinion. I do want to talk about that buffer tube. This is the MPC rifle, which is the standard M4 configuration rifle. This is a rifle I actually prefer. I like a simple rifle. The buffer tube is a commercial tube, which means that the buffer tube is slightly thicker than a mil-spec tube. The tube diameter is the same diameter as the threads. On a mil-spec tube, the tube will be slightly smaller in diameter than the threads. Now, most quality stock manufacturers that sell third-party stocks will offer stocks that will fit either the commercial tube or the mil-spec tube. Some folks think that the commercial tubes are inferior to the mil-spec tube. I can't say definitively if one is better than the other, but what I can say is that in my experience, the commercial tubes really aren't a problem. The difference being also is the mil-spec tube will be extruded and made out of one solid piece of aluminum, whereas the commercial tube will have the end cap welded on. Now, if welding is done properly, the weld is just as strong as the host material, so it's not going to break. It's not that it's a weak point in the design. However, if the weld is not done properly, it can break. I've never seen a commercial tube break, but I have ran into problems where some stocks won't necessarily fit a commercial tube against because it's slightly larger in diameter, just a few thousandths of an inch. But if you're looking to buy third-party stocks like from Veltor, Magpul, stuff like that, you're not going to have a problem with a commercial tube. One of the other things I did notice about the rifle was that the castle nut here was not staked. That's great if you want to take this off and replace it with a mil-spec tube or put a different stock on the rifle, but you'll probably want to stake that if you're going to take this rifle to a hardcore rifle course or something like that. You snug it down, you get it to the proper tension, it's probably not going to cause you a problem. Now, another thing that I noticed about the rifles, aside from the quality, is that I have a way of testing AR-15s to find out if they're built properly. And this is non-scientific, it's just things I've noticed over the last few decades of me shooting AR-15s. If you want to take an AR-15 apart, you have a pushpin here on the lower. Two pushpins, actually. Let me take this glove off here, it makes it a little bit easier. When you take an AR-15 apart, you have two pushpins, one in front and one in the rear. You just push the pin across with your thumb, I'm pushing right here, you push across with your thumb, and draw the pin across. You'll notice that this rifle comes right apart. Some AR-15s will be so tight that you can't push that pin across, you have to use the tip of a bullet to get it started. Other rifles will have such a sloppy, loose fit between the upper and lower that it just pops right out. This rifle is very snug, but perfectly snug. I can pop these pins out with no issue whatsoever. I can draw out both the front and rear pins and break the rifle completely down. So that's just kind of a sign that the rifle is properly made and built to decent specs. Overall, the fit between the upper and the lower is perfect. I don't see any gaps, any ledges, any problems that would indicate that there are any, you know, lacking quality control in the manufacturing of this rifle. And then the finish of this rifle, which is a hard black anodized finish, is beautiful. I've seen a lot of AR-15s, sometimes the upper doesn't match the color of the lower. The upper and lower on this rifle match perfectly, and it's a great thick black coating that seems to hold up pretty well. And putting a scope on one of these rifles, I actually slipped and hit it with the tip of the blade of the screwdriver, and it didn't even put a mark on the rifle. So it's very durable. The handguards, this is another thing you can kind of tell. The handguards on some AR-15s M4 style, you really have to struggle or use a tool, a tool that grabs a rifle and gives you leverage to pull the delta ring down. On these Windham's, they pop right off. They're not loose, they just fit perfectly. So you can pop the upper or lower handguard off the rifle with no effort. You're not struggling, you don't need any tools. Again, it's just one of those things you kind of pick up over the years in shooting AR-15s. Some of them are a real pain to get apart, and some of them, like this, fit perfectly. The 1-9 twist barrel that both of the rifles I have out here this afternoon, some people love 1-9 like myself, and other people prefer 1-7. Let me tell you the difference between the two barrel twist rates. The 1-9 is good for 55 grain up to 62 grain bullets. You're going to get optimal accuracy performance out of the 1-9 twist barrel. The 1-7 twist barrel, which is used on the military M4 rifles, is designed for heavier bullets, all the way up to 75 grain bullets. So if you're