Robinson Armament XCRs - Range Report!!

Brobee

Brobee

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Part 1 - Range Report - Robinson Armament XCR family!

I've spent the past few years oscillating back and forth between my love affair with the Swiss Arms family of rifles and my beloved mini-14/30 collection (and pretty much everything inbetween!), however ever since 10 round AR15 pistol magazines have become available I've been secretly lusting to try something non-restricted that can use them.

I'd been eyeing up the XCR for sometime, but then I discovered that the XCR-M was available and that replacement stocks were also available for the light rifles…that tipped me over the edge and I took the plunge!

A manic bout of selling and trading from my existing collection ensued and shorthly thereafter I brought home three new toys. The first was a brand-spanking-new XCR-M in .308 Winchester, and the second and third were XCR-L rifles, both chambered in .223 Remington. I also bought a couple 7.62x39 Russian conversion kits and immediately set out to change over one of the .223 guns.

The caliber conversion was as dead-simple as advertised - remove one big allen keyed capscrew on the bottom of the upper receiver and the whole barrel/gas assembly slides out. After pulling the gas tube off the old barrel/gas block assembly and sliding it back into the upper receiver, the new barrel slid effortlessly yet very snuggly back into the receiver. I put some new loctite on the capscrew and torqued her back in...no problems!

Replacing the bolt was accomplished with similar ease, as was replacing the brass deflector on the right hand side of the receiver. I also set about to take off the old style stock both L sized rifles came with and I replaced them with the newly available "Fully Adjustable Stock". I estimate that the whole process took less than 10 minutes…talk about DEAD EASY!

I set all three rifles up with Aimpoint M3s and hurried back to the local indoor 25 meter range where I ran 200 rounds through each rifle with the gas port set in the most open position - as per Robinson Armament's recommended break in procedures. All three rifles ran without a hitch, so I pulled off the aimpoints and set all three rifles up with low powered variables on the off chance that should the wife sign off on a range day sometime soon I would be ready to go.

Optics - I set up the XCR-M with a Leupold VXII 2-8x32, and both XCR-Ls with Leupold VX-I 2-8x28 Rimfire scopes. The rimfire scopes have been somewhat customized - sent back to Korth to have the parallax adjusted to 100 meters, change out the reticles to wide duplex, and install CDS turrets with zero stops for both elevation and windage. All the scopes have 1 inch tubes and are mounted with PRW high rings.

Then it happened...I had been nattering non-stop about the new rifles and my lovely bride gave me a day off! Ok, it only cost me sending her to the spa next weekend while I fly solo with the kids but it is so worth it!

This past weekend I lined up some friends and off to the farm we went. After pushing some snow out of the way we quickly had the range set up and got busy.

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As an aside, besides my primary objective of test-driving the three Robinson Armament rifles, I had also brought along a prototype of an automatic resetting mechanism for my steel knockdown target system. More on this at the end of the review!

Stay tuned for Part 2.....
 
Part 2 - Range Report - Robinson Armament XCR family!

The rifle I was the most excited about was the .308….my first love with a centerfire rifle was the M14/M1A type rifle, and I had many a fond memory of banging away at my plates and hunting big game with the old M1A. Inspection of the XCR-M’s gas system revealed a lot of similarities between my new gun and the M1A….I was smiling before I even started!

My primary goal in test-driving the .308 was to try and evaluate what type of accuracy a guy could expect. I was planning on doing most of the day’s shooting from the prone supported position, so I clamped my Harris shorty bipod to the bottom of the .308’s railed extrusion. Very little adjustment to the zero was required and we got to work shooting 10 round groups with various different types of ammunition.


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I like 10 round groups….sometimes I even like 20 rounds groups better, particularly for a semi automatic rifle that’s likely going to be shot at least several times in a row and more likely shot service-rifle style where 10 and 20 round strings of fire are more the norm.

One thing quickly became apparent…when the rifle is shot from a cold bore the first and second round impact significantly higher than the rest of the group. We let the rifle cool off between 10 round groups (spending the time by using the smaller caliber guns to test drive the plate reset mechanism!) We tried at least a half a dozen different types of ammunition, and they all exhibited the same phenomenon…the first two rounds were always thrown way high and then the rifle settled down into a reasonably respectable group, sometimes as good as an inch and a half. The first two rounds had me fussed though…they were consistently and significantly higher than the rest of the group, sometimes as much as 6 to 8 inches!! Ammo that would consistently shoot less than half an inch in my various bolt guns (including a 168gr Sierra HPBTM bullet, painstakingly loaded ontop of hand weighed varget in a carefully prepared Lapua case...although the best group of the day was shot with our last 8 rounds of this load...see picture below), when shot in the XCR, was incapable of shooting better than 6 to 8 inches if you included the first two rounds.

