SLR-15 Grant Rifle
I work for a small department in Indiana without a budget for police equipment. My department currently issues a Glock 22 and Remington 870 shotgun to each officer and allows rifles to be carried if purchased by the officer and the officer attends an approved rifle class. On the plus side, my department does supply duty ammunition for our handguns, shotguns and 100 rounds of rifle ammo. For 10 years I have carried two different personal rifles while working for the department and supplied all the equipment out of pocket, this included optics, magazines and accessories. While visiting a forum I saw a post by Greg “Sully” Sullivan of Defensive Edge/SLR15 Rifles advising they were taking applications for grants to supply rifles and training to departments that may be in need. The rifles that are granted are rifles that have slight blemishes in the finish from being handled during photo shoots or are former demo rifles. One example of a photo shoot would be the rifles used by ATK in their LE ammo advertisements, the rifles used are SLR15 Rifles. I had received my armorer certification through Defensive Edge the year prior and had the chance to handle a couple of the SLR15 Rifles including the Grail and was impressed with the rifles due to the quality of parts and attention to detail during assembly. I had requested the department purchase rifles in the past to assure rifles were of good quality, contained quality parts and to make sure an officer would not suffer financial hardship or be without a rifle if involved in an officer involved shooting with his rifle. I was advised that as long as they are free, the department would allow department issued rifles, so the search began.
Prior to applying for the SLR15 rifle grant I had only applied for one other grant. The application process was far easier than the previous grant application as all that was required was filling out a form and emailing it to Sully. Some time passed and I believed that I had not qualified as I had not been contacted. Out of the blue I was contacted by Sully and asked if I wished to host an armorer’s course or a carbine instructor course which would include an armorer’s course. I was advised of a class minimum and timeframe for both classes and advised to work out the date and locations for the course. My department does not have a range of our own and we must qualify with the local Sheriff Department on their range. Due to this I knew an instructor’s course would be hard to schedule and to be approved, so we opted to host the armorer’s school.
After posting the school on several forums and notifying several surrounding agencies I was only able to muster seven people interested in attending the class, this was half of the required class minimums. This concerned me as I felt that we had lost a once in a lifetime opportunity. I contacted Sully and was advised that they would work with whatever class size we could muster. When I contacted them with the class totals I also ask if we would still be able to receive a rifle due to the low turnout and was advised that they would work something out. The day of the class we found that we had a very diverse group. In attendance were a house wife, medical helicopter dispatcher, gun store employee, and three Police Officers. Defensive Edge allows two officers to attend the class as part of the grant, so I attended the class. Being that I had attended the armorer’s course a year prior, I was able to reinforce what I had learned previously and feel more confident in what I was doing.
The Armorers Course
Defensive Edge’s armorer’s course is taught not only with lecture and power point, but with plenty of hands –on exercises. You can tell Sully is a cop and teaches in a way that cops and lay people can understand. When he shows a picture of a bad part or part failure he also hands an example around the class allowing the info to sink in. Sully recommends that you bring your personal rifle or a department rifle so that you can get familiar with a rifle you will use, and they can provide rifles for people to use as well. You break down and reassemble the rifle several times during the class and any parts found warn, damaged or lost during the class are replaced by Sully on the spot. All tools are supplied and students are taught first to use the bare minimum tools in both disassembly and reassembly. After you learn the hard way Sully will hand out specialty tools that allow you to learn the easier way of doing things. The first day concentrates on proper maintenance, the bolt carrier assembly, cycles of fire and timing issues, and finishes with a “graded” breakdown and reassembly of the lower.
The second day of class consist of more practice on the lower and moves into dis-assembly of the upper, talk about accessories and trouble shooting. Sully only requires students to assembly and reassemble the rear sight once, stating that this is a part of the rifle that should only be disassembled if the rifle is submerged, has been in a fine dust environment or a part fails. As stated before, Sully supplies all the tools necessary including three heavy vices mounted on stands which came in handy when removing barrels. As a final the entire gun is reassembled and Sully inspects your work. Sully gives everyone who attends an armorer’s manual along with a tool list. The manual is a plus and I have found that not all classes and companies supply a manual.
On the second day of class Sully advised me that I would build our new department rifle for a better understanding of the rifle I was receiving. I had contacted Sully prior to the class and ask if a SBR would be an issue when it came to the rifle the department would receive. The reason for my question was that my patrol car is equipment with a Pro-gard half cage requiring any long gun to be mounted vertically between the seats. Due to the limited space an SBR is required to fit in the rack. After lunch on the second day of class Sully started to hand me parts that would be used to build my department’s rifle. All parts, the lower and the upper had no visible flaws.
The Rifle as Received:
