Hey folks, figured I'd drop a somewhat detailed review of this semi-auto 12-guage after a few weekends worth of testing,
The shotgun I'm reviewing is one example of the Aksa R4, marketed as the Impact R4, by Revolution Armory. This example is resold by S&J Hardware in Ontario, with options such as different cerakotes and some accessories.
First off: while we're on the topic of markings and resellers, let's address these in order. The alloy receiver is properly engraved with the Revolution Armory logo, nice. However, all other markings on the gun, including place of mfg, caliber, and shell lengths, are engraved by laser, which means if you re-finish this gun you absolutely risk losing all that data.
Let's get this out of the way right away too: I'm a Western Canadian mechanical+mfg engineer with a background in sporting goods, gunsmithing, etc. I create production designs and the machines, tooling, and factories which build said products, so when it comes to product review I tend to have a lot of perspectives to pitch in...
Back to those markings! Laser engraving the country of manufacture, caliber, and shell length is in my honest opinion not acceptable practice for firearms. Well, maybe it's acceptable to the law, but it's not best practice by any stretch. Those markings will not last, which is too bad, because the markings on ancient farm shotguns are still around, long after the hammers have fallen off and the furniture is rotted off... The steel still carries enough information to make use of it from a gunsmiths perspective. Ultimately, far as performance goes, it's not going to make a difference, but IMO this info on a gun should always be stamped or marked permanently.
On the topic of resellers: No mention of S&J on the gun, so by all accounts it's Revolution Armory Impact R4 (the "Impact R4" part is also laser engraved).
When I initially thought to do this review, I thought I'd be referring to S&J as a pro-shop rather than reseller... you know, the real brand on the gun, with some special "parts binning" or fitment work, or some such. Unfortunately from what I can tell, no "pro-shop" work was conducted inside this example, and this is made perfectly clear by this following observation: No critical fasteners whatsoever have any thread-locking compound (blue-loctite, for example). Several parts of the gun are cerakoted, but nothing was fitted with threadlock... Critical fasteners such as the two internal screws (from the inside of receiver) which hold the rear sight on, in addition to the screws which hold the top sight rail, and particularly, the ARGO gas system regulators, where they screw into the ports beneath the barrel. I'll mention later in the review what the results are of skipping this threadlocker...
Performance and Operation:
If you were thinking this review was taking a turn for bad, this is where that vibe ends!
Turns out, in the field with 300 shells on hand for stress testing and break-in, the R4 performed great, right out of the box with no tweaks before hand. I had a peek at the internals before the first day of shooting, to take note of important surfaces and witness areas, but made no adjustments. As anticipated from information others have posted about these guns, there was a break-in period where only stronger shells cycled well, and target shot was not reliably extracting.
After 200 shots, it was time to take things apart for inspection, where upon I found one of the gas regulators had unscrewed itself several turns, while the other was simply loose (the regulators are also known as m4 Gas Plugs). Letting these babies unscrew is not a good idea, since after a couple turns, any hot gasses hitting the regulator will bypass the viton o-rings, eventually damaging that seal, and fouling up the threads. If left to continue loosening, it will fall right out, disabling that piston (big hole, no resistance). This is why these regulators work best when installed with Loctite, so those seals can stay put. There is little need to remove these "gas plugs" for cleaning, or the pistons themselves, as the system is perfectly capable of maintaining itself for a very long time... Yea there's plenty of fouling around the ARGO system, but it does not impede the operation. When you do need to remove them, the loctite is easily broken loose, and should be re-applied on assembly.
As for other issues encountered on the first inspection, there were none! All wear-related witness marks were typical. R4 was cleaned, lubricated, regs installed correctly, and put back into shooting, to determine if the target loads would begin to cycle normally, which they had begun to. Shooting was concluded for the day.
Second day out, my focus was on choke selection and pattern testing on paper, where the gun passed with flying colors. I'll skip details on best chokes, since the review is not a choke review. Primarily I was shooting SCORE (Prairie-Shot) shells, including both 3" 1550 FPS BB steel, and 2.75" #2, in addition to a range of lead options (#4 and 00 buckshot, target slug, BB and #2 game loads). All of the ammo was either from Prairie-Shot (made in Manitoba, excellent), or from Challenger (made in QC, sometimes questionable).
Third day out was casual clays shooting with friends, by this point the gun had previously seen 400 shell count and the gas system tune-up, and is operating perfectly. 8/10 clays best run, I have to admit I've never used a gun like this for previous clays outings but got in the zone immediately, and had a blast!
