Before anyone lectures me, I know about quality (I once bought an upper and lower from Grant, but like a fool I sold it to make a buck during the Obama freakout) and I bought this PSA strictly as a range toy...
Back in January, I bought a PSA 16" mid-length rifle kit with Magpul MOE furniture for $399. I'm just a few months shy of 60 and I'm never going to be an "operator" and this is not a gun I ever expect to bet my life on, so I thought I would go cheap and "build" a dirt-clod killer. I've kept the LPK for a later build and mated the upper with a lower from LMG, a relatively new company from my home state of Virginia and I wanted to support the local guys. I don't know how "in spec" it may be, but it's got THE slickest trigger pull I've ever felt on a mil-spec trigger.
Before I trash it (gee, do ya think he's going to trash it?), I MUST SAY that this thing shoots more accurately than my aging eyes will allow and after 42 years of shooting the M16-A1 and the M16-A2, this thing feels good when I shoot it.
Now that I've said the nice things about it that it (truly) deserves, let's get into what I've learned about it...
1. The outer surface of the BCG is so rough that when I wipe it with an oily rag, it strips off enough fiber that it looks like it's covered in fur. That of course means nothing, but it's nothing I ever experienced with my issued M16's or my BCM.
2. Hoping to keep this gun from beating itself to death, I slipped in an H2 buffer to slow things down because M855 always bounces off the brass deflector and goes forward. My own 55 grain reloads (hopefully as close of an approximation to M193 as I can get) always ejects to 5 o'clock. I figured if M855 would still cycle with the H2, then I wouldn't mind if I had to slip the H0 back in for my reloads. However, I got out today to test the new buffer and I shot 60 rounds of M855, 50 rounds of my reloads, 30 rounds of Tula 62 grain .233 and 10 rounds of 70 grain soft point reloads that I intend to pop coyotes with. I fired all of it 5 rounds at a time to see if the bolt would lock back, or more importantly, would the bolt fail to lock back? In fact, all of it not only locked the bolt back, but the the M855 still bounced off the deflector and went forward and overall, there was no change whatsoever. How badly overgassed must this thing be to see no difference between an H0 and H2 buffer? Maybe I'm making more of this than I should, but I honestly expected my 55 grain reloads to fail to lock the bolt with a buffer that Chris Bartocci says is too heavy for non-suppressed semi-auto usage (yeah, I saw that video AFTER I bought the buffer)...
3. While cleaning the gun, I noticed something that had not caught my eye before. After pulling my bore snake through a couple of times, I looked down the bore and noticed that the gas port is off center! Is this normal for less expensive gear?
4. While cleaning the BCG, I noticed that the bolt cam pin, after a total of 430 rounds is already wearing a ridge where it cams against the slot in the carrier. I know from experience to expect to see odd-looking wear in the finish due to the camming action, but should it actually have a wear ridge after only 430 rounds? Thankfully, my wife is already planning to get me a chrome-plated BCG from Young Mfg for our anniversary, so the PSA BCG is going into the bin as an emergency spare.
As the title implies, after noticing number three and four, I had a good laugh! I guess I got what I paid for. As I said, I'm not an operator and this is just a range toy, and to be fair, for all it's flaws, it's more accurate than I am and it feels good when it shoots, so I'm really not upset. It shoots dirt clods just fine. However, this might be instructive to those who think they're going to find quality at this price point and expect to defend their life with it...
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Diamondback
Well done!
Bookmarks