The Patriot Ordnance Factory — POF — may be best-known for its piston-operated AR-style rifles in a wide range of calibers but the company is no slouch when it comes to direct impingement with more than a few improvements.
The Minuteman series, now available in 5.56 NATO with .350 Legend parts incoming, showcases a full suite of features that demonstrates what POF can do with a “conventional” direct impingement platform.
Each Minuteman rifle and pistol includes enhanced and premium components from the tip of the muzzle all the way back. Starting at the front with a slick 3-prong flash hider, the Minuteman guns have a deep black nitride finish on the steel components including the muzzle devices, barrels, and bolts.
The Minuteman rifles have 16.5-inch barrels with mid-length gas systems and 14.5-inch handguards while the pistols have 10.5-inch barrels with carbine-length gas systems and 9-inch rails. All come with Mission First Tactical pistol grips and 30-round magazines where available.
The Minuteman series guns all come with free-floating modular M-Lok handguards with full-length 12-o’clock Picatinny rails for sights and other accessories. The handguards have M-Lok slots on the sides and most of the 6-o’clock position save for a short fixed rail at the very front of the rifle for bipods and handstops, among others.
The barrels are fixed to the receiver and handguards with extended “heat sink” barrel nuts that extend well ahead of the chambers. Like other POF firearms the Minuteman series features E2 fluted chambers which allow a small amount of gas to aid in primary extraction by breaking the seal between the fired cartridge and the cylinder wall.
The bolt carrier group includes POF’s roller cam pin system which prevents the cam pin from dragging on the inside of the upper receiver. Like the bot, the bolt carrier has a slick nitride finish along with a hard chrome firing pin.
The Minuteman series is built on POF Gen4 milled billet 7075-T6 alloy receivers with ambidextrous selector levers, 3.5-pound match-grade straight triggers with KNS anti-rotation pins and come with ambidextrous Strike-Eagle charging handles.
See Also: The POF-USA Revolution — A 5.56-Sized .308 AR
At the rear of the receivers are enhanced 6-position buffer assemblies with oversize endplates with dual quick-detach sling swivel points. The buffer tubes sport anti-tilt extensions that support the bolt carrier at all times.
The main difference between the rifles and pistols in the Minuteman series, besides the barrel lengths and handguards, is that the rifles come with Mission First Tactical Minimalist stocks while the pistol comes with SB Tactical SBA3 pistol braces. Both rifle and pistol models of the Minuteman series are offered with a black or tungsten grey Cerakote finish.
With all of these enhanced and improved components, the Minuteman series is not a budget line but it’s certainly competitive with other semi-custom rifles with all the bells and whistles and pricing starts at $1,409. Real-world and online pricing starts a couple of hundred dollars less than MSRP.
Visit POF-USA.com to learn more.