U.S. Survival AR-7 Review

So the idea of a survival rifle is somewhat misunderstood in most reviews, you are not going to fend off a bear or save the world with a .22. However, if you’re on a canoe trip and your means of transportation is suddenly compromised, you’d probably want the AR-7 in your pack.

With no immediate rescue and not enough food to hike your way out of the woods you can now hunt. You may not be taking down any major game but we’re trying to survive, not feed the family for winter.

Assembly of the rifle is very quick and simple. Once you take the pieces out of the stock it takes less than a minute to put it all together, even without practice. If you head on over to the Henry Repeating Arms site you can see it done in about 20 seconds by someone who has used it a fair amount more than myself.

The Henry Repeating Arms US Survival Rifle is compact and can fit in any standard backpack or storage space in a canoe. This rifle is designed to float, so when disaster strikes you can at least recover your now floating rifle and it will still sustain functionality. The AR-7 weighs in at 3.5 pounds so it doesn’t take up a large amount of energy to carry it in a situation where exerting any extra energy could cost you your life.

Bringing this rifle to the range was an interesting experience for me, I am custom to using high precision, heavy rifles with much larger bullets. The accuracy of this rifle was astounding as you can see in the video, at 50 meters my first 5 shots landed in a 3-square-inch group. Shooting a 3-inch group with 5 shots and iron sights is an impressive feat for any .22 at that distance.

I filmed this video after bringing the AR-7 to the range on two separate days and putting just over 300 rounds through it. During the time I’ve had it I haven’t had a single malfunction with the rifle or ammunition. Reliability does not seem to be even a minor concern as the gun is quite primitive, using very simple parts that don’t have any major points for potential failure.

Overall, I was more than impressed with the performance Henry Repeating Arms brought to the US Survival Rifle platform. It is a solid .22 LR rifle that is build on the principles of survival and delivers everything someone would need out of this type of weapon.

Specifications Taken From Henry Repeating Arms Website