Battle Arms Development
Authorized Dealer • Las Vegas, Nevada • Engineered Excellence Since 2009
Battle Arms Development — commonly shortened to BAD — is the Las Vegas, Nevada manufacturer that pioneered the ambidextrous AR-15 safety selector category in 2009 with the original BAD-ASS® selector, the product that defined modern ambi AR controls and remains the industry-reference design 15+ years later. The catalog has since grown into a full firearms manufacturer building the Workhorse®, Authority Elite®, Silent Pro®, Tanker®, Xiphos®, and the OIP® (billed as the lightest production AR-15 ever shipped), with parts running from titanium safeties through carbon-fiber furniture to nitride-treated steel bolt carriers. Tagline: “Engineered Excellence.” Keep Shooting stocks 6 BAD products covering the AR-15 small-parts upgrade slice: two enhanced magazine releases (modular and standard), the adjustable tactical grip, the enhanced pivot/takedown pin set, the 9mm blowback bolt for pistol-caliber AR builds, and the M16-profile nitride bolt carrier group.
Battle Arms Development at Keep Shooting
Battle Arms Development (BAD) is the Las Vegas, Nevada manufacturer that effectively created the ambidextrous AR-15 safety selector category as a mainstream civilian product. Founded in 2009, BAD shipped the original BAD-ASS® Ambidextrous Safety Selector at a moment when most AR-15s left the factory with a single right-side selector lever and serious end-users had to wait on military-spec aftermarket parts to get a left-side control. The BAD-ASS made the ambi safety a $40 drop-in upgrade, triggered the wave of competing ambi selectors that followed across the industry, and remains the reference design 15+ years later. The catalog has since grown from that single anchor part into a full firearms manufacturer running named rifle lines (Workhorse®, Authority Elite®, Silent Pro®, Tanker®, Xiphos®, the OIP® billed as the lightest production AR-15, and The ART of WAR Series), AR pistols, NFA/Class-3 items, and a deep small-parts catalog spanning titanium safeties, carbon-fiber furniture, aluminum receivers, and nitride-treated steel internals under the tagline “Engineered Excellence.” Keep Shooting carries 6 BAD products covering the AR-15 small-parts upgrade slice: the AR15 Enhanced Modular Magazine Release, the Enhanced Magazine Release, the Adjustable Tactical Grip, the AR15 Enhanced Pivot and Takedown Pin Set, the Enhanced 9MM Blowback AR Bolt, and the M16 Standard Bolt Carrier Group.
The BAD-ASS Safety Selector — The Product That Built the Brand
For most of the AR-15’s history, the factory safety selector was a single right-side lever on the lower receiver, operated by the shooter’s firing-hand thumb. That works fine for right-handed shooters. It does not work for left-handed shooters, who have to break their firing grip to flick the safety. And it does not work for any shooter trying to run the gun left-handed in a malfunction drill, off-side shooting position, or transition off a wall. Military and law-enforcement units that cared about this would either swap in a true ambidextrous selector from a specialty maker or have an armorer modify the factory part. Both options were expensive and not widely available to civilians.
The BAD-ASS Ambidextrous Safety Selector, released in 2009, took what had been a custom-shop and military-armorer product and put it on the civilian aftermarket as a drop-in $40 part. The design uses two short levers connected by a common shaft, with the right-side lever in the standard location and a mirrored left-side lever on the opposite side of the receiver. A right-handed shooter operates the right lever as normal; a left-handed shooter operates the left. The two levers move as a unit. Installation takes ~5 minutes with no permanent modification to the receiver, and the part is fully reversible. The original BAD-ASS—and the refined BAD-ASS-PRO® that followed—became the canonical aftermarket ambi safety in the American AR-15 market and triggered the wave of competing ambi selectors that followed from Radian Weapons, Geissele, KAC, and the rest of the AR-15 small-parts industry. The BAD-ASS is the part that defined the brand and remains the canonical Battle Arms Development product—though Keep Shooting’s current Battle Arms catalog focuses on the magazine release and small-parts side rather than the safety selector line.
Enhanced Magazine Releases — The Modular vs Standard Variants
Keep Shooting stocks two BAD magazine releases that sit at different price-and-feature points in the same product family. The Enhanced Magazine Release is the entry into the line at $6.75. The AR15 Enhanced Modular Magazine Release is the premium variant at $25.52. Both replace the factory AR-15 magazine release button on the right side of the lower receiver with an extended-paddle design that lets the shooter drop the magazine with the trigger finger or the support-hand thumb without rotating the grip.
