CMMG MkG45 Guard and the Concept of Pistol-Caliber Carbines

This is the CMMG MkG45 guard pistol caliber carbine in 45 ACP. Now, this is a very unique rifle. It actually probably looks just like any AR you've ever seen from the outside and is probably gonna shoot a lot like other ARS but inside the new patent pending radial delayed blow back system is gonna make it shoot a lot softer than even any nine millimeter pistol caliber AR you've ever shopped before. Now, traditionally, we need a lot of mess with the direct blowback system to slow down what's happening and allow the gun to cycle reliably. What CMMG has done is completely changed the way that recoil is handled and incorporated a delay a radial delay into this bolt carrier group so that it shoots softer.

In fact, this 45 is gonna shoot at about half of the felt recoil for any given weight any given ammunition that you'd get out of a traditional pistol caliber carbine in nine millimeter. So, I'm really excited to shoot it. The fact is I haven't shot this one literally straight out of the box showed up at Bristle Cone Shooting Range this morning. We set it up on the table, function checked it and I'm excited to actually see what it feels like you're gonna get to see that in a second. Let me go over some of the features here.

First of all, this was a billet aluminum lower with a forge aluminum upper. It's set up like a lot of the CMMG guns are the SV break it's got the MOE A2 pistol grip and a CTR Magpul stock. Now, to start up with a standard charging handle and one of the things that you're gonna see right away when you take a look at the gun is that the mag catch is set up a little bit differently. The mag release mag catch is a machined piece that is unique to this gun from CMMG and it's set up to work with Glock 21 magazines. The standard Glock 21 magazine and that's definitely the magazine that they recommend although there are aftermath market magazines available and some of them will actually held a lot more rounds in the 13 of the standard 45 caliber Glock 21.

Now, one of the advantages of course of the AR system in a pistol caliber carbine is that you have interchangeable magazines with your pistol should you have a Glock 21 in this case. A lot of people like that. One of the downsides of traditional pistol caliber carbines in the AR is that the functionality wasn't always there. In other words, for example the bolt may not lock open on the last round. The mag catch may not function reliably.

Some of the other differences internally made the functioning of the gun and the maintenance of the gun a little bit different. Now, this gun like I said has a different kind of bolt carrier group but really does function very much the same and look the same in terms of all the maintenance requirements we're gonna have and the AR controls are fully functional just like they would be on your 556 AR whatever else you're used to including a bolt lock open after the last round out of these magazines. One of the other nice things about this is is that if you don't shoot the standard kind of 230 grain ball ammunition that we're gonna be shooting out of this today there are action tuning kits with different weights that you can add to the buffer to allow you to fine tune this to exactly what you're doing. If you want to use it for hunting you've got very light rounds for some reason maybe you're using a very light hollow point round for your home defense worried about over penetration issues the tuning kit will allow you to get this set up just perfectly. I'm gonna go in and put my eyes on.

I got my ears on and we'll take a look at making this thing run. Now, as you would expect with a magazine that's fully loaded with the bolt carrier group forward this may need some extra oomph to make sure that it's seated. Now, that's gonna be typical in a lot of AR systems. So, that's not anything unique to here and that magazine is seated with the bolt carrier group falsely forward and that's something that we wanna check as far as reliability. Run that charging handle.

We've got a round in the chamber and let's take a look. This rifle, even with the optic is under six pounds weighs 5.8 ounces in this DRB configuration. The CMMG guard is available in four different configurations. One of which is in an AR pistol configuration. So, let's take a look here.

One of the advantages, a lot of people like about the pistol caliber carbine option of course, is the reduced recoil, reduced muzzle blast and I'll tell you that's even less than I was expecting. And believe me I've shot a lot of nine millimeter AR configuration carbines and this one definitely does have... noticeably, less felt recoil, which is nice. And obviously... somebody went ahead and zerod this rifle as well.

Let's go ahead and empty this magazine if we can get that double catch to work. And there enough we definitely have that. That's a lot easier to get that magazine in with de-bulk para group backwards obviously and is very easy to shoot this gun rapidly. Of course, with a pistol caliber carbine it's also gonna be easier to suppress the gun and one of the big advantages if I have that pistol in 45 I've got one type of magazine to throw in my go bag or my emergency kit for home defense or whatever else I might be using it for. I'll tell you what I am impressed with the CMMG MkG45 guard.

Pistol caliber carbines, you know they're a little bit controversial you can always get a good internet debate going on social media. When you talk about pistol caliber carbines some people will say, nope, if it's a rifle, I want a rifle. Remember the biggest advantage of a long gun is gonna be these four points of contact that you get. The increased ability to control where that bullet goes. It's your increased capability for precision that's the biggest advantage of a long gun and certainly a pistol caliber carbon offers that advantage.

If you're interested in firing a pistol round out of a rifle because of that controllability, less muzzle blast dramatically less felt recoil than a lot of the other pistol caliber carbines or obviously rifle caliber ARS that I've shopped before. The CMMG MkG45 guard might be the perfect home defense gun for you might be a good hunting round and remember, there's also a lot of these indoor ranges which may not be rated for rifle calibers or only have certain bays that are rated for rifle calibers where a pistol caliber carbine can be a great training tool as well.