James River Armory’s Bullpup M1A/M14 Prototype
Jon Stokes 01.19.15
The coolest gun that I saw at the SHOT 2015 Range Day was hands-down the above bullpup conversion for the M1A/M14. James River Armory is a company that specializes in restoring classic military firearms, and they got a booth at Range Day mainly to show off their SAGE EBR clone. The company’s founder is an M14 purist and prefers wooden stocks only, so their SAGE stock was a leap for him, and the bullpup–well, it was a prototype that they had on-hand so they put it out on the table.
The owner was the mystified when the bullpup started to get all the attention, but I wasn’t. This design is deeply cool. It’s machined out of a billet of aluminum, and while it adds a little weight, it changes the balance and feel of the gun drastically. Not to mention the fact that a bullpup M14 is short enough to do CQB with, all the while maintaining the reliability and 500-yard accuracy that the M14 is legendary for.
The unit pictured above is just a prototype, but when it comes out it’ll be in the $650 to $700 range. If you’re looking for that One Gun to do it all, then this stock plus a SOCOM-16 could be the ultimate One Gun build (if you can handle the weight).
Update: Commenters are saying that this is a Rogue chassis that has been on the market for some time, and I’m inclined to believe them. I recorded my interview with the James Armory owner, and on going back to it it’s pretty clear that he just doesn’t know much about the chassis, and he says as much. He does call it a prototype though, which I took to mean “our shop made this and it’s a prototype”, but he was probably using the term very loosely as in “this is the first one of these that we’ve assembled and started to offer for sale.”
Still, though, the brief interview gives the strong impression that JRA made this, but I’m going to be charitable and chalk it up to misunderstanding. I’ll stop by their booth and get clarification today.
