I’ve never been a big fan of polymer frame guns. They’re light, some even toy-like. For me, they don’t have the solid grip that I get from metal frames, and they just don’t look as bad-ass as good old fashioned solid steel firepower in the hand. But looks don’t count for everything – especially when considering a pistol that’s meant to be concealed. But my bias for heavy handguns aside, there is definitely something to be said for the plastic fantastics. . .

The Kahr CM9 is the more average-looking (and cheaper) version of its popular, sexier cousin, the PM9. Actually, Kahr’s taken the slightly larger (and just as plane-Jane) CW9 and chopped the barrel and grip to make a truly tiny niney. The difference between the PM and CW guns: they’ve replaced the match grade barrel with regular rifling (1-10 right hand twist), toned down the fancy stuff (squared lines and simple engraving as opposed to the PM9’s roll marking), and ship them with a single six-round magazine.

For a self-defense pistol I want at least one spare mag, but with the extra $200 and change rattling around in my pocket (compared to the price of a PM9), perhaps dropping about $30 for a spare isn’t a real deal-breaker. Although, I’m not sold on the one 6-rounder they give you to begin with. I noticed that it didn’t sit completely flush with the grip, so I gave it a good tap (note: seating the mag aggressively also racks the slide) just to make sure. To my surprise it completely disassembled, spilling the rounds and components to the floor. Awesome.

Being from Wisconsin, I’m paying close attention to what the handgun market has to offer in the way of CCW pistols, and the CM9 fills that bill. I’m an average sized college-aged female, so I like to wear slimmer-fitting clothing. That gives handguns with less displacement more appeal for me. The slim 14oz. Kahr, at only .90” wide, with its 3” barrel hides neatly, even in my skinny jeans.

Functionally, I consider that an upgrade from my SIG SAUER P238 – nearly the same size, the same round capacity, but packing lighter-punching .380 ACP cartridges. Not to mention the internal safeties and striker firing mechanism have their appeal when considering a conceal carry pistol. However, as with any single stack sub-compact 9mm, you sacrifice capacity compared to say, a double stacker like the Glock 26 (10+1) or the sub-compact Springfield XD (also 10+1)… just something to consider.

I expected such a light pistol to snap at the range and it definitely does, but it’s nothing that a firm grip can’t deal with. The only problem is that firm grip must be accomplished with only two fingers. Not a problem if you have smaller hands like me, but if you’re a big guy with meat hooks on the ends of your arms, you may want to opt for an extended magazine.

As a comparison, Beretta recently released a new pistol that fills the same niche as the CM9 – the Nano.  It has the same capacity and size as the CM9, but the Nano has a steel chassis in the grip frame that brings its weight to just under 17.7 oz. compared to the Kahr’s more svelte 14oz. While 3.7 oz. doesn’t sound like much, it makes a noticeable difference in ease of carry (better) and how high that muzzle pops (worse) after giving each round its send-off, making the Kahr less pleasant to shoot.

In short it has more muzzle flip. For me that flip, in combination with the Kahr’s long (albeit, smooth) trigger pull, and the lack of a short reset, means potentially less accurate follow-up shots – not something I relish when I only have seven rounds to stop a baddie. So with that bad guy stopping power in mind, I tried out the CM9 with a couple of self-defense types of ammo in addition to my usual (cheap) munitions:

PMC – 115 grain FMJ, 1150 fps
Remington UMC – 115 grain FMJ, 1145 fps
Hornady Zombie Max – 115 grain FTX, 1135 fps (ya know, in case you needed a backup gun against the undead hordes)
Pow’R Ball – 100 grain +P JHP, 1475 fps

Kahr says their guns require a 200-round break-in period, and they do. After 200 rounds of cheap-o PMC (yep, I’m broke-ass), I experienced one stovepipe, and one instance of the slide failing to lock back on an empty chamber. In 200 rounds of Remington UMC, once again, the slide failed to lock back once. For the Hornady, I put 50 rounds through, and experienced another slide lock-back failure. But for the Pow’RBall? No issue in 40 rounds, with the exception of the red imprint my palm was sporting, courtesy of the Kahr’s aggressive backstrap checkering (and damn, did that thing get snappy after a while). While the slide not locking back didn’t impair my ability to shoot, I did find it a little unsettling.

