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Thread: KAC SR15, worth it?

  1. #31
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    No I don't. Visually rifle looked very new, no scratches etc. The owner was, obviously, disappointed and it didn't feel right to bug him with questions to satisfy my curiosity.
    As I said, if I hear anything I'll quote it here. At this point just treat it as mere report that one sample of SR-15 didn't run well when mags and ammo seemingly weren't to blame.

  2. #32
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    My gun hasn't been trouble free either, but it was easy to figure the reason after trying different ammo and some msg'ing with Kevin.

    Last year at CFSAC, I let the guys from Aimpoint use my SR15 and SBR for live fire demos. They were using old Canadian Forces 556 ammo. The SBR worked, but the SR15 was short-stroking on the ejection cycle.
    Out of a couple mags with that ammo, I had 2 malfunctions. All other ammo I've run though the gun has been flawless. I didn't bother trying to diagnose further, I just stopped using that ammo in the gun. So the little bit of that stuff I have left is either going to be run in my SBR, or sold off.

    Some people will probably say that an expensive AR should run anything you feed it. I don't necessarily agree. It's been flawless with every other type of ammo, so I'm very happy.

    I know what ammo I put in it, and I don't think I'm going to get into a situation where I have to scavenge old issue ammo from the CF, so it's all good to me.
    Last edited by wicked_police; 05-29-10 at 12:13.
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  3. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by wicked_police View Post
    My gun hasn't been trouble free either, but it was easy to figure the reason after trying different ammo and some msg'ing with Kevin.

    Last year at CFSAC, I let the guys from Aimpoint use my SR15 and SBR for live fire demos. They were using old Canadian Forces 556 ammo. The SBR worked, but the SR15 was short-stroking on the ejection cycle.
    Out of a couple mags with that ammo, I had 2 malfunctions. All other ammo I've run though the gun has been flawless. I didn't bother trying to diagnose further, I just stopped using that ammo in the gun. So the little bit of that stuff I have left is either going to be run in my SBR, or sold off.

    Some people will probably say that an expensive AR should run anything you feed it. I don't necessarily agree. It's been flawless with every other type of ammo, so I'm very happy.

    I know what ammo I put in it, and I don't think I'm going to get into a situation where I have to scavenge old issue ammo from the CF, so it's all good to me.

    Other countries NATO ammo tends be much weaker than US NATO ammo. We had some British ammo for training in the brown cans and were specifically told not to use it in combat loads because its known to not reliably cycle US weapons.


    For range use I almost always use M193 5.56 pressure ammo, and have not had any short-stroking issues. I had a few problems with my SR15 at first with not locking the bolt back but that was with 20rd mags that Ive used a lot, 223 spec ammo, and the springs are pretty worn. I had it happen a couple times with a couple of my other AR's, too. Its not done it with PMAG's, and 556 ammo. Ive got about 10k rounds through mine so far, and its been a joy to shoot.

  4. #34
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    I've got less than 400 rds through mine so far. All M193 Centurian or Hornandy 55gr Practice TAP. No problems so far.

  5. #35
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    I can't wait till my KAC /Magpul Rifle gets here so I can see if it's worth the money!!

  6. #36
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    When using a particular batch of Wolf 55gr ammo, I had some short stroking issues that resulted in a few failures to feed with my SR-15. It would very weakly eject the spent casings, and would randomly short stroke and I'd get a "click" instead of a "bang" on an empty chamber. No biggie, I just switched to my PMC 55gr, which a lot of people believe to be pretty weak ammo, and it was fine after that.

    So it's definitely possible he was using weak ammo that would cycle properly in his SR-15, but when he used the same ammo in his other carbine that (most likely) had a larger gas port, it cycled fine in that one.

    When the Assistant Instructor tried troubleshooting, did he use the shooter's ammo or did he insert one of his personal mags with his personal ammo and attempt to fire off a magazine?

    If I was told correctly by someone I trust much more than most, the SR-15 has a slightly smaller gas port, which (among a few other things like the longer than mid-length gas system and E3 bolt) causes it to recoil much less and smoother than other 16" carbines, even other 16" mid-length gas systems. So if you're running VERY weak ammo through it, it could have some issues. But personally, out of all the ammo I've fired through mine, I only had problems with that one batch of Wolf 55gr ammo.

    I've only fired a little under 3,000 rounds through my SR-15 E3. But just a few weeks after I bought it, with only around 250 rounds fired from the bench at my local range, I ran it through my first carbine course. This was last August and it was hot as hell out! I ran my SR-15 hard as **** in that 2-day class and fired around 1,000 rounds total (I had to sit out a few drills to hydrate and avoid heat exhaustion because my lower body cannot sweat so my upper body sweats twice as much). The gun would already be so hot just from the sun alone, requiring me to wear gloves before I even fired it. And I was firing extremely rapid during the drills, thanks to the crazy soft recoil and triple tap brake which allowed me to fire so fast and maintain much better accuracy than my fellow students who were firing at half the rate I was.

