1 Minute Per Revolution

Pof’s newest piston gun delivers AR-10 performance in an AR-15 package.

- Iain Harrison

With every man and his dog making ARs these days, it takes something rather unusual to make it into the pages of RECOIL. Patriot Ordnance Factory has been teasing the 7.62 NATO Revolution for some time now, and we were given a sneak peek over a year ago while it was in its direct impingement (DI) form. Now that a piston-driven production version has been released, we decided to see if it lived up to the hype.

The Revolution’s main claim to fame is that it manages to cram 7.62 performance into a 5.56 form factor. Separate the receivers, and you’ll find that the Revolution upper will drop right onto a Mil-spec mousegun lower. The reverse isn’t true, however, as extra material in the 7.62 lower’s bolt hold open catch prevents a 5.56 upper from seating all the way — we were tempted to break out the Dremel just to prove a point but figured the guys at POF might not appreciate us hacking up their baby for a photo op. Still, the pinholes are in the same locations, relative to both calibers.

This similarity in size carries over to the bolt carrier group. While we’ve all gotten used to Armalite and DPMS pattern BCGs having a fatter forward section in order to accommodate a bigger case head, the Revolution’s carrier drops straight into an AR-15 upper. The bolt won’t slide into an AR-15 barrel extension, giving the first clue that POF’s engineers have managed to squeeze every last drop of performance out of the available real estate.