Features

20 years in the making…

Rob Smith | Feb 13, 2024

The MRADELR is built upon the success of the Barrett Model 99 and MRAD / MK 22 platforms. It is one of the only production rifles in the world featuring user-changeable barrels, that has also placed as a top finalist in the KO2M competition (2nd in 2024).

The key differences between the MRAD and this new MRADELR rifle is simply that it expands the bolt-action, magazine-fed MRAD family to include 416 Barrett with additional large-calibre options to be available in the future.

The user serviceable parts of the MRADELR are very similar to the MRAD rifle and include nearly the entire rifle for those who have armorer capabilities and proper tools. Specifically, the barrels and featuring a tool-less quick-change firing pin and bolt head, trigger, magazine, bolt knobs, and the upper and lower receivers.

The intended user is ultimately the competitive ELR shooter, offering an off-the-shelf solution to the competitor. The rifle has also performed against contract military endurance and stress testing, to ensure that this product can meet those needs as well.

US dealers can order the MRADELR from one of Barrett’s seven distributors: Bill Hicks & Co., Davidson’s, Lipsey’s, MGE Wholesale, RSR Group, Sports South, and Zander’s.

The MRADELR will also be made available to Barrett’s global distribution network as well as to interested State Department approved countries.

The complete MRADELR story…

Here, the key protagonists from behind the scenes of the MRADELR concept tell their story of how the MRADELR went from idea to conception and all the interesting details that are often kept under wraps when a new product is released. We hope you find this as interesting as we did…

John Felice, Director of Engineering, Barrett Firearms

I remember being approached by management ownership, they mentioned that they wanted to design and develop a new product and it would be like a new flagship, a ‘Halo product’ is the term they used.

Chevrolet has their Corvette Z06, it’s their flagship, Ferrari has the LaFerrari, so we wanted to try to capture that with our brand, as leaders in long range. We wanted to reset the expectation from customers when they buy an ELR rifle off the shelf.

Nathan Lux, Director of Sales & Marketing, Barrett Firearms

What’s interesting about this product is it was in development when NIOA acquired Barrett so Rob Nioa, the new owner, saw the potential and allowed us to continue through and develop the project, even though it wasn’t actually ready to launch when he purchased the company. There’s a lot of overlap between Ronnie Barrett’s perspective on how things should be  done and Rob Nioa’s perspective, they share a lot of similarities.

We are sold out one and two years into the future on every single product we make, so to release something brand-new is very difficult to work into the production schedules.

Darik Bollig, Manager Design Development, Barrett Firearms

So, one of the things we wanted to do is have an ‘out-of-the-box’ rifle that you could take factory ammo and go compete at the King of 2 Miles and do very well against other rifles that have had more money spent on them due to their custom builds.

Chris Vassar, Chief Design Engineer, Barrett Firearms

It started with just kind of a blank sheet of paper. We have a lot of design specifications from the MRAD so we used a lot of its characteristics and really kind of just scaled up the MRAD.

Nathan Lux

“So what we did was essentially merge the Model 99 and the MRAD into a magazine fed, bolt action rifle that was capable of firing .416 cartridge.

Darik Bollig

Ronnie Wright (Barrett test engineer) and I used to travel around quite a bit in 2017, ‘18 and ‘19, shooting a lot of different matches together. We talked to a lot of different military operators, bullet manufacturers and barrel manufactures and we got a lot of input from them. When we got back to the office, we’d sit around and brainstorm together as a team and figure out the pros and cons of each feature that we wanted to add to the gun that we thought would be beneficial to the end shooter.

John Felice

We want to make sure that everything that comes out of this factory the customer gets the same result we did.

Nathan Lux

The sales team would come in and  we’d discuss the features that a customer would desire most…  

Darik Bollig

… and once we got all their input we began to draft a product brief that set the requirements of what we wanted to build.

John Felice

Then we took that back to leadership and ownership and, once they signed off on that, that’s what really gets the ball rolling in the design team…

Nathan Lux

… at that point, what they do is start to develop prototypes – whether it’s creating parts from scratch or using existing parts that we have.

Darik Bollig

We learned a lot of what needed to be changed from our previous model, the Model 99. That had been very successful at the King of Two Mile but we realised that it had some downfalls that needed improvement. One was the speed and operation of the bolt and a magazine fed system.