If you’re looking for a light little pocket rocket that won’t break the bank and the 9mm cartridge works for you, the CM9 will suit you just fine. The dot and post sights are great for quick target acquisition, it has crisp slide serrations, and it isn’t so small that my groupings were wild (and I am far from a pro shooter). But the long trigger, snappy muzzle flip, lone magazine in the box, plastic grip, and the over-aggressive checkering leave something to be desired. Call me superficial, but I still don’t dig how this pistol bears more than a passing resemblance to my dorm room refrigerator.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Model: CM9093
Caliber: 9mm Parabellum (Luger)
Capacity: 6+1
Overall Length: 5.42”
Barrel Length: 3.0” conventional rifling (1-10 right hand twist)
Height: 4.0”
Width: .90”
Weight (unloaded): 14 oz., magazine: 1.9 oz.
Sights: Drift, adjustable, dot and peg
Slide: matte stainless steel
Frame: black polymer w/ front and rear strap checkering
MSRP: $517 (about $380 street)

RATINGS (out of five stars):

Style * * *
Plain Jane with a polymer frame. Stainless steel is too eye-catching for my concealed carry comfort, so I guess matte has its place. . . but that doesn’t make it anything to look at.

Ergonomics (carry) * * * * *
Striker-fired, light weight and not a lot of real estate. Pretty hard to beat.

Ergonomics (firing) * * *
It’s a light pistol with only 3” of barrel to send that bullet off on its journey, so it has some snap to it. The two finger grip doesn’t help on that front. This isn’t a range gun.

Reliability * * *
There was one stovepipe during the break-in period (granted, that was likely the cheap ammo), but then there’s that troublesome slide lockback issue to think about.

Customize This * * *
Trijicon night sights and Crimson Trace LaserGrips are options. For such a small pistol, what else do you really need?

Overall Rating * * * *
It’s light, easily concealable and seems to go bang when you want it to. And it won’t break the bank. So what if it won’t win any beauty contests? In all, not bad at all for a budget model mouse gun.

Earlier today, commenter C Young posted the following the following comment underneath RF’s Kel-Tec KSG review. We contacted him for photos.

“The lower rail of the forend where a foregrip is recommended is PLASTIC unlike the upper rail which is metal. Within the first 10 shots using a sig sauer stoplight foregrip, the lower rail shattered, fragmented, and broke off. Very very disappointed. Otherwise, the gun shoots great.” Thus the photo above with two more after the jump. As someone trying to return something once said a very long time ago, caveat emptor.

Back in 2005, Heckler & Koch won a contract with the feds to produce the P2000 line of pistols for the U.S government. It was one of the biggest single federal law enforcement pistol contracts ever; in the order of $26.2m. There are a lot of these guns out there in the hands of Uncle Sam’s paramilitary pros.

The P2000 comes in all sorts of flavors: double action/single action, decocking and safety lever; double action/single action, decocking lever, but no safety; double action only, with safety lever; double action only, no control lever; double action/single action, safety lever, but no decocking. I sampled variant number 9, the gun blessed with the LEM (Law Enforcement Modification) or Combat Defense Action (CDA) trigger.

“The way in which the LEM hammer is cocked is unique,” HK’s webpage proclaims. “The hammer . . . is a two-piece hammer comprised of a cocking piece (not visible with the pistol assembled) and an external (visible) bobbed hammer.”

HK devised the Law Enforcement Modification variant to improve trigger quality and reduce the effort required to send rounds downrange; a 7.5 – 8.5 pound trigger pull vs. a “normal” double-action pull of 12 to 15 pounds. At the same time, the model’s stronger hammer spring improves reliability (by increasing the firing pin indent on the primer) and reduces the slide velocity when firing “hot” ammunition.

In theory, “The enhanced LEM trigger system combines the reliability of a double action revolver trigger with the crisp, precise trigger of a single action pistol.” Seems too good to be true. Feels good.

When dry firing (racking the slide each time) the HK P2000′s trigger pull is ridiculous long and supernaturally smooth. Though heavier than a Glock’s, the HK’s go-pedal is as consistent as a Robert Farago supermodel metaphor [removed from this post by the author despite the publisher's objections]. The HK’s trigger reset is relatively short; HK claims it’s 7mm. But it suffers in comparison to the Glock’s crisp 3-4mm reset. IMHO.

The HK P2000′s uncocked trigger pull is long, heavy and, what’s the technical term? Yucky. Technically, one should only ever feel the heavier, longer trigger pull during a second strike situation (i.e., a primer misfire). This variant isn’t a DA/SA system, and there is no decocker.

Placing the HK P2000 into your hand is like slipping into a well-worn leather jacket: it feels good from moment one. (The gun wins the backstrap wars its four-sizes-fits-all solution.) Unlike the Glock, the HK P2000 points naturally. I like the fact that there are no safeties (including a trigger safety) to muck around with. My thumbs tend to ride on the HK’s disassembly pin, which eventually gets old. In one magazine I shot through the gun, the slide did not lock back on empty. I suspect my thumb (or the placement of the lever) was the culprit.

The HK P2000′s trigger guard-positioned ambidextrous mag release is hard for me to reach and manipulate with either index finger or thumb.  The gun also feels significantly heavier in hand. The web reckons the HK’s about 4-5 oz heavier than a Glock 19, which is about the same size.

