This for the most part is a copy of a post I put up over at the KTOG board a few moments ago. I wanted to place it here also since I have used this board and found much more info on the SU-16 here. This place and Flyers write up actually helped me make up my mind. (That and the fear that this will be banned soon here in the People's Republic of California) I was reluctant to use this board since it does not allow web mail clients access. I ONLY use my personal email address for business and close buddies. I hate to use it elsewhere, and almost always use my web mail address for all else. Oh well the SU-16 won me over and I now have an exception to my rule. If I start to get a bunch of spam.... :twisted:
Rant over...
Anyway,
I picked up my SU-16 on 4/22 after a rather long wait. I bought it out if state from a buddy’s shop in Boise ID back in beginning of March. It took awhile for everything to ship, plus when I first saw one I did not think we could have it here so I did not buy when I had the first chance. This plus on top of it I was having some work Performed on the Franchi 620 I did buy while I was up there, to set it up more to my liking. Then one day I was picking up a case of 20ga for the 620 getting ready to break it in at a local shop. (Boise is oh a bit over 700miles from here)When what did I see on the rack at the local shop???...Why the beauty that is the SU-16. I have always loved transformers so I just had to have one. Reminded me of the Styer Scout, but at a price I could afford. As soon as I could I called up my buddy’s shop and managed to catch him in time to send the SU-16 down with the rest of my order. (I also bought a limited addition green BuckMark rifle for the wife while I was up there)
Range day 1:
Well I was able to spend pretty much the whole day at the range switching between the SU-16, Franchi 620, and the 77/22. The Franchi and the SU-16 are the newest guns added to my collection. Before I go on I must say the Franchi is a VERY SWEET shotgun. Blast’n clays even as they dropped at long range...
Mechanics:
The SU-16 controls are simple and well placed I like how the bolt stop is controlled from the bottom of the rifle. IMHO I would have also liked a way to drop the bolt with out pulling back on the bolt. I can live with this it is not a big deal. The magazine release is placed well and works as it should. The same can be said for the safety. The bi-pod was easy to deploy and put back. Now that I think about it, the magazines slid in easily and locked in place with little effort, but I found myself always double checking with an additional slap. There is not much of the “click” that I am used to and use as a reference, like there is on some of my other guns. Even my Grendel P-12 gives a little more feed back letting you know that things have been inserted properly. The rifle is still new to me so it may just take a little more time for me to become familiar with it. The trigger was a nice surprise…very smooth and snapped cleanly. For some reason I was expecting more of a DA feel to it.
Performance
The SU-16 performed rather well. I stuck with the open sights, but I do plan to switch to a basic cheap scope. I took my time at first breaking in the barrel, but once that was done all went well. I must say the rifle had 0 functional issues in 170 rounds fired. The rifle ate every thing I feed it. There were three rounds that failed to extract. The rims busted clean off on one edge by the extractor. This only occurred with the South African 5.56mm Mil. Surplus I was using at the tin can range. I had picked up a 300 round battle pack at a recent gun show for $40 to use for Tin can and plastic bottle work. It is from 1989 so it is a little old...At this point I blame the ammo and not the gun.
For the break in I used, "fire a shot clean the barrel" for the 1st 10 rounds, then switched to doubling up, and finished off with every 4th shot.
Break down:
20rds of Remington .223 55gr (for the first 10 rounds cleaned it
Rant over...
Anyway,
I picked up my SU-16 on 4/22 after a rather long wait. I bought it out if state from a buddy’s shop in Boise ID back in beginning of March. It took awhile for everything to ship, plus when I first saw one I did not think we could have it here so I did not buy when I had the first chance. This plus on top of it I was having some work Performed on the Franchi 620 I did buy while I was up there, to set it up more to my liking. Then one day I was picking up a case of 20ga for the 620 getting ready to break it in at a local shop. (Boise is oh a bit over 700miles from here)When what did I see on the rack at the local shop???...Why the beauty that is the SU-16. I have always loved transformers so I just had to have one. Reminded me of the Styer Scout, but at a price I could afford. As soon as I could I called up my buddy’s shop and managed to catch him in time to send the SU-16 down with the rest of my order. (I also bought a limited addition green BuckMark rifle for the wife while I was up there)
Range day 1:
Well I was able to spend pretty much the whole day at the range switching between the SU-16, Franchi 620, and the 77/22. The Franchi and the SU-16 are the newest guns added to my collection. Before I go on I must say the Franchi is a VERY SWEET shotgun. Blast’n clays even as they dropped at long range...
Mechanics:
The SU-16 controls are simple and well placed I like how the bolt stop is controlled from the bottom of the rifle. IMHO I would have also liked a way to drop the bolt with out pulling back on the bolt. I can live with this it is not a big deal. The magazine release is placed well and works as it should. The same can be said for the safety. The bi-pod was easy to deploy and put back. Now that I think about it, the magazines slid in easily and locked in place with little effort, but I found myself always double checking with an additional slap. There is not much of the “click” that I am used to and use as a reference, like there is on some of my other guns. Even my Grendel P-12 gives a little more feed back letting you know that things have been inserted properly. The rifle is still new to me so it may just take a little more time for me to become familiar with it. The trigger was a nice surprise…very smooth and snapped cleanly. For some reason I was expecting more of a DA feel to it.
Performance
The SU-16 performed rather well. I stuck with the open sights, but I do plan to switch to a basic cheap scope. I took my time at first breaking in the barrel, but once that was done all went well. I must say the rifle had 0 functional issues in 170 rounds fired. The rifle ate every thing I feed it. There were three rounds that failed to extract. The rims busted clean off on one edge by the extractor. This only occurred with the South African 5.56mm Mil. Surplus I was using at the tin can range. I had picked up a 300 round battle pack at a recent gun show for $40 to use for Tin can and plastic bottle work. It is from 1989 so it is a little old...At this point I blame the ammo and not the gun.
For the break in I used, "fire a shot clean the barrel" for the 1st 10 rounds, then switched to doubling up, and finished off with every 4th shot.
Break down:
20rds of Remington .223 55gr (for the first 10 rounds cleaned it