A friend has had one for a while and I got the chance to shoot it this past weekend.
Up front must say that the WOW factor and SMILE factor are big. It is F U N.
Of couse a lot of ammo goes down the pipe, very quickly. And that can be $. But you can keep this within some ...sort of ..reason. He buys bulk and it is about $0.30 per round. We did 4 mags. I did short bursts through 3 mags. FUN. He clipped off one mag full auto and we share another one. So, all in all 120 rounds burned, but it was fun and the fun lasted a few min.
As to the issues:
Control: I was actually surprised. I had no training with SlideFire (though know my way around an AR quite well), was just told what to do once and found that I could easily control the weapon. Short bursts were not a problem, even right off the bat.
Accuracy: Seemed to be very good....considering we are at full auto.
And there is a simple knob to turn to lock the device and keep the weapon in semi-auto. That worked fine as well.
Barrel DOES get hot...but you knew that.
I think it would be very interesting to try this with a 9mm AR. I had one...but sold it before we could do this. I think that is where this would excel.
Anyway...no connection to the company...not going to get one for myself...just wanted to add some real life info to the thread. My friend is satisfied with the cost and capability.
My best to all
J
[Note added: my friend tried it with the .22lr conversion bolt...do not think it worked. There are reports that it does work with a dedicated .22lr upper and my friend is probably going to go that route to reduce costs, or get an M&P15-22. Should be fun]