Nathan Lux

For example, the MRADELR is using the muzzle brake from a Model 99, it’s the most efficient break we make for that large calibre. We take some pieces of existing items and build upon that, so with the MRAD itself featuring interchangeable calibres, being a mag-fed bolt action rifle it’s widely successful it’s just been adopted by SOCOM. The MRADELR is also going to be compatible with our QDL suppressor, which requires the use of the QDL suppressor brake. So the barrel itself can accept either of those existing products and, put simply, the MRADELR adds the large calibre capability to the MRAD platform.   Chris Vassar

We started with the breach, you know, the locking components, and kind of worked our way out from there. Ronnie Barrett always said it has to function well, be easy to manipulate and ergonomically it has to be a nice-looking rifle, so it would be a rifle that you’d like to own yourself.

John Felice

Chris Vassar does all the heavy lifting with design. He does all the tolerance stack ups. He does interference checks. He’s the one that really designed the magazine.

Chris Vassar

I’ve always said the rifle is the easiest part to design. Magazines are very tough to design. The cartridge stack needs to be at the right angle to be able to feed into the breach and they have to hold rounds, have to lift in the front and the back at equal times. I’ve told people before, I’d rather build three rifles than one magazine!

A lot of other designed rifles use a feed ramp either on the barrel extension, or the back of the barrel itself, so we tried to miss all those things. We went directly to the chamber, so none of the projectiles get scarred or damaged, for ultimate accuracy. So, we develop accuracy with getting the maximum powder burn and that dictates our barrel length that we design. We try to do as much recall management as we can with a muzzle brake on the end.

Nathan Lux

A user can change this barrel anytime they please, so competitive shooters will know when their barrels are starting to go. You can compare it to a NASCAR driver – they’re swapping tyres all the time, they know when those tyres are no good. Being able to swap that barrel out is part of the element of success for this product, being able to compete in that arena.

Chris Vassar

The design part is easy, it’s then about getting a working prototype and then developing from there to see what you need to fix, and then build a pre-production run as part of the product development process that we conduct here at Barrett.

John Felice

We design and develop, build prototypes, test it, well then what? Somebody has to lead the charge to get it productionised…

Ryan Johnson, Program Manager, Barrett Firearms

The first thing I was told was, “Hey, we need to get this thing launched ASAP.” I was super pumped!

Darik Bollig

We had a very tight timeline on this project and Ryan kept things rolling and made sure everybody was doing their jobs, working with the vendors, getting different pieces of the puzzle coming in that are made out of house…  

Chris Vassar

…and so we had to create CNC programs and create inspection for quality and to make sure we’re getting a good part. 

Ryan Johnson

To take something that the design team has created and put it on paper or CAD model and to get it to a production level, there’s a lot of things that we go through.

We bring parts in from suppliers, we’re machining parts on the floor – qualities, measuring, we’re doing all of our checks and balances and it’s a lot. People don’t realise how many people are involved and what it takes to put a part into production.

John Felice

When the sales department needs information or marketing, everything funnels through Ryan Johnson at that point.

We already have our plate full with current production with the Mark 22 and all the big guns and then to introduce a new rifle, with the same amount of people and the same shop floor space, it has been challenging.  

Nathan Lux

So, freeing up those resources, finding ways to produce more without cutting a single corner requires support from the top down to the very bottom. Every single person in the company has to be on board with this, has to work together to actually make it happen.

Jay McClean, Associate Engineer, Barrett Firearms

Fast forward and we’ve hit a few iterations of this product and that’s when I stepped in and started helping the test engineer, Ronnie Wright.

A lot of people around the industry know who he is and ELR shooters, so he’s been with us for several years as a test engineer. He and I actually performed a lot of the initial testing during development, including disruptive tests, drop tests, environmental tests, live fire endurance tests, just to prove that our design was sound.

John Felice

Jay has been one of the key components to this project and this adventure we have set out on.

Jay McClean

I work on handling the ammunition procurement and also loading ammunition for us to consume here at the factory.

Darik Bollig

If you don’t have ammunition that is precise, you can’t test exactly what your product can do and Jay has worked up some beautiful handloads that just shoot amazingly and we had been testing out to a mile at Buffalo Ridge. Jay himself shot a five-shot group at one mile that measured less than six inches.

Jay McClean

I want this to be a gun that people want to shoot a lot, that’s ergonomic, that’s balanced. How easy this rifle is to shoot all adds up to consistency of velocity – it has to be the same velocity every time you pull the trigger. If not, you’re going to get high and lows on the target.

Nathan Lux

Everyone here at Barrett plays a role in product development, whether it’s the people in the test range, the people in shipping and receiving, the inventory people… we are all exposed to the high-level of quality of this product.

