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The NEA 15 Rifle: The other Canuck AR
In recent months, many Canadian
firearms enthusiasts and shooters
have been waiting and watching
for a new black rifle offering from
a new Canadian company and we
finally got one.
North Eastern Arms (NEA) is an
extension of North Eastern
Aerospace, a company that
specializes in high quality,
extreme performance aircraft
parts. NEA was founded in 2008
in response to a demand for high
quality firearm components and
they claim to offer improved
versatility and construction. In the
last couple of years, they have
embarked on the design,
development and production of
increasingly innovative and
unique firearms parts and
products and they have become a
company that Canadian firearms
enthusiasts should watch. Jeff
Hussey, the CEO of NEA and his
military and law enforcement
sales officer, Dave McFaul have
been instrumental in rolling out a
Canadian made AR that has the Canadian shooting public talking.
In early 2011, the folks at NEA announced that they would be producing a new AR 15 based
platform that they felt would offer unique features and designs that would directly compete with
Figure 1: Preparing to shoot.
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the US AR15 market. As readers are well aware, we were teased for months as we saw product
information, prototypes and promises of well-made and competitively priced AR parts and
platforms popping out of the offices of NEA. We saw pics and vids but we weren’t receiving any
product. Some of us were to the point where we were ready to give up on NEA. Sure, they had
great ideas, but could they deliver? We were subjected to delays and what many felt were excuses,
some of us got to attend product demos for more teasing and frustration then, almost overnight,
deliveries of these platforms began to occur.
About a month ago, I was asked by Jeff Hussey and Dave McFaul of NEA if I would shoot an NEA
rifle at an IDPA three gun match that was being held in Kingston, Ontario. Many of you who know
me, know that I instruct police, military and civilian shooters in the deployment of various firearms
platforms. Many folks also know that I love the AR platform due to its versatility, reliability, ease of
use and the myriad of options that are available for these rifles. I’m also quite particular about the
guns I shoot and I do not like to shoot untried or unreliable platforms. I also do not like to shoot a
match with a gun that I have never shot before. With some trepidation, I agreed to shoot the NEA
15 for the carbine components of this
match.
The carbine that I shot that day was a
box stock rifle not unlike the gun in the
pictures accompanying this article. It
sported a standard 14.5 inch barrel, an
Aimpoint H-1 on a medium mount, a
regular A2 pistol grip, a regular M-4 six
position stock and a Cadex fore-grip.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but
when first I examined the rifle I was
struck by its utter ugliness!!! This thing
is so ugly it’s gorgeous! I love angular
lines and this thing has them! In the gun
game, aesthetics are everything....
come on, admit it, you’ve bought a gun
based on how it looked... we all have!
The upper receiver has a squared
housing for the forward assist and has
flats on both sides. Nothing appears
rounded. The lower has an integral
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trigger guard that is beefy and is cut liberally enough that the trigger can easily be accessed and
manipulated while wearing gloves. “X” patterned cuts have been machined onto the front of the
magwell housing and the lines of the magwell are also quite angular and crisp. The fire control
markings are of the “x”ed out bullet/single bullet design so familiar to those who love the H&K
markings. The fence around the magazine release is a raised squared fence in a semi-circular
design.
The fore-end rail on the NEA is kinda cool too! There are full rails top and bottom but there are only
partial rails of about 2” long at the front of the rail. These short front rails have been machined to
accommodate a push-button sling swivel, although I like the look of this set up, if you use a side
mounted light, you’ll lose the function of the sling swivel socket and vice versa. If you prefer to
mount your swivel forward then you’ll end up with your light at the six or twelve o’clock position.
While this isn’t of much concern to the Canadian civilian shooter, it could be an issue for the law
enforcement or military user who has need for a sling, a light and possibly a laser. If you ask me, the
configuration isn’t much better than the CF issue tri-rail and could be remedied by extending these
rails back by two or three inches. The rail itself secures to the upper by way of four mounting
screws at the rear and on opposite sides of the rail where it meets with the receiver. At the time of
this writing, I had not yet ripped the rail off the gun to see how it fully secures but it felt solid with
no play and it is a surprisingly light package.