Why the price gap? The Enhanced is a single-piece machined-aluminum part that replaces the factory button with a slightly extended profile. The Enhanced Modular uses a two-piece interchangeable-cap design: the base mounts to the receiver and the cap that the shooter’s finger actually contacts unscrews and swaps for different profiles (low-profile competition, extended duty, textured rubber, etc.). The modular design lets the shooter tune the magazine-release surface to their grip without buying a whole new release every time. For shooters who run multiple rifles in different configurations (a competition gun, a duty/home-defense gun, a training rifle) the modular base lets you swap the feel without rebuilding the part each time.
Enhanced Pivot & Takedown Pin Set — The Disassembly Upgrade
The AR15 Enhanced Pivot and Takedown Pin Set replaces the two factory steel pins that connect the upper and lower receivers with an enhanced design featuring extended grip tabs and machined-out grooves on the head end. The factory pins are flush-head steel rods with no purchase for fingertips, which means breaking the gun open in cold weather, with gloves on, or when the action is gritty requires a punch or improvised tool. The Enhanced pins solve this with a knurled tab you can grab with a fingernail, a gloved fingertip, or the edge of a coin. The pins are functionally identical to the factory parts and reversible at any time, but the small change to the head profile makes field-stripping the rifle materially easier in adverse conditions.
Adjustable Tactical Grip — AR-15 Furniture
The Adjustable Tactical Grip is BAD’s replacement AR-15 pistol grip with an adjustable angle and beavertail profile. The factory A2 grip on a standard AR-15 sits at a 17° rearward rake—a carry-over from the M16 of the 1960s, when riflemen carried at port arms and the angled grip kept the rifle from rotating out of the hand. For modern shooters running the rifle in close-to-the-body compressed positions, a more vertical (15° or less) grip angle places the wrist in a more neutral position and reduces fatigue on sustained firing. The adjustable design lets the shooter dial the angle to match the rifle’s use case (CQB vs precision vs general-purpose) without committing to a single fixed grip. The beavertail wraps the web of the firing hand and prevents the common A2 problem of the receiver pinching skin during recoil.
9MM Blowback AR Bolt & M16 Bolt Carrier Group — The Bolt Side
The Enhanced 9MM Blowback AR Bolt is the 9mm-caliber bolt for builders running a pistol-caliber AR-15 (an “AR-9”) on the standard AR-15 lower receiver. The AR-9 platform takes the same lower as a 5.56 AR-15 but uses a dedicated 9mm upper with a simple blowback action (no gas system, no rotating bolt head—the bolt mass and the recoil spring do all the work). BAD’s enhanced 9mm bolt is the heart of that upper. The Colt magazine pattern and the Glock magazine pattern both work in different AR-9 lowers, and BAD’s bolt is engineered for the Colt-pattern blowback profile.
The M16 Standard Bolt Carrier Group is the full-mass M16-profile carrier with the heavier rear weight that the original M16 used (vs the lighter semi-auto AR-15 carrier that civilian rifles usually ship with). The full-mass profile is legal in civilian semi-auto rifles and delivers a slightly more progressive bolt cycle on hot loads or heavily-suppressed builds. BAD’s carrier is treated with a nitride finish—a case-hardening process that creates a hard, slick surface layer on the steel without adding thickness. Nitride resists wear, corrosion, and carbon buildup better than traditional phosphate finishes, runs cleaner on suppressed rifles where carbon ingress is a real concern, and doesn’t require the chrome-lining additional process that chrome-lined carriers do.
Pairing & Cross-References
Because every BAD product Keep Shooting stocks installs in the AR-15 / AR-9 platform, the natural pairing is the AR-15 parts catalog, where the BAD magazine releases and pin set surface alongside the rest of the AR-15 small parts (lower parts kits, charging handles, triggers, buffer tubes, stocks, and furniture from the rest of the AR-15 aftermarket). For the bolt-carrier side specifically (full BCGs across nitride, phosphate, nickel-boron, and chrome-lined finishes from multiple makers), the parent AR-parts category is where the BAD BCG sits in inventory. For the broader gun parts catalog covering AK, 1911, Glock, Mosin Nagant, and the military-surplus platform sub-buckets, see the parent category.
Frequently Asked Questions — Battle Arms Development
Yes, we maintain inventory of the most popular Battle Arms Development products. Each product listing shows real-time stock status. If an item is temporarily out of stock, you can sign up for back-in-stock notifications on the product page.
Yes! All orders over $49.95 qualify for free shipping, including Battle Arms Development products. Orders typically ship within 1–2 business days.
Keep Shooting offers hassle-free returns on Battle Arms Development products. If you're not completely satisfied, contact our customer service team for a return authorization. All products must be in original, unused condition.
Yes, Keep Shooting is an authorized Battle Arms Development dealer. All products are sourced directly and include full manufacturer warranty coverage.