Observations after third day, 500 shot count:
The rear sight was found to be loose, this is another consequence of assembling critical fasteners without thread locker. Unfortunately, it also wore its footprint into the cerakote while it was wiggling around, good thing I actually don't care too much about "perfect cosmetics". The pic sight rail had not come loose, as I had already loctited and torqued the screws on the first day, before mounting a red dot.
This is also the first time I've had reason to drop the trigger group (required for rear sight fastener access), so all the guts came out... And I was very impressed with what I found. Excellent component quality inside, great lockwork, great interior machine finish on the alloy receiver, bolt group looks built to last. I should also mention, the hard chrome of the breech and barrel interior is very hard chrome indeed, and should last a very long time. The cerakote however will not last very long, it's easily scratched, and the anodize underneath the coating on the receiver is definitely not a Class III hardcoat anodize... I did some testing with files around the loading gate and found it would cut thru both coating and anodize all too easily (or, what's left of the anodize, if blasting was conducted prior to coating).
This sort of stuff bothers me much less than laser engraved markings, by the way! I don't mind a gun that shows wear and tear, so long as it doesn't rust, just another machine tool basically. Underneath the cosmetic flaws and minor lapses in attention to detail, this Turkish-built import is an excellent little 12 gauge gas-operated machine tool indeed!
Other important notes about the guns configuration:
The mag tube will hold just shy of six 3 inch shells... excellent! comfortably fits six 2.75".
The adjustable comb of the retractable stock is Very good, actually better than Benelli's collapsible stock, with fixed comb.
The bolt release button is easy to operate, I didn't use the accessory "bad tab" other than testing how it functions, the gun looks cleaner without it.
The adjustable iron sights are very nice quality, very true to Benelli design... But a small red dot is just better. It's good to have a reliable backup!
S&Js larger, extended charging handle is really nice! Hard steel, good traction, built to last. I also bought some shot cards from them, which I prefer to "hard" side shell carriers.
Conclusion: Particularly with the price taken into account, I'm very happy with this shotgun and would absolutely recommend it, especially to shooters who are hardware savvy, who will enjoy taking it apart to correct the minor assembly oversights. The m4 platform is a great gun to work on, essentially requiring no tools besides the bolt handle for basic maintenance. Handling and ergonomics are great, I would trust the gun to perform under any circumstance now that I've had a bit of time with it. It will even cycle that trashy Challenger target ammo once broken in! With better ammo it will certainly not skip a beat.
Cheers!
edit: Price was $840 CAD+tax, purchased here https://www.sjhardware.com/product/turknelli-2-0/
The shotgun I'm reviewing is one example of the Aksa R4, marketed as the Impact R4, by Revolution Armory. This example is resold by S&J Hardware in Ontario, with options such as different cerakotes and some accessories.
First off: while we're on the topic of markings and resellers, let's address these in order. The alloy receiver is properly engraved with the Revolution Armory logo, nice. However, all other markings on the gun, including place of mfg, caliber, and shell lengths, are engraved by laser, which means if you re-finish this gun you absolutely risk losing all that data.
Let's get this out of the way right away too: I'm a Western Canadian mechanical+mfg engineer with a background in sporting goods, gunsmithing, etc. I create production designs and the machines, tooling, and factories which build said products, so when it comes to product review I tend to have a lot of perspectives to pitch in...
Back to those markings! Laser engraving the country of manufacture, caliber, and shell length is in my honest opinion not acceptable practice for firearms. Well, maybe it's acceptable to the law, but it's not best practice by any stretch. Those markings will not last, which is too bad, because the markings on ancient farm shotguns are still around, long after the hammers have fallen off and the furniture is rotted off... The steel still carries enough information to make use of it from a gunsmiths perspective. Ultimately, far as performance goes, it's not going to make a difference, but IMO this info on a gun should always be stamped or marked permanently.
On the topic of resellers: No mention of S&J on the gun, so by all accounts it's Revolution Armory Impact R4 (the "Impact R4" part is also laser engraved).
When I initially thought to do this review, I thought I'd be referring to S&J as a pro-shop rather than reseller... you know, the real brand on the gun, with some special "parts binning" or fitment work, or some such. Unfortunately from what I can tell, no "pro-shop" work was conducted inside this example, and this is made perfectly clear by this following observation: No critical fasteners whatsoever have any thread-locking compound (blue-loctite, for example). Several parts of the gun are cerakoted, but nothing was fitted with threadlock... Critical fasteners such as the two internal screws (from the inside of receiver) which hold the rear sight on, in addition to the screws which hold the top sight rail, and particularly, the ARGO gas system regulators, where they screw into the ports beneath the barrel. I'll mention later in the review what the results are of skipping this threadlocker...
Performance and Operation:
If you were thinking this review was taking a turn for bad, this is where that vibe ends!
