- The upper receiver is a modified AR-15 upper that will feed with standard SAW M249 links
- The lower and bolt carrier are stock with only a clearance cut added
- Every other aspect of the gun is standard AR-15
I have no idea if they are for sale. My guess is that if the price was right (under $300), they would fly off the shelves. I even think people with regular semi auto AR-15s would buy them for kicks.
Hat Tip: Marooned
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Well the awesome thing about belt fet guns is that in states where there is magazine restrictions there often isn’t any mention of how many rounds you can load in a belt fed so you’re good to go with 200 rounds at the ready.
Yea! even here in Canada where we have insane magazine capacity restrictions, the belt fed stuff flys under the radar (so far). I’m sure if these uppers went mainstream, the RCMP would put a stop to the fun pretty fast, but hopefully not.
Awesome
Shhhhhhh!
You’d think.. but most of the time the laws are written “well” enough to exclude that.
For example in California a magazine is “any ammunition feeding device”. New York, DC include a “belt” specifically. Massachusetts is similar to California, “large capacity feeding device”. New Jersey includes “any other container” – pretty sure a judge will agree that a belt “contains” ammo.
Oddly here in Hawaii it’s kind of vague; but the cap limit is only for pistols anyway and frankly I don’t see how a belt-fed pistol would make any sense or be practical whatsoever.
as long as they actually get produced and sont end up like the shrike, then i would pay upwards of a grand or two for one
Yea that shrike looks pretty sweet. I wonder why it was never sold? A couple grand seems like a lot to me… It would be pretty awesome though.
the shrike was sold its just that the production was put on hold and the mfg kept making excuses. some people waited 8 years or more to recieve thier product, some are still waiting. those who have gotten them have been reselling them for $7500+
I paid $9,000 for my shrike w/ some extra barrles and accessories. I will tell you why it never whent into mass production is because it doesn’t work!!! Which is precisely why those who have waited for years are now turning around and selling them. Ares Defense knows that if all of the costomers who are willing to buy the shrike had been given this POS Ares would be the subject of a class action!
Shame on anyone who resells the shrike or any firearm that malfunctions W/O informing the buyer.
That’s brutal Joshua! Did you ever contact Ares and tell them you wanted a refund because it doesn’t perform?
It’s fed backwards (or they put them in wrong for the picture). You might have a problem getting a SAW to take those rounds! Links should be on the top of the rounds as they feed.
true that its not, “brass to the grass” but it appears that the belt feed mechanics feeds the belt under the bolt just like the cenier conversion. so instead of stripping the ammo from the bottom of the belt (like the m249, m240b, etc) it strips the ammo from the top of the belt. thus you have to feed the belt with the links to the ground
I suppose if you had one of these, it might require putting belts of ammo together yourself (or reassembling them anyway), so it wouldn’t matter which way it fed. Although, if you happened to get your hands on a brand new drum of SAW ammo, you’d have to take it apart, find the other end of the belt, and reverse the whole belt!
If you can purchase belted ammo in a an ammo can or a drum, you’re going to have the wrong end exposed to feed into this thing. And if you have to assemble your own belts of ammo, this seems like more trouble than it’s worth. I guess the novelty of it might be worth a little extra effort though. There’s something to be said for making something just to see if you can, regardless of whether or not it’s practical.
well. if you ever get the chance to learn how to shoot a MK19 automatic grenade launcher, you will at one point be the assistant gunner responsible for pulling the belt of ammo out of the ammo box and turning it around so that the right end gets fed through the gun.
so if i can do it everytime i load a MK19 then im sure it wouldnt be too big of a hassle to flip around a light SAW belt
I’m afraid I’ll never have the chance to be the assistant gunner responsible for pulling the belt of ammo out of the box and turning it around.
What kind of a POG bitch has an assistant gunner anyways? Maybe if the gun’s mounted on a tripod, but if it’s up in a turret, no way. You just learn to man up and reload the thing by yourself, under fire, in a truck that’s doing 35mph over rocky terrain. My bad if I offend anyone
hahaha. no not at all. i havent used on in combat yet. only at the range where its on a tripod and you have an A gunner
I think I may have fired one before from the turret of a Humvee at a range, no assistant gunner though, and it was already loaded. And I do seem to recall something from EIB about the rounds loading “backwards.” That’s been quite a while ago though.
The closest thing I done to firing a beltfed weapon is shot a nerf vulcan. :P
LOL
About the shrike belt feed upper. I met a guy at a gun show in Michigan about a year ago. He finally received his upper unit and had no problems. I was able to get a first hand look at the unit and it looked good. The guy I met had shot many rounds with his shrike upper and is very pleased. He mentioned to me it was worth the wait. I have units on order and was wondering what I should do until I spoke to him. Now I am still waiting. The company ARES does not return phone call or emails. Very confusing I guess.
I must ask Russ if the guy was trying to sell his Shrike?
He wouldn’t tell everyone how shity it is if the objective is to unload it.
BTW how much was required for deposit? It is rummored Geoffrey Herring recieced over a million in deposits to date.
I know Herring claims there was issues w/ sudcontractors in the begining which made it necassary to produce many components in house. This could have dramaticly increased manufacturing costs above the original estimate. Making the investment in production greater than the price quoted to depositing customers. In which case collecting intrest on deposits over many years is a feasable way to prevent loss.
Unethical on thier part.
Speculative on mine.
Hi Josh and yes good question. Yes I asked the gentlemen and his comment was No he was not selling the belt feed up unit, even offer to meet and allow me the chance to shoot the firearms with the unit. He wish he would have ordered more units at the time. He truly like the Shrike belt feed unit. I am glad I found this site. I have not heard much about the unit nor any negative comments until now. Only thing is the delivery time. Many of us are still waiting.
It may be that the guy never tried to push the unit, as I have. The major problem is over heat @ about 180 rounds continuous fire. Misserable performance for a crew served weapon.
Again, I would like to ask you how much was the deposit?
Hiya guys.
I have to agree with Josh, Me and a friend got one of these from a private seller. It does tend to overheat, maybe a tad bit higher then 180 rounds but still not something I would ever take into a combat situation. from what I can see its a cute novelty item, but until it is refined it will not be anything seriously worth it. On the other hand it has good potential if developed further.
lastly, its way too expensive. we got ours for $6K and the original owner said he paid $3.5K. We chose to pay the $6K so that’s our problem but $3.5K from the factory is ridiculous already.
Not surprised. AR isn’t really designed for that kind of duty cycle. Always amazes me how fast those barrels heat up.
when you go thru the troubble with the atf of getting a frll auto lower then you gotta modify it you lookin at about 15,000 to 20.000 when you could get an browning 1919 or an m60
Everyone needs to stop calling this belt fed. It is link fed, there is a diference, just like there is a diference between clips and mags. They are 2 different things.
Nope. It’s fed a belt of ammunition held together by links. It’s not fed links. It’s a disintegrating link belt.
They are produced but cost over 3k. I am trying to find thrm pieced out so I can get a little here abd a little there.
Where are they sold???