Just got my Springfield Armory Socom 16 last week, and this is my personal review of the rifle.
At a price tag around $2200.00 CDN, it is certainly not the least expensive way to go. Despite alot of drama surrounding the pros and cons of SA rifles vs Clones, I bought the rifle without a single hesitation. From my first outing with this handy little gun, I am not disappointed in the least.
fig1: Socom with Aimpoint Comp M2
Out of the box, I found the rifle to be fairly heavy. For comparison, my shooting partner had his Remington M700 with fluted barrel and scope out for the morning, and it felt light as a toy by comparison. While I don't find it to be necessarily oppressive, I am 6'0 and 225 lbs. A smaller shooter may find it to be anything but a comfortable weight.
fig2: Socom with Aimpoint Comp M2 - Oblique
Strip and Assemble:
Breaking the rifle down, I was pleased to find certain original parts used in its construction, but disappointed that I did not have as many USGI parts as some had received. Regardless, I will list my set of pros and cons based on my own opinion of value.
fig3: Socom 16 field stripped
The good:
The trigger group is a TRW trigger pack with a fairly clean break.
The XS tritium sights are quite nice, though all of my shooting on the day was with my aimpoint sight. If you shoot alot with irons and are a grouping and zeroing freak, I think you are likely going to happier with a narrower NM front blade sight as the XS sight is quite wide. My shooting partner mentioned a rumor that the rear aperature had to be enlarged to support the new tritium based front sight. If anyone can confirm or deny this, please post in. Other than that, they come up quite cleanly even in broad daylight. For the ranges this rifle was intended for, they will certainly suffice as is.
The finish and quality of the synthetic stock assembly looks AND feels fantastic. This is something most often missed in photos in magazine reviews. There is a definitely noticeable stippling on the stock, presumably to improve gripping in wet weather conditions. In the photo following, notice the curious lack of a stock liner. The stock itself is a single peice polymer assembly. The second photo shows the storage built into the butt of the rifle.
fig4: Socom 16 stock
fig5: Storage compartment
The Muzzle break is deceptively small. As you'll see further on, its positive effect on the overall performance of the rifle when making double taps is one of its greatest features. Notice the 9 to 3 arrangement of holes on the break. This is one of the nicer thoughtful features on this rifle, in that it does not kick up alot of dust underneath the barrel when firing from the prone.
fig6: Socom 16 business end
A myth soundly smashed (pardon the pun) is a gross level of noise from this rifle when firing. In my own opinion, I found it to not be significantly different from any other large caliber rifle.
The Bad:
The hand guard assembly looks and feels identical to the synthetic stock, but upon turning the assembly over during cleaning it became immediately obvious that this was originally a standard brown handguard that has been painted and then cut down to fit the picatinny LER scope mount on the barrel.
A USGI spring guide has been provided rather than an NM grade guide. I will be replacing this with a Sadlak Industries Spring Guide in short order.
I am kicking myself right now, because I didn't take a close look at the barrel stamp while cleaning it, before reassembling the rifle. I will follow up with what type it is, but given the stamping on most other parts, it is likely to say "SA".
The Beautiful:
Pretty is as pretty does. I hit the range at about 9:00 am here in Grande Prairie, and let into a battle pack of Port. NATO surplus ball ammunition. There was very little wind, and the temp was already about 19 Celcius so it was looking to be a great way to start the weekend.
NOW, THE IMPORTANT PART:
I didnt have any USGI grease with me to lube the rifle action, and I couldn't be bothered to go on a try-and-buy tear at Crappy Tire, so I asked my buddy what he had available for lubricant. "Chainsaw Grease" came the reply. If your eyes are bugging out like mine did for the first moment, then walk away, take a deep breath and continue on....
I'm sure we can all agree that there are better high speed, low drag lubricants available, but the advantage of choosing a battle rifle is that you can soldier on with what you've got on hand.
On went the Chainsaw Grease. The first few cycles of the action confirmed that this was definately an acceptable field expedient lube.
It is important to note here that i have read many posts from people speculating about how reliable cycling would be with the redesigned gas system. I have read about "proof" on various forums that the rifle had troubles on the ejection cycle in particular. While I find it possible that this may have happened due to a weak extractor (easily replaced), I will tell you straight out that the gas system ROCKS. I was shooting with freakin chainsaw grease and surplus ammunition and had not one stoppage in 200 rounds.
I am pretty comfortable saying that I dont believe i'll be having stoppages due to the gas system ANYTIME in future use of this rifle. Where stoppages occur, my money will be on an extractor, magazine spring, and primer failure.
Oddly, there were more stoppages on the bolt action rifle then there were on the SA, specifically - a failure to feed (Remington 1: SA 0)
Recoil from the SA Socom 16 is very tame for a 308. If you are expecting the same experience as firing a .22, then you would really be looking at a Ruger 10/22 from Crappy Tire and would not likely be in the main battle rifle section reading about a full sized .308 battle rifle.
Double taps were controllable, and I look forward to repeating my testing with Some low recoiling Hornady 110 grain TAP rounds. Seems that my groups have a tendency to be pulling from left to right VERY consistently.
While I'm gonna have to be looking at my trigger control over the next few weeks, I was quite pleased overall with the groups achieved with this rifle at 25, 50 and 100 m.
fig7: Socom 16 rear angle
I hope you have had as much fun reading this review as i had creating it, as there is no better way to legally spend a Saturday.