Thinking that the bipod might have something to do with the issue, we pulled it off and shot some more evaluation strings, using the magazine as a single point rest. This helped somewhat, however those first two rounds were still flying off into space. As the test continued I found my mood shifting from highly enthusiastic to somewhat frustrated and maybe even a little disappointed.

While most of this mood shift was owing to the vertical stringing and it’s impact on the rifle’s accuracy, some of it was also owing to the act of shooting the rifle too. I am not terrible recoil adverse, however as the round count mounted I found my cheek starting to get a little sore from the recoil impulse generated by the rifle. As the rifle is pretty heavy (this one was pushing 11 lbs) I found this surprising. I suspect it’s partially because I like a relatively firm cheekweld and to get it I tend to bear down on the cheekpiece until I have a good weld on my cheek bone. With the cheekpiece as narrow as it is on the new FAS stock it generates a fairly high pressure on the bone under recoil. This being said, the recoil of the rifle is not bad….in fact it seems quite mild to me in every other way but the sharpness of the impulse transmitted through the cheekpiece.


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Stay tuned for Part 3...
 
Part 3 - Range Report - Robinson Armament XCR family!

Next up was the XCR-L in .223 Remington. This rifle is an absolute GAS to shoot…coming off the .308 there was, by comparison, seemingly no recoil at all and I was easily able to maintain sight picture through the firing cycle of the rifle. We started this gun out with the Harris bipod as well and were equally disappointed to see that it too was subject to the stringing phenomenon, granted at a somewhat lesser scale.

So off came the bipod and things tightened up considerably…a consistent 3 to 4 inches if you include the vertical stringing with most of the rounds impacting within a two inch group. In the test target below I believe I pulled the lower-right most round, whereas the top round is indicative of the typical first-round fired from any string as it relates to the rest of the group. Also worth noting is that I only had one type of .223 ammunition with me that day…stuff I had mass produced on my Dillon 650 many moons ago (Winchester Brass, 4895 powder, CCI small rifle primer, and a Barnes 50gr varmint grenade). I think that if I put some work into developing a load specifically for the .223 XCR it’s likely I could cut the groups in half. A project for another day…woohoo!

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On we moved to the XCR-L in 7.62x39. Talk about the surprise of the day!

This rifle shot like a house-on-fire! I had brought two types of hand loaded ammunition to test, both using the same bullets, primers and brass (Barnes 123gr TSX bullets, CCI large rifle primers, and Lapua brass), but different powders. I was hopeful that my IMR4198 load would be the best as it uses less powder, however it turns out that my H4895 load took the day. Also interesting was that despite generating similar velocities, the recoil impulse was markedly different between the two loads. The faster burning IMR4198 imparted a good snap to the rifle, whereas the slower burning H4895 generated a much more gentle push. With respect to vertical stringing on the first round or two, it was still there with this rifle but barely perceptible. Typical groups for this rifle/ammo combination were less than two inches….sometimes approaching an inch.

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General Observations: It may be that the accuracy of the rifles are somewhat affected by the setting of the gas plug. Our .308 rifle would not cycle properly on anything less than the halfway mark on the gas system, whereas the .223 rifle seemed to run best at setting #2 and the 7.62x39 rifle purred along on gas setting #1. I’ll go back and do some more testing on accuracy as it relates to the gas system setting one the rifles hit round counts in the range of 500 to 1000. I’ll also put some time into trying to develop a better load for the .223 gun. I don’t think I’ll change anything on the 7.623x39 setup…:)

All three of the rifles were very very reliable….we did not experience a single stoppage throughout either the indoor break in session or our outdoor testing. I would estimate that each rifle now has approximately 400 rounds through it. The guns are also all very easy on brass. There is no noticeable dinging or denting on the brass body, the case mouths are all perfectly round, and the rims have no deformation. This is quite a nice change from my swiss rifles (aka the case-mouth-mangler) or my mini14/30s (aka the big-body-denters).

My impression of the XCR’s ergomonics is that they are superb. The ambidextrous safety is easily found by my thumb and I did not think the 45 degree throw was a big improvement until I tried it - the safety on the XCR is far easier to use than an AR15 safety by virtue of this feature and its location makes it easier to use than the safety on the swiss rifles. The ambidextrous bolt catch works easily just as well, and I sure enjoyed those 10 round pistol magazines in a non-restricted rifle out at my farm range! The adjustable cheek piece on the new stock is also a significant improvement. It allows the gun to adapt well to just about any optics setup you could imagine.