The lack of weight on this gun had me concerned with regards to how it would function under
recoil. While the .223/5.56 mm round is not known for being a heavy recoiling round, many of you
know that it does have slight muzzle rise and a fast, snappy recoil impulse. I was concerned that
follow up shots would be slightly slower than my heavy barreled 11.5 inch barreled carbine. I was in
for a surprise!
During the course of the match, I was only able to fire about 40 rounds through this gun but I will
say that the thing shot like a laser! It pointed well, was not very heavy and I was able to get my
support hand very far forward on the fore-end which aided in my stability and accuracy. Recoil was
straight back and light. Not knowing what to expect from this carbine, I started the first stage with
three very controlled rounds in order to get the feel of the rifle. After the recoil of the second
round, I realized that the dot was staying on my point of aim during the recoil impulse and wasn’t
lifting at all. I gave a quick little grin and picked up the pace of my shooting. I found that I could
bang off accurate, tight shots very quickly and with impressive accuracy. The gun pointed quickly
and swung naturally. I will say that the angular magwell slowed my magazine changes very slightly
but this is something that I know can be overcome with practice.
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So that’s it, right? Wrong! Obviously forty rounds does not a
test make! Jeff recently sent a rifle to me to test, abuse and
pick apart. He and Dave have asked me to be very candid in
my criticism of this rifle and I have agreed to be.
She arrived this week...
I was pleasantly surprised with this rifle!! Jeff informed me
that due to the number of orders they had been processing
he threw together a rifle using some of the blemished
receivers and rails. I told him that I didn’t really care about
how she looked. Based upon my wishes, Jeff provided me
with a 14.5 inch rifle much like the one I shot at the match.
The only differences between the two guns were the
installation of an NEA hybrid muzzle brake and Troy flip up
battle sights. She sports NEA’s twelve inch rail, an A2 pistol
grip and M4 six position stock. The rifle is the same as any
other customer would get except for the use of scratched
and blemished parts. Blemishes don’t scare me, I’m more
concerned with a gun’s ability to shoot accurately and
reliably, I scratch them up and sometimes paint them so
cosmetics aren’t an issue for me.
Upon removing the rifle from the box, I found it to be really
gritty and tight. For a new rifle this isn’t uncommon so I tore
it down, examined it for fit, finish and tightness and lubed it.
The only quickly discernible issue that I noticed was that the
castle nut hadn’t been tightened down or staked so, out
came the stock wrench and the punch. Since I couldn’t get to
the range until the weekend, I did a bunch of dry fire practice
to get used to the feel and balance of the gun and to work the action and parts. Even though I
spent a couple of hours a night doing this it did not appear to loosen up very much.
Out at the range, I found the gun to be very pointable and user friendly, then again, it’s an AR
platform so, why wouldn’t it be? Over the course of a lazy afternoon I put about 200 rounds
through the gun. It shot well with only one FTF (fail to feed) and upon examining the ejection port
and magazine, I determined the FTF to be magazine related.
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Initially, I went to the 25 metre range and I sighted in
the irons. I will admit that the Troy flip up sights were a
bear to sight in. Initially, they were shooting almost a
foot low so I had to make front sight adjustments. I also
found that they were shooting almost a foot to the left!
In order to correct this, the rear sight ended up being
adjusted almost completely to the right but I finally got
it on target and found I was satisfied with the accuracy
of the sights. I have no idea why the rear sight had to
be so far over to the right and suspect that the rail
could be slightly out of spec but, I’m not overly
concerned. I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had
to switch from an optic to irons and I highly doubt I
would have time to make adjustments to the irons on
the fly so it isn’t a big deal. Now that I’ve said that, I bet
the gun gods of above will test my iron sight skills by killing one of my optics on a course or in the
middle of a match. (Note: I asked Dave McFaul why the sights were so far right and he confirmed
that I had received a rail that was from an out of spec pile and that new rifles being sent to
customers are getting new and in spec rails!).
Figure 3: 25 yard off hand groups. Irons and Red dot sight.
Figure 2: 25 yard group fired with irons.
First iron sight 5 rnd group
fired off hand.
Lucid 5 rnd group off-
hand
Lucid 3
rounds
3 rounds
Iron
sights
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Speaking of the rail, I showed this gun to a couple of my shooting buddies, one of whom is a very
experienced and knowledgeable infantry senior NCO. He was concerned that the rail was out of
spec as well and informed me that he was concerned that it wouldn’t take certain quick detach
mounts. Fearing this, I played with some configurations of quick detach mounts from ARMS and
Larue... they worked!!