going to shoot 60 to 70 grain bullets, match bullets, things like that, the 1-7 will really start to shine. The 1-9, most people shoot 55 grain or 62 grain bullets because that's what's commonly available and cheap, things like wolf ammunition. So that's what I typically shoot, and that's why I like the 1-9. So if you want to shoot, also, tracers, the 1-7 was actually designed to shoot and stabilize military grade tracers, the 1-7 is good for that. For general planking, shooting, even just buying 55 to 60 grain match ammunition, I prefer the 1-9 twist barrel. Let's take a look at the inside of a Wyndham Weaponry AR. First of all, it does feature M4 style feed rims. The bolt carrier has a properly staked gas key. Now, this is important if you do a lot of shooting, because this will actually come loose, and if this gas key comes loose, it will cause the rifle to malfunction, and pretty badly. The bolt itself is made out of 158 carpenter steel, which is a military standard spec, and it also is MP and HP tested. So basically, the internals of this rifle, both of these rifles, are military spec, using all top-of-the-line quality components, and again, we have the M4 style handguards, which are double heat shielded. Both of these rifles, the MPC and this CDI, which I'm holding here now, feature the exact same barrel. The accuracy testing that we did with the Wyndham rifles was done with this particular rifle. We found that with wolf ammunition, shooting 55 grain ammo, we're getting about three inch groups at 100 yards. When we shot some UMC 55 grain brass cased ammo, non-match ammo, we got that down to about one and a half inches. We fired some Hornady 55 grain VMAX ammunition out of this rifle, and we got that down to one inch. So these rifles, with these one and nine twist barrels, shooting 55 grain ammo, will shoot about one MOA, maybe even a little bit better with match ammunition. I've been firing this rifle now for about 600 rounds. About 80 or 90 percent of that has been steel cased wolf ammunition, 55 and 62 grain ammo. I've had no malfunctions with the rifle using the wolf ammo, or even the brass cased ammo, such as the UMC that I've done a little bit of testing with as well. This ammo is wolf 62 grain ammunition. It's actually soft point ammo, and it's running flawlessly in this rifle. I'd say that's pretty warm, no malfunctions. Okay guys, time for some final thoughts. Overall, the Wyndham Weaponry ARs, I think, are top-notch. I would put them above the Bushmasters that they were born from. I would say that they're every bit as good as a Colt, or even a BCM, or something like that. Now the only ding that I have against the rifles, which isn't necessarily a ding to me, but it may be to some folks, is the commercial tube and the non-staked castle nut. I can stake my own castle nut once I get the rifle configured the way that I want it, and I'm not necessarily opposed to commercial tubes. Sometimes they can become a rear end if you have a stock on hand, and it won't fit on the commercial tube. It's meant for a mil-spec tube, but other than that, if you're buying components, like I said, most of the top stock manufacturers are going to offer stocks of both the commercial tube and the mil-spec tube. The quality of the rifles, again, top-notch. Great fit and finish. I've had no problems with functioning of the rifle. With the one rifle, I fired over 600 rounds of Steelcase Wolf ammunition, and we fired VMAX and TAP ammo and other ammo through this particular rifle, and we've had no issues whatsoever. Accuracy, pretty much standard for AR-15s. We're looking at about one inch groups at 100 yards with the right ammunition. These rifles also have a lifetime warranty. That means they're pretty proud of their rifles, and they're pretty confident in the quality of the rifle, at least in my opinion. Also, that lifetime warranty is transferable to another owner. Should you decide to sell the rifle, you can transfer that lifetime warranty to the new owner. The rifle that I'm holding here sells for $1680. This is the CDI rifle that has all the Diamondhead features and accessories. It has a single-point sling attachment back here that's on both sides of the rifle, the Diamondhead sights, rail system, the Magpul accessories, pistol grip, forend grip, buttstock, vortex flash hider. $1680 retail. On the street, you can expect to pay $100, maybe $200 less than that. It's $1080 for the other rifle, the MPC, which is a standard M4 style configuration. I've seen those on the street for right around $800. At $800 for a super high quality M4 style rifle, I think it's a pretty good bargain. If you guys have any questions about these particular rifles, you can ask those questions on our Facebook page. You can find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com forward slash military arms. As always, everybody, thanks for watching. Thanks for the subs. We'll talk to you guys soon.