About the only issues we had were with fasteners backing off in the new stock system. I had loc-tited the main cap screw that holds the stock into the lower receiver, however I had not loc-tited the two cap screws that hold the buttstock onto the folding mechanism or the little set screw that keeps the hinge from nice and tight. All three of these fasteners came loose (on both guns!) at some point in the range session and required re-tightening. I have not yet got around to loc-titing them but I definitely will before going out next. I checked the main barrel cap screw as well as the ejector caps screws…both these were loc-tited at the factory and seemed like they were holding well.

Stay tuned for Part 4...
 
Part 4 - Range Report - Robinson Armament XCR family!

We finished off the day by seriously testing out the falling plate resetting mechanism. It took somewhere between 100 and 200 rounds, and did not seem like it was slowing down at all! The mechanism uses a standard 12 volt battery, a gear motor designed for robot combat, a fancy timer/relay, and a couple of proximity switches to know when to start and when to stop. The plate is made from 1/2 T21 Ultra Wear Plate, and it withstood 100 meter rifle fire with no problems other than some wear within 1/4 inch of the perimeter, no doubt from loss of tempering in the heat affected zone created when the steel mill used the CNC plasma cutter to torch them out. Investigating water jet cutting is on my list of things to do. The mechanism stands it up with authority…woohoo! We came up with some minor improvements to make, but resolved that it was the most fun we’d had in a long time and will get busy on making a couple more for our next range session. We’ve already come up with a bunch of drills to use to test them out more thoroughly next time…:) I took some video and am trying to upload it to youtube, however no action there yet. I will post a link as soon as I figure out what’s up and get it working.

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Anyway…in summary I can’t remember ever having had this much fun at my outdoor range. I’m still pumped about the smaller caliber XCR rifles, although I’m not sure I’ll be keeping the .308. We’ll get back out for some more testing of the steel plate mechanisms, and I plan on doing it running both my .223 and 7.62x39 XCRs. Next time around we’ll also do a lot more crouching, sitting, and standing and running in lieu of laying down all day long.

Hope you found the review interesting, and thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Brobee

ps: forgot to add - my cameraman/buddy brought along a couple of neat toys too - he had his Tempermental Italian Princess Benelli MR1 set up with an ELCAN Spectre DR, a stainless synthetic 581 series mini-14 with a leupold low power variable, a Winchester Model 70 in .308with one of the newer 30mm firedot low power variables from Leupold, and a KRISS carbine in .45 acp set up with an Aimpoint ML3 2MOA. The KRISS was awesome! Once we added about 2 feet of elevation and made a small windage adjustment (sucks to only get shot at 25 meters!) we were easily hitting our 12 inch steel knockdown plate from 100 meters with alarming regularity. I can't decide what was the coolest part - how long it takes the .45ACP slug to cover the 100 meters to the target, how light that little KRISS is in comparison to the centerfire rifles, or how little recoil it has. His Benelli had been giving him problems all summer (ergo her nickname), however this session she ran pretty much trouble free with the exception of when coupled with the LAR 10 round magazines. His Model 70 proved she can one-hole them at 100 (wish my .308 XCR could come closer to accomplishing the same!), and his mini-14 is always a fun gun to blast away with. I love that clanking sound of it's operating rod! We spent quite a bit of time having small 10 round contests standing unsupported at the steel plate from 100 meters, taking turns after each round was fired and the plate stood back up. It turned into a nailbiter more than once! What a fun game.
 
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Nice Report :)
I'm running the .223 and 7.62x39 Conversion Kit but I recently ordered an extra upper so I can quickly swap out and not worry about zeroing with my optics on top ready to go...
 
Drewz said:
Hmmm now you have me hankering for the xcrl in 7.62 x 39. I wonder with your handloads if it will be dependable to 200 yards??? Your opinion please?? Thanks and I love the 6.8 mini!
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Some XCR-L 7.62x39 owners in the the XCR FAQ thread stated that they have not been able to get better accuracy with hand-loads as compared to the Mil Surp Corrosive ammo at 100m...maybe its cheaper in the end use the Mil-Surp.
 
Interesting, I'll have to try doing some cold bore/hot bore tests and see if my xcr-m is the same.
I didn't allow the bore to cool while doing accuracy testing with mine.
 
ogradyrw said:
Some XCR-L 7.62x39 owners in the the XCR FAQ thread stated that they have not been able to get better accuracy with hand-loads as compared to the Mil Surp Corrosive ammo at 100m...maybe its cheaper in the end use the Mil-Surp.
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I know that and have read those as well. I am thinking about grouping and consistency for 200 yards. If that is doable then I am for sure going to have to hunt one down for myself.
 
My 7.62X39 barrel shoots Czech surplus at just over the inch at 100M. My brass cases remain in the bag on the shelf. Hunting season I pull surplus fmj's and replace with Hornady SST's. Shoots about 2 to 2.5 MOA, good enough for now.
 
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