I usually don’t like shooting the rather snappy .40 round, but the HK made it feel fairly tame. My groups were a typical size for me, but the point of impact tended to be a few inches below point of aim at 10 yards. More to the point, it felt like I was pulling the trigger forever.

The HK is an extremely well-built pistol. A lot of the “issues” I had with its operation are a simple reflection that I’m a Glock guy. As such, the P2000 doesn’t tempt me in the least. For the suggested retail price of $941, I would just pay a little more and pick up two Glocks, or a Glock and an Springfield XD. Still, you can’t fault this gun. And if you can, it’s probably best to blame the government. Of course.

I’ve been trying to get ahold of Caracal since the SHOT show. No dice. In fact, I’ve heard rumors that Caracal’s U.S. distribution deal has gone down in flames. Be that as it may, I reckon this one’s a winner—especially when equipped with the funky front-of-the-gun “speed sights.” That’s the variant with the “rear” sight in the middle of the gun, carved low into the slide. Chris and I considered the system one of the few genuine innovations at SHOT. Which this example doesn’t feature. It’s that gun that I’m chasing. Meanwhile, TTAG doesn’t recommend unholstered armpit carry or doing anything to a handgun that might block the barrel. Just sayin’ . . .

[Ed: the following review originated as a comment from SFC Jose A. Garcia about our Beretta 92A1 review]

I am a fan of the M9. I am also a senior NCO and leader of a marksmanship training team in the US Army. To date, my team and I have trained thousands of Soldiers deploying over the last 3 years. We’ve also competed at the 2010 & 2011 US Army Small Arms Championships, placing among the top 10 teams in Rifle, Pistol, and Combined Arms. Two of my Soldiers have earned their Gold Distinguished Pistol Badges in the last 18 months, with a third within four points of that achievement. We’ve fired tens of thousands of rounds through our M9′s. . .

Here are the problems, and a little gem of a tip for those of you slamming the magazine into the pistol to get the slide to release and thus load a new round into the chamber as quickly as you insert the magazine… neeto huh?

… not so much…

Take and load 5 to 7 rounds in a full size magazine, then try that trick. You will soon notice that you might get off one shot, or no shots at all, but the remaining rounds in the magazine are in a bullet nose down attitude, rolling around in the magazine with the follower stuck down inside and askew.

Next item…

I have large hands and very long fingers. I like the M9. But Soldiers with average size hands or short stubby hands don’t like it so much. But those Soldiers with short thumbs do have an advantage with the M9 – specifically with the slide release. You see, those of us with normal sized hands – grown up sized, non mutant hands like mine – will unconsciously bump the slide release during recoil as we maintain a proper high and firm grip on the pistol.

When the last round is loaded from the magazine and fired – the magazine follower will push up on the slide lock – but as the recoil energy is transmitted to the shooter, the tip of the slide release will bump the shooter’s thumb resulting in the slide going forward on an empty chamber. Which is then followed by a ubiquitous “click” as the shooter presses the trigger and the hammer goes forward on a dry chamber. This usually happens during a stage in competition that a guy had been doing real well at. The trick is to change your grip so that those of you with long thumbs rest the right thumb over the backside of the lower left thumb instead of where it naturally falls along the side of the pistol.

THE DE-COCKER…

The story I’ve been told – and it’s probably just hogwash but it has some veracity to it – is that when the initial 92s first came out, they had a spring loaded de-cocker. The US Army wanted a “Safety” (having been raised on 1911′s). So, Beretta removed the spring, and called it a safety. Now-a-days, most soldiers draw that pistol to fire in a hurry and press the trigger back a few times before they realize… “Oh shit! I need to take the safety off!” … seconds are lost and the stage ends or the bad guy gets away.

We would like to “officially” train Soldiers to always “DE-COCK AND HOLSTER” rather than “SAFE AND HOLSTER”

The other pet peeve…

New shooters will use an over hand grip with the non firing hand to rack the slide. When they do, they typically – and unknowingly – sweep the de-cocker/safety to the “ON” position. When they go to press the trigger, they get the mushy emptiness of a disarmed pistol. Seconds are lost while they figure it out and the stage is over or the bad guy gets away. Sometimes I tell them to take their time, they may have the rest of their lives to figure it out.

We train Soldiers to use the blade of the non firing hand to rack the slide by catching the front of the rear sight (ala 10-8 forums rear sight) on the top of the slide and apply sharp rearward pressure while pushing forward with the grip hand. In some close gunfights, fingers are traumatically amputated. It is better to train to rack that slide w/o the use of your fingers – because you might not have them, and you might inadvertently apply the de-cocker when you really didn’t want to if you did have them.

