The Fallout New Vegas Service Rifle

A pre-War lightweight, air-cooled, magazine-fed, gas-operated rifle that uses the direct impingement gas principle with a rotary bolt locking mechanism. Its simplistic assembly design allows for each unit to be easily broken down for cleaning or replacing with a new unit as well as for mass production in times of large-scale military response.

By 2281, the weapon has become the standard-issue armament of the New California Republic Army, with technical and maintenance support provided by the Gun Runners.

Why build one?

The Fallout New Vegas Service Rifle is basically an M16 with wood furniture. When Ente was trying to build his first rifle, an M16A1 inspired AR-15, he originally wanted to build an M16 with A1 style wood furniture. After building the M16A1 he got attached to the all black rifle so he opted to build another rifle.

One is none right?

After doing some looking for A1 wood furniture the Fallout New Vegas Service Rifle and tribute builds kept coming up. It was then when he decided why not build one, he was already building a wood furniture M16 and a few parts would give it the proper look. Ente originally was going to order the wood furniture from BlackGunsWood however they posted on their website that they were retiring just before Ente ordered a set. After some more searching and a few recommendations he found American Icon, a veteran owned and operated business. He looked over all their options and went with mahogany furniture.

Thanks to AmericanIcon for the follow on instagram! We’re proud to support American & Veteran Operated businesses.

Did you know that wood furniture is lighter than the polymer sets? That was a surprise to Ente but an interesting fact.

After sourcing and ordering the wooden furniture, Ente went searching for the rest of the components needed. Ente went back to Palmetto State Armory and got another Stealth Lower Receiver, he plans to get the markings from the game laser engraved at some point. He also ordered a Luth AR C7 Upper Receiver from PSA to match the build to the receiver seen in game. Ente ordered a Harrington & Richardson Grey 20-Round magazine from PSA to match the grey magazine seen in game. Even though Ente went with an A2 barrel kit on his M16A1 build to save cost, he decided to get the Harrington & Richardson A1 pencil barrel for the Service Rifle to maintain accuracy to the build. He ordered a PSA lower parts kit to build out the lower, a PSA Charging Handle and Bolt Carrier Group combo, a rifle length gastube and Buffer Tube kit from PSA. He then ordered a Stainless Steel Forward Assist from R1 Tactical to switch out the teardrop assist.

Ente wanted to keep the build looking as close to the in game rifle as possible. That made the last part needed for the build extremely difficult to find, the Muzzle Device. After some looking around he found Black River Tactical who made a Linear compensator that was perfect for the build, unfortunately it was sold out and they never responded to his email to them regarding when or if it will be available again.

Ente searched and searched everywhere he could on the internet and it seems no manufacturer made a Muzzle Device that would be a direct or similar enough replica of the one in game that was available. Ente figured he would have to get one custom made or make his own. He reached out to multiple vendors and some manufacturers about getting one custom made as well but none ever responded to his inquiries. So it seemed he would have to make his own. After sourcing the parts for the CAR-15 build he remembered the flash hider he ordered was 4 inches long and he thought he could cut the ports from the front and use a bench grinder to bevel out the edge left behind. After ordering that part from Linemount he got to work and was able to make a Muzzle Device that was close enough to what he wanted.

Finally Ente had sourced everything he needed to build a semi-accurate tribute to the NCR Service Rifle.

After a few months of research, careful planning, sourcing parts and tools, the build was finished.

A list of parts and tools used can be found below. For those who want to build their own Fallout New Vegas NCR Service Rifle.

Note: The bolt carrier group in-game is silver as well as the pins and trigger. Ente had already invested quite a bit into this build and at the time of writing has chosen not to get replacements. One day down the road he may swap those parts out to get it closer to the in-game rifle.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far!

-Ente & Maltz

Founders of Functional Reserve Militia