FnH SCAR 17s Heavy review

[The Virginian]

I've been meaning to post up some of my results on this rifle and this post is long overdue.

I will start off by saying that I never intended on purchasing the SCAR heavy. A while back, Charles (the guy that I buy my rifles from) says you have to shoot this rifle. So we stepped out back and I fired 5 rounds. I was floored at the lack of recoil. I can honestly say that the recoil is a tad more than shooting a .223 AR. Simply put, amazing! Dang you Charles! Now I need to own one.

For optics I wound up going with a Vortex Viper HS Tactical Rifle Scope 30mm Tube 5-15x 44mm Side Focus 1/10 MIL Adjustments Mil-Dot Reticle Matte. See it here. See it here. It's basically it's a PST minus the illumination and FFP. But! The retail on it is only $499. This is a Midway exclusive and occasionally you will find them on sale for $400ish. In my opinion, a very good value for the money. They are also a sponsor here. There's a good thread (rather long) on the Hide that digs down into the weeds on this scope if you have any interest. Read about it here. When I get time I'll write a review on this cope and post it in the optics section.

Nice lens covers and a sun shade is included.

Lapel pin

and shims for the zero stop on the scope.

For mounting the scope I'm using a LaRue Tactical SPR / M4 Scope Mount QD LT104. 1st cabin here on my scope mount. Be sure to ask about the Armadillo Seasoning! Here.

The 17s come with one magazine, a lock, and a owners manual. What!!! No lapel pin!

I've mounted and bore sighted the scope and took a quick picture on my bench.

I'm working up loads to break her in and I'll post up that info here soon. I will take some pictures through the scope to give you an idea of clarity as well. For now I'm just going into detail of my set up.

This thread will take a while to complete but I will post up what I can as I move forward. As always, thanks for reading!

Eric

(more to come)

 

[pahntr760]

Let me know how you like your HS. I'm looking at them, pretty hard.

 

[cmil84]

That thing is awesome!!!! If you could take some more pics of the weapon so I can drool over it some more!!!

 

[tactical assault]

A thing of beauty. Sharp rig brother !!!!

 

[markley]

I have the exact same scope on my remington 5r. too bad midway only has them as seasonal now because I would buy a couple more.

 

[The Virginian]

In my never ending peruit of posting needless information on a battle rifle to a hunting forum, here's the next installment...

Breakdown for cleaning is simply put freak'n amazing. In under 1 minute disassembles including the firing pin. Brilliant design! Two thumbs up here.

The initial cleaning of the barrel only took about a half a dozen patches before she came clean. Side note, anyone ever have a go at cleaning a new CZ rifle? 50 patches later it's still coming out dirty with packing grease. lol

After I cleaned her up and reassembled I decided to check the trigger pull. Good gawd... I'm going to have to research fixes for this. After using 1 or 2 lbs. trigger pulls on most of my rifles, I felt like I needed to eat a bowl of Wheaties before pulling on this bad boy. In it's defense I suspect this may be the way it was designed as a battle rifle. I assume that traveling over tough terrain would justify the trigger pull. I'll have to do some research on this.

Here's the info on the load I'm using. Just a starting load at this point and I hope I have time to dial it in better.

- 178gr Hornady HPBTM A-max
- 42.5 RL-15
- Lapua brass
- Federal GM210M
- 2.820 oal
- light taper crimp

I had to laugh at this picture, when I was working on loads for this .308, it felt like a I was working on a howitzer after working on the 17 Mach IV all summer. lol

Ok here's a quick view of sighting her in. I'm walking her in at 100 yards and it's looking real promising with regards to windage. The spread right to left was roughly under 1/2"! WooHoo!

Ok, here a quick picture of my awesome-sauce corn field saami spec range I use for my load development.

Note the high tech boonie hat brass catcher! Thanks goes out to Corey for this idea!

I only shout 5 groups and they were all about the same size groups and this picture is a good representation of my outcome. Nothing really notable here, more a case of point of interest for someone. I forgot to measure the exact group size...

The spent brass came out fine, no real damage or jacked up mouths.

Last picture for this installment. What's interesting to me is the spent gases kind of dusted the barrel with a rust color dust on it. I thought it was notable.

More to come when I have time. It's been a tough fall & winter for me personally and professionally. I have had zero time to work on any of my project.

As always, thanks for reading.

Eric