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Dang it Buckhorn_Cortez, I am dying to get my hands on the Barrett. I bet it is creaking sweet. Heard great things about them.
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It is a nice rifle. Ronnie Barrett knows how to design rifles. I had a Colt AR in 1984 and it was a jamtastic machine because it did not have the M4 modifcations. I sold it in 1985 and didn't think about an AR until 2010.
Then I shot a friend's SIG, and started looking at piston ARs just to see what they were all about. I looked at and shot as many as I could, including SIG and HK. Then I saw a REC7.
It's hard to explain without seeing, handling, and operating the rifle. It is so well designed and manufactured. The fit and finish are like a Wilson - while the design and operation are totally Barrett. It works under all conditions with no extra help needed.
I cleaned it at 3,000 rounds to see what was going on with it. The barrel was fairly dirty and needed cleaning, but the bolt and inside of the receiver were nearly as clean as when it was new. I took the gas piston assembly apart (you flip a lever on the front of the gas block, tilt the gun barrel down and it falls out of the gas block).
I wiped the piston and inside of the gas block with SLIP Carbon Killer and the cleaning rag was faintly grey. After that, I became a believer that the piston system truly is self-cleaning.
The gun needs minimal lubrication as the bolt and carrier are NP3 coated. I have been using a very light coating of ProGold MFR-7. It's very nice to run the gun almost dry where I live (New Mexico) without needing to constantly lubricate the bolt. It never has a bolt covered in a mixture of gun gas/fouling munge + dust + oil
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It is farily accurate as it will give slightly under 1 MOA accuracy running 55 grain bullets at 100 yards. The gun club I belong to has a 100 yard tunnel so you can test rifles without wind drift. I've done that with the REC7 on two ocassions with my sled and sand bags - and both times it shot 0.75 MOA.
It seems to be the rifle no one knows about (or thinks about) as I have never seen another one (although the FFL I purchased it from says he sells about 1-2 per week). I would recommend looking at the REC7
if you can find one. It is certainly one of the better options in piston operated ARs.