Ballistic Advantage’s Modern Series is their budget friendly line of AR-15 barrels with full 4150 CMV steel construction, QPQ (nitride processing), and their 1 MOA guarantee. Typically, the barrel profiles in this series have been limited to help keep costs down but they have recently added a new pencil profile to the Modern Series lineup.
The 16″ lightweight pencil profile is now available with your choice of carbine or mid-length gas system. They are available at the introductory price of $150! These barrels are a good value at their normal price of around $170 but they are impulse-buyable at the introductory price. You can check them out at Ballistic Advantage’s Modern Series page.
Hopefully they make a 20″ for my retro build.
Obvious question: how do they compare to the reigning champion pencil barrel from Faxon?
Cymond, I have experience with the 4150 and 416 stainless Faxon pencil barrels and with various non-pencil BA Modern Series Barrels. Both have been reliable for me. Both have been more accurate than you would think from sub $200 barrels. Both companies will take care of you if the barrel doesn’t perform. I think it would be difficult to choose based on performance so I would likely choose which ever one was the best deal at the time.