vanfunk
Member
So, in the last few months I’ve been making up for lost time. As I have mentioned before in other threads, I took a 15-year break from shooting to focus on family and career. Now that the kids are older and I’ve backed way off from my high-stress career, I’ve been rebuilding my gun collection and spending more time at the range. As much as I adore blued steel and figured walnut, I tend to favor shooting 7.62 and 5.56 military-style rifles. To that extent, I’ve re-armed myself with a variety of high-end AR-15s and a Daniel Defense AR-10 (DD5) as my first foray into .308 ARs. When my LGS got in an LWRC R.E.P.R. MKII in 7.62, well, I just kinda had to have it.
Now that it’s broken in and the barrel has “settled down,” it’ll shoot .5 moa or a little less with FGMM. Downsides? Sure. It’s a pig. A 13lb pig. It’s practically a crew-served weapon. Granted, it does relegate the recoil to that of a 20” AR, and I think it’s about as accurate as a gas gun can be. Nevertheless I ended up longing for a 7.62 battle rifle that was lighter than the Reaper, lighter than my DD5, lighter and more maneuverable than my M1A loaded.
So when the owner of one of my LGSs emailed me and said he was running a sale on SCAR 17s, I had to go over for a look-see. When I got there and hoisted one off the rack, I was really surprised by it’s light weight. Spending so much time with my bloated-tick rifles had me expecting I’d be wielding another I-beam, I suppose. I pretty much liked everything about it - the weight of course, but the ergos were pretty good for a lefty and it shouldered naturally. The rifle was $700 less than what I had seen in other local stores so, yeah, predictably I took it home. Once out of the box I field stripped it (easy), lubed it in the right places per the manual, slapped an ACOG TA11 on it (green crosshair, my fave) and hit the range. What ensued there was pretty amazing, actually. First off, I found the rifle very easy to shoot. The recoil impulse is very different from AR-pattern rifles and, to my shoulder, doesn’t kick like one would expect of an 8lb battle rifle with military ammo. Next surprise was the accuracy with ball ammo. My DD, Reaper, and M1A won’t really do better than 2.5 moa with M80 ball, although they are extremely accurate rifles with premium ammo. But the SCAR was popping them all into 1.5” without really trying (Prvi Partisan PPU surplus). FGMM shrunk the groups to an inch and occasionally a little under. I found the ACOG to be a marvelous piece of glass for this rifle; the generous eye relief, crystal-clear glass and uncluttered reticle make it a joy on the range. I didn’t shoot it past 200 yards but I can’t imagine it would be difficult to absolutely command (sorry for the split infinitive) an area between 0-500 yards with good M80 ball ammo. AND it’s not a PIG! As currently configured it weighs like 8.5lbs. Even my 12-year-old daughter likes it. C’mon, man, that’s just awesome. So, I may discover some niggles here and there as time goes on (ok, one niggle is the trigger - it sucks, plainly. But I have a Geissele Super Scar on the way), but so far I am really impressed with the SCAR. I’m keeping my other .30’s because they all do what they’re supposed to do, but wow - the SCAR is really, really flippin’ good.
Now that it’s broken in and the barrel has “settled down,” it’ll shoot .5 moa or a little less with FGMM. Downsides? Sure. It’s a pig. A 13lb pig. It’s practically a crew-served weapon. Granted, it does relegate the recoil to that of a 20” AR, and I think it’s about as accurate as a gas gun can be. Nevertheless I ended up longing for a 7.62 battle rifle that was lighter than the Reaper, lighter than my DD5, lighter and more maneuverable than my M1A loaded.
So when the owner of one of my LGSs emailed me and said he was running a sale on SCAR 17s, I had to go over for a look-see. When I got there and hoisted one off the rack, I was really surprised by it’s light weight. Spending so much time with my bloated-tick rifles had me expecting I’d be wielding another I-beam, I suppose. I pretty much liked everything about it - the weight of course, but the ergos were pretty good for a lefty and it shouldered naturally. The rifle was $700 less than what I had seen in other local stores so, yeah, predictably I took it home. Once out of the box I field stripped it (easy), lubed it in the right places per the manual, slapped an ACOG TA11 on it (green crosshair, my fave) and hit the range. What ensued there was pretty amazing, actually. First off, I found the rifle very easy to shoot. The recoil impulse is very different from AR-pattern rifles and, to my shoulder, doesn’t kick like one would expect of an 8lb battle rifle with military ammo. Next surprise was the accuracy with ball ammo. My DD, Reaper, and M1A won’t really do better than 2.5 moa with M80 ball, although they are extremely accurate rifles with premium ammo. But the SCAR was popping them all into 1.5” without really trying (Prvi Partisan PPU surplus). FGMM shrunk the groups to an inch and occasionally a little under. I found the ACOG to be a marvelous piece of glass for this rifle; the generous eye relief, crystal-clear glass and uncluttered reticle make it a joy on the range. I didn’t shoot it past 200 yards but I can’t imagine it would be difficult to absolutely command (sorry for the split infinitive) an area between 0-500 yards with good M80 ball ammo. AND it’s not a PIG! As currently configured it weighs like 8.5lbs. Even my 12-year-old daughter likes it. C’mon, man, that’s just awesome. So, I may discover some niggles here and there as time goes on (ok, one niggle is the trigger - it sucks, plainly. But I have a Geissele Super Scar on the way), but so far I am really impressed with the SCAR. I’m keeping my other .30’s because they all do what they’re supposed to do, but wow - the SCAR is really, really flippin’ good.
