I assembled the bottom rifle in the pic above a while back and, after a few hundred rounds for an initial function check, haven’t been able to shoot it due to a motorcycle wreck/broken radius. It’s essentially all Sionics with the exception of a slick side, no FA upper receiver. That’s a personal preference of mine because I shoot rifles left-handed (I’m cross dominant in the extreme). The trigger is Sionics’s enhanced milspec trigger. Quality overall is predictably good; however, I’m most impressed by the barrel both in how it’s gassed and its accuracy.
Today, I finally said screw it and went to the range, cast and all. Shooting from a bench wasn’t much of a hindrance (right arm injury). I took several springs and buffers for experimentation. My duty rifles have to be able to function with relatively low powered .223 due to my agency’s asinine purchasing decisions so I was curious to see if I could find a failure point. That point appears to be Sprinco blue/H2 buffer for our training load; I was getting intermittent failure to lock back and FTF issues. Duty load (Federal T223A...also stupid) was 100% reliable with this setup and smoooth. Dropping back to an H buffer with the blue spring got me 95% of the way there and swapping to a BCM carbine spring brought it to 100% reliability, even dirty and dry-ish. IMO, this barrel is ported just about perfectly for reliable function without having to deal with over-gassing issues across the ammunition spectrum.
The accuracy of this lightweight, chrome lined barrel is impressive as well. I shot groups at the beginning of the day with Speer 75 grain Gold Dot, which has been accurate in the past. Position was benched off of sandbags. Light rain but no wind. I was getting consistent, repeatable 1.25 to 1.5 MOA 5 shot groups at 100m, even as the barrel warmed up some. I know every other rifle on the internet is “sub 1/2 MOA” but I’ll take my results all day long and twice on Sunday, especially with a good-but-milspec-style trigger and 6x magnification.
Sorry for the book. Short version: do recommend.
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