Insite Arms Review

Horse96

Regular
Rating - 100%
28   0   0
Location
Calgary
Hello gun-nutters,

First, a disclaimer: I am no professional reviewer by any stretch. I just wanted to share an excellent customer experience that I had.

I recently purchased an insite arms rifle. I am very, very, pleased with my purchase. The customer service Insite offered was excellent. They took the time to talk with me, answer any of my questions. Andrew, one of the partners of Insite, sent me a picture of a 10 shot group shot from a firearm that I was interested in purchasing. Andrew also corresponded with me afterwards to see how the rifle shot, gave me some load development ideas, and let me know that he test shoots with Federal Gold Medal and/or Blackhills ammo. The main point here is that Andrew, and Insite, is available to offer support and answer any questions that you may have.

Any good build starts with quality components: like a surgeon action (with an integral recoil lug and pic rail), jewell trigger, hawk-hill barrel, and aics stock. Then add the gunsmithing in to keep things square, and voila, you have an excellent shooter.

With Insite, you can custom order your components or buy from in-stock rifles. During my last conversation, Andrew mentioned that Surgeon actions and hawk-hill barrels are the go-to components though. I asked about a defiance deviant action, and he said he could get them, but that they would take time. I also asked about Bartlein barrels, and he said that he preferred the hawk-hill barrel. On to the shooting...

I shot 4, 5-shot groups. The top two targets are with 185 bergers over varget (the left target) while the right target is 185 bergers over RL17. The bottom two are remington factory loaded 175 grain SMK's. The bottom right target I shot quickly just to see how the rifle fed, and so that is why the group opened up. But a .861 5-shot group fired rapidly, with no feeding issues whatsoever is a group that I would take any day. I didn't have the IPSC timer with me, so I don't have a time to post. It was as fast as I could cycle the bolt and pull the trigger.

I shot off of a bench, with a 10 power scope and with no rear bag. My best group was .523 moa with berger 185 grain handloads. I pulled one shot, otherwise, the group would have been way tighter. I did not do any load development. It was a load that worked well for me in another .308 that I had, so that is a plus, it is not picky about what I feed it. I am confident that when I do go back to the range with a higher powered scope and a rear bag, it is a 1/4 moa rifle, all day. I may do load development for it, but the loads that I have do shoot well, so I may just stick with them.

I verified the group size with on-target software. I was going to post a screen shot, but then it would have been 4 screen shots for the 4 groups, and I suck at posting pics on this site.

I like to shoot new rifles sort of handicapped to get an idea as to how they perform. I use these rifles to target shoot as well as to hunt. I do not always get perfect shooting positions while hunting, so I like to see how the rifle would perform in a sub-optimal position; shooting positions are even less optimal when shooting a PRS-style of competition. I would have gone prone for the shooting, I prefer to shoot prone, but my range does not allow prone shooting. Bench only for rifle. I understand that bench shooting is closer to optimal than field shooting, but to account for that, I do not use the rear bag. If it were a competition or something, I would use every advantage that I could get, including a rear bag and higher magnification scope. If my rifle can perform with a 10x vortex pst scope and no bag, a harris bipod (sans swivel), with 'average' match ammo, then for sure it will perform quite well with excellent factory match ammo or finely tuned hand-loads, and other accessories. And it is worth mentioning that the slick surface of the bench did not offer any traction for the rubber bipod feet of the harris.

Any accuracy test should use the same ammo, like the FGM or the Blackhills, but all Cabela's had was the remington ammo. The bullets were heavliy crimped and so were the primer pockets. I am sure that if I had FGM or Blackhills, the groups would have been tighter. But, with all of the conditions that I shot under, the rifle performed very well, and in a big way.

I am very happy with the purchase. The rifle, with the short 20 inch barrel, handles closer to my ruger gunsite scout than to a target rifle. It handles like a carbine. The overall package tips the scales at 13lbs, unloaded, with the 2.5 to 10x optic mounted. A little heavy for trudging up and down a mountain, but great for the foothills and the prairie. And I am sure that it will handle very well at a precision rifle match. I can post again after a couple matches in the summer of 2016.

So, from me, there is a big two thumbs up for Insite Arms. For anyone wanting a high-performance rifle for fun, competition, or hunting, Insite has you covered. They offer top of the line components, high-performance rifles and excellent customer service.

http://www.insitearms.com/





 
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Awesome rifle and good shooting! Apparently Robert Gradous mentored the team at Insite Arms, so those boys have been taught by one of the best. Great to finally see one of their rifles here on the board! They are probably the only custom shop I would buy from in Canada (or PGW, though I'm not sure if I would call them a custom gun shop).
 
They gave me a 6xc/surgeon/krieger to "try" a while ago. That turned out predictably enough, with me purchasing the rifle.
It's silly accurate. The test target provided with it was seven rounds through one caliber sized hole, 100 yards.
I'm still doing load development, or was before having to leave for points north for work, but it had cranked out several low .2 moa five round groups at 300 yards. Laser beam indeed !
I plan to do a write up once I have a bit more time with it...

 
Good question Jay...Its a hot topic of debate pretty much anywhere a fella looks. I know Surgeon does and a few others as well. Who we were taught by does not but has had to do a few that were a little funny on being consistent. So far we have not needed to bed any chassis we have done. All have been sub .300 with 5 or 7 shot groups on any factory ammo and we have shot less then .300 on the hand loaded stuff as some calibers lack good factory ammo so we are forced to run a few with hand loads. I guess if we were given cause or need to we would try and see if it helped but so far there has been no need. Thanks
 
Bedding the chassis is more valuable in the older ai ax stocks that had a marginal rear tang interface. The newer ones with the revised bedding seem to not need it.
This 6xc I've got was originally in a bedded manners stock, it's accuracy didn't change when moved to the 2014+ ai ax chassis.
 
Thanks very much cz0921!
Those 2 rifles were impressive! - the first groups shot from these 2 rifles:
Below, the 6xc 5 round group covered by a deck screw ( no coins:) ) and an 8 round group with the 338 Lapua FGM:

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$5500 dollar rifle with a $1200 optic. You gotta go bigger on glass my friend! Razor HD at least!! Viper will do fine, but thats like putting Canadian tire rims on a Ferrari.
 
Its the $600 optic... Lol. The blackhills 175 didn't shoot so great, but the federal 175's are half or better. I did some load development, and got a .265 three shot. Nothing to write home about with the three shot, but trying to find the right amount of powder. Once it warms up, and I get some time, I'll post some pics of some 5 shot groups.

Was berger 185's with 41.6 gr of varget I do believe.
 
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