    Needless to say, my new SR-15 completely won me over that weekend and I was simply blown away by its performance in such a hot and moderately dusty environment.
    S/F
    Paul

  7. #37
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    I experienced problems with my SR15 E3 also. I'll preface it by saying that I had not shot an AR in several years before I purchased it and had high expectations based on KAC's reputation. Prior to that I shot a Colt A2 in IPSC extensively and owned a couple of Colt Class III guns, so I was not a complete stranger to the AR platform.
    What I liked most was how light it was and secondly the full ambi controls. It was nice to be able to have alternate methods of operation. The ability to mount the sling to the lower receiver I thought was a great idea until I tried it and found that it interfered with the operation of the selector switch most of the time. OK, so use the other side of the control, problem solved.
    Prior to a carbine class I went and sighted it in and ran about 350~400 rounds through it to confirm function. During sighting, I noticed to get a zero, I ended up cranking the windage almost all the way to the right, approximately 3/4 of the way between center and the outside ear. Thought this was a bit excessive. Called KAC multiple times and never received an answer.
    Borrowed a RDS and had to adjust it about 60 clicks windage to get it to hit near the target. Granted the Aimpoint had been sighted on another weapon, but that sure seems like a long way off to me.
    During the carbine class, and after about 7~800 rounds, it started to not seat a magazine. I was using the 30rd PMAG's that had been completely reliable during my testing phase. Of the fifteen I had with me, not a single one would seat and lock. Open bolt, closed bolt made no difference. I started down loading and found that it would finally seat and lock when the round count was down to about 20~21 and only on a open bolt. So I switched to USGI, loaded them to 30rds and they worked perfectly, open or closed bolt. The PMAG's work just fine in any other AR I've tried since then, always loaded to 30rds. Contacted KAC, no response.
    Tried to buy a spare bolt and carrier assembly and other spares, again met with a lack of response from KAC. As in no response to several emails and phone calls.
    So is it worth the price of admission? Yes, but a qualified yes. Based on the sum of the parts, it is a value at $2K. Would I trust it to run 100%, 100% of the time? Ninety percent of the time? Not based on my experience. I never tested to failure the USGI magazines trying to replicate the PMAG "issue", and I'm not convinced that it was a PMAG "failure". Obviously there was something that the SR15 was not happy with during the carbine class. But I'm baffled why the SR15 would work with USGI magazines and the PMAG's would work in other AR's. Even after an extensive cleaning, the SR15 continued to dislike the PMAG's (including the 5 I tried, brand new, straight out of the bag) unless downloaded, but it was happy with the USGI magazines. Even old, non-green follower mags loaded to 30rds, seated, locked and cycled.
    I've since sold it and moved on to a Colt 6933 SBR (11.5"), shot what ammunition I had left over from the carbine class, used the same PMAG's and never once experienced any of the problems I had with the SR15.


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  8. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by RetreatHell View Post
    When using a particular batch of Wolf 55gr ammo, I had some short stroking issues that resulted in a few failures to feed with my SR-15. It would very weakly eject the spent casings, and would randomly short stroke and I'd get a "click" instead of a "bang" on an empty chamber. No biggie, I just switched to my PMC 55gr, which a lot of people believe to be pretty weak ammo, and it was fine after that.

    So it's definitely possible he was using weak ammo that would cycle properly in his SR-15, but when he used the same ammo in his other carbine that (most likely) had a larger gas port, it cycled fine in that one.

    When the Assistant Instructor tried troubleshooting, did he use the shooter's ammo or did he insert one of his personal mags with his personal ammo and attempt to fire off a magazine?

    If I was told correctly by someone I trust much more than most, the SR-15 has a slightly smaller gas port, which (among a few other things like the longer than mid-length gas system and E3 bolt) causes it to recoil much less and smoother than other 16" carbines, even other 16" mid-length gas systems. So if you're running VERY weak ammo through it, it could have some issues. But personally, out of all the ammo I've fired through mine, I only had problems with that one batch of Wolf 55gr ammo.

    I've only fired a little under 3,000 rounds through my SR-15 E3. But just a few weeks after I bought it, with only around 250 rounds fired from the bench at my local range, I ran it through my first carbine course. This was last August and it was hot as hell out! I ran my SR-15 hard as **** in that 2-day class and fired around 1,000 rounds total (I had to sit out a few drills to hydrate and avoid heat exhaustion because my lower body cannot sweat so my upper body sweats twice as much). The gun would already be so hot just from the sun alone, requiring me to wear gloves before I even fired it. And I was firing extremely rapid during the drills, thanks to the crazy soft recoil and triple tap brake which allowed me to fire so fast and maintain much better accuracy than my fellow students who were firing at half the rate I was.

    Needless to say, my new SR-15 completely won me over that weekend and I was simply blown away by its performance in such a hot and moderately dusty environment.


    I believe the SR15 is tuned to run with M855 which of course is a 556 pressure load. A lot of companies tend to put huge gas ports on their barrels so they run with the weakest of ammo. The problem this causes its lots of recoil with full pressure ammo but then people can come on a board and brag about how they XYZ gun "eats everything".


    FWIW I also had a lot of short cycling problems with Wolf in a Colt 6921 which has a correct sized gas port.

  9. #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by No.6 View Post
    I experienced problems with my SR15 E3 also.

    SNIP


    Sorry to hear you got what sounds like a lemon gun, and that KAC was not responsive. Im glad mine runs perfectly as its my favorite gun to shoot.

  10. #40
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    Man, I hope mine doesn't have that issue. I'm Hoping to run it through a Magpul class this year.

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