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Thoughts about featureless

As someone who's tried both, my vote goes to featureless.

I've tried the Juggernaut Tactical rear take down pins kits and after a few stuck FTE casings where I couldn't pop the mag out, I had enough of it. I know others on this forum has mentioned a hybrid combination of a rear take down pin + different part up front, but I have yet to try that combo.

As funky as it looks, it's not hard to adapt to featureless, especially if you've had experience shooting other rifles with similar grip styles.
 
Pretty much the same experience as OP. I used the bullet button when that was a compliant method because it was cheap, easily removable, and didn't require breaking the action open to release a magazine. Once the bullet button was banned, I was forced to try a featureless grip, and it was a revelation. I quickly realized how much better it was to have a standard magazine release than it is to have a pistol grip. I never looked back and have gone all in on featureless. If I had known how awesome featureless ARs are, I would have adopted them a lot earlier before the bullet button became noncompliant. I notice that most of the people going fixed magazine are very new to guns or ARs and are mostly interested in maintaining the "look" of a fixed mag rifle. Their primary concern is not functionality, or even maybe safety. They want a range toy that looks "cool" but they aren't shooting past 25yds anyway and they probably can't afford to buy much ammo (mall ninja, cough, cough).
 
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Tere_Hanges said:
Pretty much the same experience as OP. I used the bullet button when that was a legal method because it was cheap, easily removable, and didn't require breaking the action open to release a magazine. Once the bullet button was banned, I was forced to try a featureless grip, and it was a revelation. I quickly realized how much better it was to have a standard magazine release than it is to have a pistol grip. I never looked back and have gone all in on featureless. If I had known how awesome featureless ARs are, I would have adopted them a lot earlier before the bullet button was legal. I notice that most of the people going fixed magazine are very new to guns or ARs and are mostly interested in maintaining the "look" of a fixed mag rifle. Their primary concern is not functionality.
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Function over looks, always
 
I have started to realize that hardly anyone follows the law. Keep your firearms stored in a compliant manner and transport in a compliant manner. "Leave the state", shoot your guns, make them compliant again, then return. No one has ever been checked by law enforcement at a range ever (I could be exaggerating slightly). Everyone sees so many illegal guns at a range/match we would know if they actually started trying to enforce their silly rules. I think they also know doing such a thing is highly risky should you suddenly give reasonable people a reason to be unreasonable with their freedom and rights.

Any AR15 that has the upper separated from the lower is legal. When the Bullet Button ban passed, I took all of my uppers and lowers apart and put the regular magazine release back in. I still have my featureless rifles, but hardly shoot them anymore. Bolt action suppressed is mainly what I shoot and my ARs just sit there waiting for the courts to free them again.
 
It all just depends what you do with your rifle, if you sit at a bench and shoot it like a bolt action then who cares what you use. If you use it like a semi automatic rifle like in PCSL or the Bay Area Rifle Championship for instance, you won't find anyone using a mag lock because it is objectively slower.
 
Seems like every range I go to there's at least one guy with an AR that has a pistol grip, standard mags, and a standard mag release..... i end up feeling like a fool
 
I'd rather have a regular mag and stock: m1 garand, carbine, m1a, mini, SKS, br4 series, original saiga, svt 40, fn 49, ect then anything with a pistol grip adapted to be ca compliant any day of the week
 
Atomic Soldier said:
I'd rather have a regular mag and stock: m1 garand, carbine, m1a, mini, SKS, br4 series, original saiga, svt 40, fn 49, ect then anything with a pistol grip adapted to be ca compliant any day of the week
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Agree. My collection interestingly shifted over the years to that format (sporter type rifles).
 
Install a CompMag and put what you want on it.

Or, just get an M1A Scout and you're done.
 
You guys are comparing two different things, a whole list of vintage style 308s that you are gonna shoot like a bolt action don't perform like a modern AR15 that is tuned up for competition. If you don't use a semi auto like a semi auto then yeah it doesn't matter. The carbine has a very specific function.
 
