So it has been a while but I wanted to give a longer range report here. I had held off until I had more data, a full 500 rnds, because it wasn't pretty.
Aug. 26th.
90 rounds of IMI mk 262 clone ammo fired. All went well.
Later I found the gas piston seized after shooting, it moved and had been removed prior to firing. When I say seized I don't mean stiff, I mean an adjustable wrench to turn it loose and a wood block to knock it out. It appeared to have what looked like copper melted and flowed on parts of it. It was very difficult to remove. I lubed it with ALG lube. It has continued to move, but seems to need to be lubed often.
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The gold in the picture is what I took to be flowed copper.
Sept. 1
30 Speer gold dot 75 gr. All went well.
30 Speer Gold Dot 64gr. One failure to feed, nose of round impacted above chamber, failing to chamber. (this will become a theme)
30 Fiocchi 62 gr. .223 fmj. All went well.
30 Prvi 75gr. BTHP. All went well.
60 Privi 5.56 m193. All went well.
Sept. 23rd
50 Federal Fusion MSR 62gr. BSP. 3 failures to feed. 2 with bullet tip impacting above the chamber, 1 with the round not totally being picked up.
30 IMI mk 262 clone. All went well.
Sept. 24th
30 IMI mk 262 clone. All went well.
Oct. 9th
30 IMI mk262 clone. All went well.
Nov. 19th
90 Speer Gold Dot 75gr. 4 failures to feed. Nose of round impacts above chamber.
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75gr. GD nose above chamber.
So in a total of 500 rounds fired out of new D&H USGI mags and new Gen. 2 Pmags there were 8 Failures to feed. A 1.6% failure rate, or 62.5 rounds between stoppages.
All failures were secluded to the soft point duty ammo. Speer GD 64 gr. 1/30, Speer GD 75gr. 4/120, Federal fusion MSR 62gr. 3/50. This adds up to a total of 8/200 in failures or 25 rounds between stoppages.
On the other hand IMI 77gr smk mk. 262 clone was zero stoppages in 180 rounds.
I have given up on using the fusion/gold dot ammo in this gun. I honestly won't even waste any more in testing. They don't feed well. The MK 262 is a long pointy round and feeds great. I never tried m855 but I imagine it would run well too.
Lets move on to my experience with the gun when it does feed.
Its was amazing accurate, easily making hits a 200yards on 12" steel plate with the aim point squatting.The trigger is amazing, best I've ever had in a factory trigger. 1st stage is very light, second stage is heavier but not bad at all. Super smooth, reset is a little long.
Recoil is very very low, but it has a lot of muzzle flip. While the gun does not push back, it drops back and lifts the muzzle very pronounced. I find fast follow up shots more difficult than any 223 I have shot, not having much to grab onto and real it in probably doesn't help. A vertical grip could really help here, however being a pistol I con't put one on.
A full magazine seats with no effort, like the bolt was locked back almost. A lot of my AR15s I have really hammer the magazines in to get them to seat. I do wonder if the bullets starting down low like this contribute to the feeding issue?
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How I have been running the gun. KAC hand stop made me much more comfortable about shooting a finger off. I replaced the huge flash hider with a mini Vortex (made by smith for spikes), this cut the gun down another 1.5". I have the polymer back up sites on it now, they have little sites on them when folded that is kind of a 1/3 cowitness to the Aimpoint. Honestly they impede to much of the view for my liking and will be removing them. A mini ACOG 1.5x16 would be perfect on this gun, but with its lack of ability to feed barrier blind ammo I have I may not sink more money into it.
Over all I guess knowing what I know I'd still buy one. It really is just so cool and so small. It sucks it won't feed soft points, I bought this gun pretty specifically to be deployed from a vehicle, presumably against an aggressor in or around another vehicle. This makes not being able to run my barrier blind ammo really suck.
I plan on carefully logging another 500rnds of just the IMI mk262 clone and see what happens. My guess is it will be reliable, I'll be reporting back.
For the record I don't think the gun is 'broken', I don't see how B&T could fix this, I feel it is what it is and has to do with the design. As I noted before I wonder if the low mag placement is the source of the problem. I feel as it follows a certain design of ammo, it is an ammo issue (of sorts).
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