Last week I bought one in .308win to be this year's project gun to wean me off my shotgun and hopefully spend less time at the clay range. I'll hunt with it this fall, and have been planing my summer range time to practice up my practical field position shooting skills. For glass I landed on a Swarovski z8i 1.7-13x42.
I spent the week trying out different glass and tweaking the rifle for fit, not just for prone position shooting, but for sitting, kneeling, and yes even standing. I got out to fire it for the first time yesterday evening and came away from the experience with a pretty big smile on my face.
Off the bipod, using crappy cannon-fodder ammo I'd reloaded quickly (and somewhat carelessly) to fireform cases, the rifle shot 0.75 MOA with a couple groups less than 0.5 MOA. I am certain with careful, rifle-tuned handloading that improvements could easily be had however based on my purpose I'm not sure I'll pursue further load development; rather I'll spend my range time this summer understanding trajectory then practice from standing, kneeling, and sitting.
While heafty, the rifle has a good balance to it and with all its adjustment I was able to get it to fit very well such that I can easily hold 3 MOA from both kneeling/sitting & 6 MOA from standing. I had removed the muzzle brake, both for weight reduction/balance and noise comfort, so I can't comment in how effective it is at recoil reduction. I can say that without the brake the rifle is very comfortable to shoot, and practice sessions of a couple hundred rounds will not be difficult from the perspective of recoil, but perhaps from the perspective of shooting a rifle that's a bit heavier than I am currently used to.
The operating mechanics of the rifle are awesome. The trigger has a slight amount of take up which you can easily feel, then it breaks lightly and like a glass rod snapping. The bolt throw is easy and silky smooth, even for a lefty like me who has to come across the rifle when sitting and standing. Feeding from the magazine was both effortless and flawless; it felt nice to work the action of the gun between shots. The stock has enough adjustability in it that getting it to fit was easy, and it has some nice features for enhanced shooting & carrying ergonomics too. While the folding mechanism is rock-solid when deployed integrated shooting position, when locked in the folded position it has some movement and rattles a bit. Sling attachment is totally secure, and with the fancy for end slots there were lots of options for position of the front sling attachment that helped a lot in tweaking the sling for use as a tool to help hold position.
All in all, I'm pretty excited about the rifle and am enthusiasticallly looking forward to my next range session where I hope to get my trajectory squared away out to 500 meters and then to get to work on honing my field position shooting. In the meantime I'll be doing lots of basement dryfire practice!
Cheers,
Brobee