Masterpiece Arms Tactical Rifle in .45 ACP

Michael Bane got to play with the new toy from MasterPiece Arms and had some generally positive thoughts.

The MasterPiece Arms Mac-10 based Tactical Rifle in .45 ACP…no recoil…no malfunctions…and heck , you can’t get the darn thing to miss!

I wanted to add a couple of notes when I got back to the hotel…yes, the little beastie is heavy, but I’m not planning on schlepping it across Afghanistan. I’m thinking of more of a home defense gun…it’s short, handles easily, and I think the .45 ACP is a superior home defense round to a 7.62 (and yes, I have a FAL) unless you really really don’t like your neighbors!

Here’s the page at MasterPiece Arms on the Tactical Rifle, which they call their MPA1-SST-XX.  It’s chambered in .45 ACP (also available in 9mm) with a 16 inch threaded barrel, AR style quad handguard, a muzzle break (seriously? – ed), 30 round magazine, vertical foregrip, and an AR style stock.  Honestly though, the coolest thing is that it comes with the Holosight you see mounted on the top of the gun.  MSRP for the whole package is $859.

While it’s running right on the border of “too much junk on your gun”, in general I’m a fan of .45 ACP carbines for home defense.  .45 ACP carbines and SMGs have put a lot of bodies in the dirt, they’re generally easy to manage in recoil, fun to shoot, and definitely make a good ballistic compromise weapon.  Sure, it’s not a “real” rifle, but it’s going to be easier to hit your target with a pistol caliber carbine than a true pistol.

8 Comments

  1. The real problem is that for $860 you could also have a real rifle . Not a ten pound MAC-10 with lots of AR parts sloped all over it. Or you could have a different pistol caliber carbine and four less pounds to haul around.

  2. Jeff, I absolutely agree. If I’m paying 800 bucks for an oversized pistol, it’s going to say “Thompson” on it. Otherwise, I’d just buy a Beretta Storm carbine for half the price and pretend I’m killing cylons.

  3. And the big question is will that closed-bolt Mac actually, you know, WORK?

    Also +1 to Pistol carbines for home-defense. They can lay down as much fire-power, if not more than a shotgun, for a heck of a lot less perceived recoil and noise, and all with a light and easy-to-aim package of a carbine!

  4. They can lay down as much fire-power, if not more than a shotgun

    Guess that depends on how you define “fire-power”. A shotgun spewing 00 buck is putting 8 .30 cal projectiles in the air every trigger pull. My Winchester 1300 can have 64 projectiles downrange in a couple of seconds. There ain’t pistol caliber anything (short of a submachine gun) that puts individual pieces of lead in the air as fast.

    Don’t get me wrong, I love my Sub2k, for the size/weight, longer sight radius, lack of recoil, and mag compatibility with my defensive pistol. But not firepower.

  5. “Firepower” is pretty much the most useless way to define the defensive qualities of a firearm. Here’s the problem with “firepower”: your shotgun puts out 8 individual .30 caliber projectiles with squeeze of the trigger, which inside of 7 yards will impact at exactly the same time within about 2 inches of one another. On the flip side, I can empty a 30 round magazine on a 9mm AR in less than 6 seconds and keep every round in the center mass of the target. So all things being equal, “firepower” is bogus.

    The only thing that matters in a defensive firearm is shootability – which is your ability as a shooter to get rapid, multiple hits on target. If you can do that with a shotgun, awesome.

    Ian, I’ll actually put a post up with my “pistol caliber carbine” recommendations.

  6. I’ll be waiting. Though for me it’s going to be closer to “should I bother” than “which one should I get” – compatibility with my existing mags/handgun is pretty important to me.

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