Darik Bollig

I don’t think the rifle is actually ever done, we’re always trying to improve on what we’ve got. That’s the tough part of being an engineer, it’s never done but sooner or later you have to stop and release a product.

John Felice

Believing that we’re setting new benchmarks, we thought ‘what better way to show it than to take it to the King of 2 Mile?’. This is not only a shooting event, but it’s also learning how to call the wind. The rifle itself, I mean we went out and just torture tested it doing all kinds of things that might happen at a match. Whether it’s shooting in bad conditions or dirty conditions, shooting fast because it is magazine fed, so we want to shoot as fast as we can without the wind conditions changing.

Nathan Lux

There were details like figuring out exactly what shooters were going to be available, all the right products being in their hands to ensure that they’re comfortable with it and testing it in advance.

Alex Cordesman, KO2M Technical Director

The people that come to shoot here (King of 2 Mile), routinely shoot several other matches a year and they tend to do very well. Justin Wolf won last year, he’s back again to try to go for a second crown. We got pilot guys from Barrett, some of whom have done extremely well in the past and Wolf is shooting for them – I can’t wait to see how he does.

John Felice

There are rules about overall weight, the rifle has to be less than 40lbs. I would say in the ELR game this rifle, if anything, comes in far under the 40lbs.

We were also thinking of our military customers and they don’t want to carry around 40lb rifles if they don’t have to, but we know that ELR shooters can add the weight if they want it.

Ronnie Wright

It does validate to the military that this gun is capable of competing with these custom-built rifles and we have done enough testing on this to meet all the military specifications before we came out here.

Darik Bollig

At the event we get together and you get to talk about ballistics and shooting targets and guns and ammunition – it’s a lot of fun, it’s banging targets and hitting steel.

Jay McClean

I feel like we did accomplish our goal as a company. As a team we had three shooters make it to the finale.

Darik Bollig

It’s just an amazing event and getting to see a rifle that I helped work on, and see all the work that the team put into it come together – and that it actually performed as expected, with Justin and James as a spotter. It just performed so well, it’s very exciting and we’re all very happy at Barrett.

Justin Wolf, 2nd place King of 2 miles

It’s a rifle that somebody is going to be able to buy, it’s fantastic, it does everything we need it to do. I shoot fast anyway and the mag feeding just adds to it.

Chris Vassar

I was ecstatic, we had a lot of great teams out there that shot, I thought we impressed ourselves.

Jay McClean

Everybody knows who makes a Corvette and I feel like the MRADELR is our Corvette.

Ryan Johnson

Yeah it feels great to have created a rifle, a production rifle at this level, you know and we’re making them right here in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, it’s pretty cool!

Nathan Lux

I think one of my favourite parts about this project is that we’ve highlighted the engineering and the product development team. Those are usually the guys you actually lock into a development room and keep people away from, so they can be creative and really flex that muscle of designing and building the world’s best rifles. I would say every single employee here is part of the success of that product.

Chris Vassar

The future of this rifle is to get it out there and get it in the users’ hands and just dominate competitions and have end users that could possibly end up in the Military ranks.

Nathan Lux

There are actually users already fielding these rifles in a military capacity and for us, that is a testament of its excellence before it’s even launched.

Jay McClean

I think that’s going to really encourage people to keep pushing their boundaries and pushing their skills and get better and I think that’s what this rifle is – it can do everything that you can throw at it.

Darik Bollig

You can literally buy a rifle out the box, buy some ammunition off the shelf and go have a great time out on the range and shoot out to two miles.

John Felice

It’s got to set some new benchmarks for the industry, for the category, for the world.

MRADELR PRODUCT INFO

The MRADELR is a high quality, military tested, off-the-shelf, extreme long-range system. This production rifle is designed to deliver precision typically achieved only by custom-built rifles while expanding the bolt-action MRAD family to include large-calibre options.

18953 - Black Cerakote™

19612 - Flat Dark Earth Cerakote™

19614 - Tungsten Grey Cerakote™

Comes with two, five-round magazines, bag rider, one accessory rail, and Pelican™ hard carrying case.

• User-changeable barrels and calibers with tool-less quick-change firing pin and bolt head

• Electroless nickel plating on bolt head for reduced wear, maintenance, and added corrosion resistance

• Push button adjustable length of pull

• Oversized recoil pad with push button height adjustment

• Fixed stock

• Height adjustable, locking polymer cheek piece

• M-LOK® compatible modular upper receiver

• Continuous integral 10 mil top rail, 24.in length