Mantis Blackbeard - Serious AR-15 Training at Home

The Mantis blackbeard is the best dryfire training tool on the market for an AR-15 at the moment, bar none. It by far is the most innovative option for training with an AR-15 in 2024.

Other products exist, like 223 dryfire training cartridges, and while these work, they don't have a lot of utility except for maybe training first shot timing from sling positions like sul. This is because the way that the AR-15 works, the bolt carrier reciprocation is what resets the trigger on an AR-15 fire control group.

Other solutions like the SIRT laser bolt I have also used in the past, and while similar to the SIRT, they don't reset the trigger. Instead, it relies on tolerance play with a milspec trigger and doesn't actually reset the fire control group. Thus it isn't compatible with cassette triggers either.

The mantis blackbeard has an internal mechanism that resets the actual hammer in the fire control group, effectively cycling the fire control group mechanically just like the actual bolt carrier group action would, allowing for you to dryfire train with virtually any AR-15 trigger and with the exact feel of your trigger. The product is awesome.

Because it also swaps out the bolt carrier group, and includes a battery integrated into the magazine well, the system is incredibly safe to use since it won't be possible to fire a round with this installed. Similarly, because of the bright coloring, it is nearly impossible to mistake whether the mantis blackbeard is installed or not. You would have to be extremely questionably negligent to have an accidental discharge with this product.

So besides being practical for competitive shooting or for multi target transition training, due to its trigger reset, the product is ideal for other training, like practicing room clearing. This makes it a valuable addition to any home defender's training. I do this whenever I get the chance setting up USPSA style targets throughout my home, with my dryfire simulator projects, Project MARS, Marksmanship Augmented Reality Simulators. Specifically, this is a great use case for our MARS mobile project, a dryfire simulator that is designed with multi target support with a variety of shooting modes. Project MARS is completely compatible with red or green mantis models, and I'm currently working on support for infrared lasers as well.

Besides the Mantis blackbeard, I also own a SIRT STIC, which is basically a housing mimicking an AR-15 that is designed to encapsulate a SIRT 110 Pistol. Each has their pros and cons, the latter being that the sirt STIC is adjustable to match a variety of different AR-15 barrel lengths, as well as allowing for training with regular AR-15 magazines, although this is somewhat mitigated since it doesn't have a quick mag release function. There are more nuanced differences between these tools, that makes each more useful for a variety of contexts. There are reasons that i own both essentially, and I'll cross compare them in a future video.

The Mantis Blackbeard on the other hand can be dropped into any of your existing AR-15 platform guns. This makes it very versatile as you won't have to have a duplicate optic and accessories like you would have to with the sirt stic, unless you rezero or have top dollar QD mounting solutions to swap between platforms. It also ensure you're training with your actual trigger rather than relying on the two stage glock style SIRT 110 trigger.

The blackbeard is great for running target transition drills and drilling fundamentals. Seen here, I'm running a variety of drills with Project MARS Indoor Range simulator. I can easily work on fundamentals and get used to new firearms and new optics with the blackbeard. I'll do this often when manufacturers send me new products to review, and Projected MARS paired with the Blackbeard is a great way to really beta test any new piece of gear or equipment before you employ it on a live fire range.

So ultimately I'm a huge fan of the Mantis blackbeard. As the creator of Project MARS, this is probably my most used dryfire product behind only the SIRT 110 training pistol and SIRT STIC.

If you're interested in purchasing the blackbeard, please check out our link to our blog, where we'll have links to a number of different vendors who carry the Mantis blackbeard. You can compare prices at any of those vendors. We are affiliate partners with Mantis, so if you do purchase with any of those links, it helps CRACKSHOT tv greatly as we don't run ads on any of our platforms in any form and we want to keep it that way moving forward.