A Closer look at the FN 15 Guardian
For the past couple of months, I’ve been working with FN’s most entry-level AR-15, the Guardian.
It shares a lot of FN’s M4 DNA and has a great barrel– I’m talking a 16-inch nitride-coated specimen made of 4150 chrome-moly-vanadium (CMV) steel. FN tells us it is MIL-B-11595 high-pressure tested and subjected to magnetic particle inspection after proof firing. It runs a 1:7 twist rate, which is one of the most common twists on AR-15s today and great for stabilizing heavier bullets, which have become more popular.
Now, it uses a slick-sided NBS-made billet upper, which does away with the jam enhancer (forward assist), on a forged lower, and carries the same general furniture as seen on the company’s TAC3 series which costs twice as much. Everything else (trigger, charging handle, etc) is mil-spec.
At a $999 asking price – typically much lower with retailers – the FN 15 Guardian delivers a lot of performance for half the price of the company’s $1,889 TAC 3 and likewise comes in at a fraction of the cost of the $2,439 DMR3. In fact, the Guardian is the most affordable FN 15 in the company’s catalog, coming in at a price point lower than the $1,359 Patrol Carbine, its former “budget” offering.
I’ve only got a few hundred rounds through it thus far, but it is holding up well and I haven’t had a single jam even with mixing 14 wildly different loads across four different style mags.