Have fun and shoot safe.
Greg
At a price tag around $2200.00 CDN, it is certainly not the least expensive way to go. Despite alot of drama surrounding the pros and cons of SA rifles vs Clones, I bought the rifle without a single hesitation. From my first outing with this handy little gun, I am not disappointed in the least.
fig1: Socom with Aimpoint Comp M2
Out of the box, I found the rifle to be fairly heavy. For comparison, my shooting partner had his Remington M700 with fluted barrel and scope out for the morning, and it felt light as a toy by comparison. While I don't find it to be necessarily oppressive, I am 6'0 and 225 lbs. A smaller shooter may find it to be anything but a comfortable weight.
fig2: Socom with Aimpoint Comp M2 - Oblique
Strip and Assemble:
Breaking the rifle down, I was pleased to find certain original parts used in its construction, but disappointed that I did not have as many USGI parts as some had received. Regardless, I will list my set of pros and cons based on my own opinion of value.
fig3: Socom 16 field stripped
The good:
The trigger group is a TRW trigger pack with a fairly clean break.
The XS tritium sights are quite nice, though all of my shooting on the day was with my aimpoint sight. If you shoot alot with irons and are a grouping and zeroing freak, I think you are likely going to happier with a narrower NM front blade sight as the XS sight is quite wide. My shooting partner mentioned a rumor that the rear aperature had to be enlarged to support the new tritium based front sight. If anyone can confirm or deny this, please post in. Other than that, they come up quite cleanly even in broad daylight. For the ranges this rifle was intended for, they will certainly suffice as is.
The finish and quality of the synthetic stock assembly looks AND feels fantastic. This is something most often missed in photos in magazine reviews. There is a definitely noticeable stippling on the stock, presumably to improve gripping in wet weather conditions. In the photo following, notice the curious lack of a stock liner. The stock itself is a single peice polymer assembly. The second photo shows the storage built into the butt of the rifle.
fig4: Socom 16 stock
fig5: Storage compartment
The Muzzle break is deceptively small. As you'll see further on, its positive effect on the overall performance of the rifle when making double taps is one of its greatest features. Notice the 9 to 3 arrangement of holes on the break. This is one of the nicer thoughtful features on this rifle, in that it does not kick up alot of dust underneath the barrel when firing from the prone.
fig6: Socom 16 business end
A myth soundly smashed (pardon the pun) is a gross level of noise from this rifle when firing. In my own opinion, I found it to not be significantly different from any other large caliber rifle.
The Bad:
The hand guard assembly looks and feels identical to the synthetic stock, but upon turning the assembly over during cleaning it became immediately obvious that this was originally a standard brown handguard that has been painted and then cut down to fit the picatinny LER scope mount on the barrel.
A USGI spring guide has been provided rather than an NM grade guide. I will be replacing this with a Sadlak Industries Spring Guide in short order.
I am kicking myself right now, because I didn't take a close look at the barrel stamp while cleaning it, before reassembling the rifle. I will follow up with what type it is, but given the stamping on most other parts, it is likely to say "SA".
The Beautiful:
Pretty is as pretty does. I hit the range at about 9:00 am here in Grande Prairie, and let into a battle pack of Port. NATO surplus ball ammunition. There was very little wind, and the temp was already about 19 Celcius so it was looking to be a great way to start the weekend.
NOW, THE IMPORTANT PART:
I didnt have any USGI grease with me to lube the rifle action, and I couldn't be bothered to go on a try-and-buy tear at Crappy Tire, so I asked my buddy what he had available for lubricant. "Chainsaw Grease" came the reply. If your eyes are bugging out like mine did for the first moment, then walk away, take a deep breath and continue on....
I'm sure we can all agree that there are better high speed, low drag lubricants available, but the advantage of choosing a battle rifle is that you can soldier on with what you've got on hand.
On went the Chainsaw Grease. The first few cycles of the action confirmed that this was definately an acceptable field expedient lube.
It is important to note here that i have read many posts from people speculating about how reliable cycling would be with the redesigned gas system. I have read about "proof" on various forums that the rifle had troubles on the ejection cycle in particular. While I find it possible that this may have happened due to a weak extractor (easily replaced), I will tell you straight out that the gas system ROCKS. I was shooting with freakin chainsaw grease and surplus ammunition and had not one stoppage in 200 rounds.
I am pretty comfortable saying that I dont believe i'll be having stoppages due to the gas system ANYTIME in future use of this rifle. Where stoppages occur, my money will be on an extractor, magazine spring, and primer failure.
Oddly, there were more stoppages on the bolt action rifle then there were on the SA, specifically - a failure to feed (Remington 1: SA 0)
Recoil from the SA Socom 16 is very tame for a 308. If you are expecting the same experience as firing a .22, then you would really be looking at a Ruger 10/22 from Crappy Tire and would not likely be in the main battle rifle section reading about a full sized .308 battle rifle.
Double taps were controllable, and I look forward to repeating my testing with Some low recoiling Hornady 110 grain TAP rounds. Seems that my groups have a tendency to be pulling from left to right VERY consistently.
While I'm gonna have to be looking at my trigger control over the next few weeks, I was quite pleased overall with the groups achieved with this rifle at 25, 50 and 100 m.
fig7: Socom 16 rear angle
I hope you have had as much fun reading this review as i had creating it, as there is no better way to legally spend a Saturday.
Have fun and shoot safe.
Greg
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