Heat Build: The Colt 733 From the Bank Shootout

The rifles carried in the bank robbery sequence in Heat are about as plain as an AR gets. An 11.5 inch barrel, a carry handle with iron sights, plastic handguards, a collapsible stock. No optic. No rail. No light. No sling to speak of.

Thirty years on, the sequence is still the reference point for firearms handling on film. The rifles make a good build precisely because they've got nothing on them.

The barrel

11.5 inches. In 1995 that was an unusual, slightly exotic configuration, and today it's a well supported standard. It's short enough to work in vehicles and around corners, and long enough to avoid the worst of the velocity loss and blast below 10 inches.

Our barrel length data puts 11.5 inch as a small but consistent share of what builders select. You get most of the handling benefit of a 10.3 inch upper with a slightly better reliability margin and noticeably less blast.

Daniel Defense

Daniel Defense 070771617601 5.56mm .223/5.56 NATO 10.3" Black Heavy Phosphate

Out of stock

$365.00 at Classic Firearms+ Add to build

Daniel Defense

Daniel Defense 08013011 DDMK18 .223/5.56 NATO 10.3" Chrome Moly Steel Cold Hammer Forged Barrel Finish

Out of stock

$1,540.96 at Classic Firearms+ Add to build

Iron sights only

Take this part seriously rather than treating it as period flavour.

A carry handle puts the rear aperture high above the bore and gives you a sight radius that runs nearly the length of the receiver. Irons are slower to acquire than a red dot. They demand a consistent cheek weld, because a sloppy head position moves your eye relative to the aperture and the shot goes with it.

So shoot them. A red dot forgives head position and irons don't. Spend a few hundred rounds behind a carry handle and your position gets consistent, because the rifle punishes you when it isn't.

Our iron sights guide covers the modern options if you want the discipline without the carry handle.

The handguards

Plain plastic carbine handguards, still made and still inexpensive. They don't free float, so you give up a little accuracy, and they get hot faster than you'd expect on a short barrel.

They also weigh almost nothing. People forget that advantage once they've bolted four accessories to a rail.

If you want the silhouette without the drawbacks, a slim free-float M-LOK rail in a similar length gets close and lets you add a light later. Our M-LOK data covers the standards.

What to leave off

The discipline of this build is in what you don't add.

No light is the one criticism of the configuration we'd defend. Identifying your target isn't optional, and a period build can't do it. If this rifle is for anything beyond range use and appearance, add a light and accept the anachronism.

No optic is a legitimate choice at the distances this rifle is for. The front post and the rear aperture in the carry handle still let you zero it properly.

No sling is the easiest thing to fix and the one we'd fix first. A sling is how you carry a rifle when your hands are busy, and adding one changes nothing about the look.

Building it: honest or usable

Same decision as any period clone.

Honest means the carry handle, plastic handguards and nothing added. It looks right, it shoots fine at the distances it's for, and it makes a good training rifle because nothing compensates for you.

Usable keeps the 11.5 inch barrel and the general shape but adds a free-float rail, a light and a low-mounted red dot. You get a better rifle and a worse clone.

Decide up front, because the handguard makes the two incompatible.

Why we like this build

Most clone builds are about equipment. This one is about the absence of it.

If you've built modern ARs with an optic, a light, a laser and a sling, assembling something with none of that is a useful corrective. You'll shoot it worse at first. You'll also find out quickly which of your skills belong to you and which belong to your accessories.

The same era's military carbines are in our Black Hawk Down build, and the M4A1 Block I clone build shows what the pattern became once rails and optics arrived.