Turns out, in the field with 300 shells on hand for stress testing and break-in, the R4 performed great, right out of the box with no tweaks before hand. I had a peek at the internals before the first day of shooting, to take note of important surfaces and witness areas, but made no adjustments. As anticipated from information others have posted about these guns, there was a break-in period where only stronger shells cycled well, and target shot was not reliably extracting.
After 200 shots, it was time to take things apart for inspection, where upon I found one of the gas regulators had unscrewed itself several turns, while the other was simply loose (the regulators are also known as m4 Gas Plugs). Letting these babies unscrew is not a good idea, since after a couple turns, any hot gasses hitting the regulator will bypass the viton o-rings, eventually damaging that seal, and fouling up the threads. If left to continue loosening, it will fall right out, disabling that piston (big hole, no resistance). This is why these regulators work best when installed with Loctite, so those seals can stay put. There is little need to remove these "gas plugs" for cleaning, or the pistons themselves, as the system is perfectly capable of maintaining itself for a very long time... Yea there's plenty of fouling around the ARGO system, but it does not impede the operation. When you do need to remove them, the loctite is easily broken loose, and should be re-applied on assembly.
As for other issues encountered on the first inspection, there were none! All wear-related witness marks were typical. R4 was cleaned, lubricated, regs installed correctly, and put back into shooting, to determine if the target loads would begin to cycle normally, which they had begun to. Shooting was concluded for the day.
Second day out, my focus was on choke selection and pattern testing on paper, where the gun passed with flying colors. I'll skip details on best chokes, since the review is not a choke review. Primarily I was shooting SCORE (Prairie-Shot) shells, including both 3" 1550 FPS BB steel, and 2.75" #2, in addition to a range of lead options (#4 and 00 buckshot, target slug, BB and #2 game loads). All of the ammo was either from Prairie-Shot (made in Manitoba, excellent), or from Challenger (made in QC, sometimes questionable).
Third day out was casual clays shooting with friends, by this point the gun had previously seen 400 shell count and the gas system tune-up, and is operating perfectly. 8/10 clays best run, I have to admit I've never used a gun like this for previous clays outings but got in the zone immediately, and had a blast!
Observations after third day, 500 shot count:
The rear sight was found to be loose, this is another consequence of assembling critical fasteners without thread locker. Unfortunately, it also wore its footprint into the cerakote while it was wiggling around, good thing I actually don't care too much about "perfect cosmetics". The pic sight rail had not come loose, as I had already loctited and torqued the screws on the first day, before mounting a red dot.
This is also the first time I've had reason to drop the trigger group (required for rear sight fastener access), so all the guts came out... And I was very impressed with what I found. Excellent component quality inside, great lockwork, great interior machine finish on the alloy receiver, bolt group looks built to last. I should also mention, the hard chrome of the breech and barrel interior is very hard chrome indeed, and should last a very long time. The cerakote however will not last very long, it's easily scratched, and the anodize underneath the coating on the receiver is definitely not a Class III hardcoat anodize... I did some testing with files around the loading gate and found it would cut thru both coating and anodize all too easily (or, what's left of the anodize, if blasting was conducted prior to coating).
This sort of stuff bothers me much less than laser engraved markings, by the way! I don't mind a gun that shows wear and tear, so long as it doesn't rust, just another machine tool basically. Underneath the cosmetic flaws and minor lapses in attention to detail, this Turkish-built import is an excellent little 12 gauge gas-operated machine tool indeed!
Other important notes about the guns configuration:
The mag tube will hold just shy of six 3 inch shells... excellent! comfortably fits six 2.75".
The adjustable comb of the retractable stock is Very good, actually better than Benelli's collapsible stock, with fixed comb.
The bolt release button is easy to operate, I didn't use the accessory "bad tab" other than testing how it functions, the gun looks cleaner without it.
The adjustable iron sights are very nice quality, very true to Benelli design... But a small red dot is just better. It's good to have a reliable backup!
S&Js larger, extended charging handle is really nice! Hard steel, good traction, built to last. I also bought some shot cards from them, which I prefer to "hard" side shell carriers.
Conclusion: Particularly with the price taken into account, I'm very happy with this shotgun and would absolutely recommend it, especially to shooters who are hardware savvy, who will enjoy taking it apart to correct the minor assembly oversights. The m4 platform is a great gun to work on, essentially requiring no tools besides the bolt handle for basic maintenance. Handling and ergonomics are great, I would trust the gun to perform under any circumstance now that I've had a bit of time with it. It will even cycle that trashy Challenger target ammo once broken in! With better ammo it will certainly not skip a beat.
Cheers!
edit: Price was $840 CAD+tax, purchased here https://www.sjhardware.com/product/turknelli-2-0/