I was asked by one of our Canadian companies
if I would test and evaluate a Lucid Optic that
they provided to me. So, in preparation for an
up-coming course that I’m teaching I mounted
and sighted in the Lucid HD7 red dot optic. I’ll
be writing a short separate article about it after
I’ve had more time on it but while I didn’t find
this particular optic to be something I would
normally run, it worked well and I managed to
print a few groups of about 2 to 2.5 MOA at
100 yards with it.
Figure 5: Final 3 round group of the day. Shot through Lucid Red dot.
Figure 4: 100 Yard range at Grenville.
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So here’s what sucked...
The springs in this gun are brutal! This thing must have a 20 lbs trigger pull! I'm not weak but my
finger was killing me by the end of the session. First thing I did when I got home was rip out the
hammer spring and put in a spare that I had. It isn't perfect but it’s definitely softer and I’ll be
changing it out once I get a competition one from JP Enterprises. For those military or law
enforcement folks who might be running military ammunition with extremely hard primers, I
wouldn’t suggest switching out springs unless you’ve tested the lots of ammunition to ensure
consistent ignition of the primer. That being said, I’ve run a JP spring in my 11.5 inch training AR,
I’ve run approximately 6000 rounds of various makes both commercial and military and I haven’t
had a single failure to ignite. So, Brownell’s here I come for a reduced power hammer and trigger
spring I'll swap 'em out.
With the irons and my eyes, the best I managed was a few 2 moa groups and a couple of threes....
and then I noticed that the groups started to open up... and not just slightly. In fact, I fired 5 rounds
and could not figure out why there wasn’t a single hit on a 5’ by 2.5’ target at 100 metres.
Something had gone wrong with the gun... after some cursing and a few tears, I gave her a quick
once over.... the comp had shot loose! The comp hadn't been torqued down...so, after a quick fix on
the tail gate of the truck, we were back in business and she shot a couple more 2 MOA groups!
There was a learning point here and I almost missed it! Whenever you buy a new gun, regardless of
the manufacturer, make sure that you give it a thorough examination prior to shooting. Yes, I had
checked the barrel for obstructions, examined the action for fit and checked the pins, safety
function, trigger reset and fit of upper to lower but I had failed to examine the compensator to
ensure it was snugged down tightly on the crush washer. Lesson learned and lesson passed on!
I’ve already passed this info onto Jeff and Dave and I was assured that they would up their quality
control prior to shipping.
I’m still running this gun and I’m still documenting her strengths and weaknesses in order to provide
a fair evaluation to NEA and to you folks who are both lovers and haters of NEA.
Moving forward
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I like it! Looking at her angular lines and flat features, I’ve determined that this gun is ugly! Sure
she’s an AR like any other but with those cuts and her flat grey colour she’s nasty looking and I like
nasty looking carbines.
Like many of you, I like to customize my AR’s and so she is now wearing a Mapgul MOE stock in Dark
Earth, a Tango Down Battle Grip in flat dark earth, an InForce WML in white light/IR, a Troy stubby
vertical fore-grip and a Vickers sling. I also threw in a BCM charging handle. These are all items that I
personally prefer. I still have the Lucid on her for the other test but I will be setting this one up for
my Larue mounted Aimpoint H-1.
Figure 6: Set up with the author's personal preferences.
I know that many folks are watching NEA and hoping that they fall on their face. I have also read
that many people think they’ve had to wait too long or that there currently isn’t enough of a user-
base to determine if these guns are going to be lemons or not. The shooting public can be a brutal
group with strong opinions and a wealth of technical knowledge and rightly so, I don’t like spending
my money on junk either.
Based on my observations of this rifle and my conversations with Jeff, Dave and others, I believe
that NEA is willing to listen to their customers and address any concerns that we may have. It
appears that almost all of the kinks have been massaged out of this platform and NEA has a viable,
inexpensive black rifle that is here to stay.
For those of you who are looking for a good quality, low-priced AR that is Canadian made and
reliable, buy an NEA.... or to quote Barney “Buy two or your.....” well, you guys and gals know what
he says. I’ll be keeping mine. Earl Green