Hit Factor said:
If you get a Juggernaut Featureless Grip, it’s not really much of a compromise. https://jtactical.com/products/featureless-grip

View attachment 73778

But to be honest, I’m finding that most people just don’t really care anymore. And unless you’re selling drugs, doing a drive-by, or violating parole, that includes the law enforcement community as well. I saw a guy use a fin grip at a multi-gun match a few months ago, and everyone treated it like some sort of novelty.
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Every time I see that, I can't help but see that the web of your hand (or at least a portion of it) can be below the top of the exposed portion of the trigger while firing. We believe this is a very gray area. I agree with you that it seems most people, including many LEO's, don't care anymore (except for the occasional range officer who acts like a school hall monitor). I don't believe it would be an issue though until you were snagged for some other reason and an overzealous prosecutor gets involved. A proper featureless rifle that clearly doesn't meet any DOJ "AW" definitions is kind of like insurance. You probably won't need it. We will all be happy if you never need it. And you'll be glad you had it if/when you need it.
 
deephouse said:
I've been getting back into it lately, building another featureless AR. Just some observations:

I've spent more time on reddit, here, and to a lesser extent CalGuns whenever it's up. I've noticed those that are getting into 2a for the first time are mostly fixed mag (nothing wrong with that, but hear me out).

This reminds me of the time when I first got into it myself back in 2010, the only thing you would see on display at FFLs were bullet buttoned rifles - and that was the norm. At the time I was OK with it. It was a minor inconvenience and like many my mentality was: "If S ever hits the fan, it only takes me 5 minutes to swap it out". I was also in the "featureless is ugly" camp. A bullet buttoned AR, I thought "this is just how it is..."

Fast forward to 2017 when bullet buttons became illegal. I tried some early versions of fixed mag setups (we were quite limited back then) - I recall going to the range and absolutely hating it. So I decided to give featureless a try (I believe at the time I just went to the Thordsen) and being able to drop the magazine "normally" was an absolute game changer for me. It was an upgrade to the bullet button, in my eyes. Fixed mag was having to learn a whole new system.

Now fast forward to 2025, I'm getting the vibe that most featureless guys/gals just lay low in the background and don't say much, almost exactly how it was back when I first started. You'll see the frequent post about someone's fixed mag system hanging up. Subsequent responses from other saying xxxx mag lock system is better. Then there's always one guy that just drops one word in the comments: "Featureless" which ends up being an open invite for other featureless guys to speak up. LOL. Hell, I'm guilty.

Over time I've learned to not give a crap what people think of how my AR looks. And I've spent tons of $ getting my ergos down: LOP down for the fixed stock, I've tried all the muzzle brakes and linear comps (aka non flash hiders). I've tinkered with so many different safeties, current favorite is the ambi FCD ASF50-Q winter long/long. And as of late, I've experimented with some higher optics mounts, 1.93 and 2.26 - reason being is I prefer any type of featureless setup that allows me to get a full grasp (non-fin) such as the Sparrow Dynamics or Thordsen. IN turn, I end up with a more of a chicken wing hold. I can't really tuck the rifle into my chest like before (think, lower optic mounted) without putting an awkward cranked angle on my wrist. My point is, I've finally got my ergo's down after all this time with the game changer being higher optics mounts.

You've heard the upside reasoning dozens of times:
- Regular magazine button
- Can use freedom mags "legally"
- Rifle is never out of the fight (upper separate from lower during reload)
- No Unnecessary wear on rifle from opening and closing
- No real need to change anything if SHTF... always ready
- Malfunction clearing "normally"

And the downsides:
- It's ugly
- rifle is mostly tailored to you (fixed length of pull, style of safety, etc)
- no flash hider, give away your firing position. A valid point.
- no adjustability in stock, in case someone with a smaller or larger frame needs to use your rifle
- not as compact storage because you can't collapse your stock (mostly a non issue for me)

Point is, IF YOU'RE NEW to shooting ARs and have any buddies that run featureless take a moment to try out their rifle. Understand that the ergos are probably setup to their preferences. Don't rule out featureless because of looks. There's huge value in being able to use the magazine button regularly...

Old photo:
https://imgur.com/a/15csKTU
Click to expand...

Great builds! Thanks for the support. I had a similar realization as you. Once many of us here switched to featureless after the BB ban, we all said "why didn't I do this sooner!".

There is a solution to some of your cons dealing with the stock.
This can be done with many Magpul stocks as well using a different pin and a bit more work.
The Magpul SL-S stock can be done with almost no effort using just a torx wrench.
 
The second one, needs a tool. Strike industries makes a little rubber strip that you cut that fits into the adjustment holes, you basically block off all but one hole. You can use any stock with that and not need to bolt anything. Another good stock is the Magpul prs lite if you want a DMR setup
 
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