About a month ago I booked a group of about 250 people to come shoot in one day at the range, they wanted to shoot 9mm Beretta carbines with red dots and "sniper" style rifles. This would have to move fast so I asked HiCal to make me 2 rifles with magazine adapters so they could shoot more than 5 rounds without swapping mags. Yeah, yeah, I know SKS isn't a sniper rifle but it serves the purpose- Looks cool, has a scope and bipod, semi auto so people that are unfamiliar with firearms don't have to worry about bolt manipulation, and of course the SKS rifles are built like tanks so if using non corrosive can go for hundreds of rounds without cleaning. They were only shooting to 100m on steel gongs, so sub MOA wasn't required, hitting 6" to 16x16" gongs was the criteria.
I asked for one with a archangel stock and one with a Kicklite stock, just to be different. I had already bought a SKS from upinsmoklewelding with a tan archangel stock, cerakoted tan, brake and a Texas made adapter. Here are the 3 rifles, left to right- Green archangel from HiCal, Tan from upinsmoke, and grey Kicklite from Hical
The HiCal SKS rifles themselves were top quality- They appeared unfired, except maybe test fired. But they were very nice, no blemishes, matching serial numbers, etc. Very slick. And they were accurate, too. 5 round groups went about 2.5-3" at 100m, with scopes and bipod (no rear bag)
Magazines were in short supply, but I had a few. The proper XCR mags worked fine. The Elander mags worked fine at first but then popped their spot welds and bulged out. Fortunately one of our members had a bunch of XCR mags for his Robinson rifle and lent them to me.
FOr the event, we went through a few people and then the Texas adapter rifle started having mags stick. We took it apart and there seemed to be a burr inside on the ejector mechanism preventing the mag for releasing. We filed that down and it worked fine after that. Upon examining the 2 different devices, we all felt the HighCal was a bit better. They were both similar but the HiCal had a few refinements, including a better release button.
After the burr was removed, all rifles went about 750 rounds each without issue. The rifles got pretty hot at the end of the day as we rapidly funneled 140 people through. We sprayed them down with water to cool it off and they were steaming!
We went through lots of ammo
The shooting was hot and heavy, 6 guns all blazing at once!
Bottom line is that I am impressed by the HiCal rifles and their adapters. Rifles had Matador and Magwedge rails for mounting scopes and they worked great, as does the Magwedge quickpin which makes breaking down a SKS for cleaning really easy. Although they all have another 200-400 rounds to go prior to cleaning.
2 thumbs up!
I asked for one with a archangel stock and one with a Kicklite stock, just to be different. I had already bought a SKS from upinsmoklewelding with a tan archangel stock, cerakoted tan, brake and a Texas made adapter. Here are the 3 rifles, left to right- Green archangel from HiCal, Tan from upinsmoke, and grey Kicklite from Hical
The HiCal SKS rifles themselves were top quality- They appeared unfired, except maybe test fired. But they were very nice, no blemishes, matching serial numbers, etc. Very slick. And they were accurate, too. 5 round groups went about 2.5-3" at 100m, with scopes and bipod (no rear bag)
Magazines were in short supply, but I had a few. The proper XCR mags worked fine. The Elander mags worked fine at first but then popped their spot welds and bulged out. Fortunately one of our members had a bunch of XCR mags for his Robinson rifle and lent them to me.
FOr the event, we went through a few people and then the Texas adapter rifle started having mags stick. We took it apart and there seemed to be a burr inside on the ejector mechanism preventing the mag for releasing. We filed that down and it worked fine after that. Upon examining the 2 different devices, we all felt the HighCal was a bit better. They were both similar but the HiCal had a few refinements, including a better release button.
After the burr was removed, all rifles went about 750 rounds each without issue. The rifles got pretty hot at the end of the day as we rapidly funneled 140 people through. We sprayed them down with water to cool it off and they were steaming!
We went through lots of ammo
The shooting was hot and heavy, 6 guns all blazing at once!
Bottom line is that I am impressed by the HiCal rifles and their adapters. Rifles had Matador and Magwedge rails for mounting scopes and they worked great, as does the Magwedge quickpin which makes breaking down a SKS for cleaning really easy. Although they all have another 200-400 rounds to go prior to cleaning.
2 thumbs up!
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