If you buy one of these pistols from Beretta (as a number of us bought our own so we could get more practice) please know that we were told by Beretta that only the military M9′s are zeroed at the factory – NOT- the civilian market pistols. Why did this question come up, you might ask? We had two of our pistols shooting about 20 inches low at 10 feet from the target. Of course the poor guys took all kinds of hazing from us until each of us shot those two particular pistols with the same nice tight group… approximately 20 inches low. Having never seen that before with a military M9, we called them and discovered what we did.

Since then, whenever I have a problem shooter with an M9, we always check to make sure the pistol sights are set up correctly. We’ve found a few M9′s that have had this problem – it’s rare, but they’re out there.

Locking blocks and slides have been discussed ad nauseum.

I mentioned the slide release lever problem to Beretta at SHOT Show last year. The rep I spoke to in the booth was from engineering. He said it was the first time he’d ever heard about that problem. B.S.

If someone created a case-hardened and properly finished aftermarket slide release lever that reliably eliminates the problem I would purchase it and recommend it to the USAMU and the rest of the Army.

If you’re looking to snag a Desert Eagle for your firearms collection, there are a couple of things you need to know. You’re going to need a bigger handgun safe; the Desert Eagle isn’t just a large pistol, it’s a hand howitzer. If you want to shoot your new cannon on a regular basis you’ll need a trust fund or a second job. Quality 50AE ammo costs from $1.50 to $2.50 a shot, which is cheap for old bourbon but pricy for ammo. Last but not least, if you haven’t personally shot a Desert Eagle, throw out everything you’ve heard about the gun. Read this first . . .

Deagles were originally made in Israel by Israel Weapon Industries, part of Israel Military Industries, Ltd., the same people who brought the Galil and the Uzi into the world. Magnum Research, the U.S. patent holder, subsequently transferred manufacture to the United States. A few years later, production of the Desert Eagle was returned to Israel. IMI then spun off IWI. Finally, Kahr Arms acquired Magnum Research in the middle of 2010. Thus, the poor Desert Eagle has gone through more hands than the Kardashians.

My test subject is an Israeli-made pistol manufactured by IWI, which is as close to an original Mark XIX as it gets.

How Does It Operate?
The Deagle is not recoil-operated like the locked breach and blowback designs that pistol shooters know and love. The Desert Eagle is gas operated, like grandpappy Mikhail’s AK-47. Being gas operated, the pistol’s barrel can be fixed in position like a rifle barrel. The barrel’s also different on the inside. It lacks lands and grooves, boasting instead six-rib polygonal rifling like medium-bore Glock pistols.

There’s a small gas valve under the barrel. Upon firing, the valve diverts propellant gasses to a piston that drives the slide back. As the slide begins its rearward travel, the rotating bolt unlocks from the barrel and moves with the slide. Toward the end of slide travel, the hammer gets cocked.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the spent brass is ejected, a new round the size of a cocktail weenie is crammed into the chamber and the twin recoil springs ram the slide forward. The bolt rotates until its three heavy lugs reengage the barrel and lock into position, and the gun is ready once again to rock and roll.

Okay, it sounds like the Desert Eagle is some kind of Frankengun cobbled together by Eugene Stoner and Mikhail Kalashnikov one night after they sucked down way too many Jell-O shots. Realistically, though, the intricate inner workings of any traditional short-recoil pistol are just as mysterious and spooky, and altogether ooky. Therefore, if any additional complexity of the Desert Eagle yields significant advantages, it’s all good. So does it?

In theory, yes.

Polygonal rifling is thought by some to create a tighter seal than lands and grooves. By some accounts, it reduces the potential for barrel fouling. Polygonal rifling has been around since the dawn of rifled firearms, so it’s not exactly unproven technology. Besides, if Gaston Glock chose polygonal rifling for America’s gun, how can we mere mortals object to the same for Israel’s gun?

The fixed barrel is also a plus. If fixed barrels are good enough for rifles and revolvers, there no reason why they can’t be good enough for pistols. A barrel that stays on the same plane as the frame at all times, instead of one that cams upward with every shot, should improve accuracy. The setup is very sturdy, too; a requirement for a pistol firing heavy magnum loads. Check off another potential plus or two for the Deagle.

Redirecting the propellant gasses into the gas valve probably reduces recoil, at least by a little. The effect is similar to that of a small muzzle break, except that the gas valve technology incorporated into the Desert Eagle does nothing to directly counter muzzle rise. Still, a little improvement is better than none.

Finally, the rotating, triple-lugged bolt offers dual advantages in safety and durability, especially when firing the powerful .50AE round. Anyway, those are the theories.

In contrast to the theories, there are the rumors. According to every blogger’s best friend (“reliable sources”) the Desert Eagle is a piece of junk. Most of the rumors center around cycling issues. Purportedly, quality went into the crapper about the time that production was switched stateside from the land of Canaan. Thereafter, the Desert Eagle rapidly developed a reputation as an unreliable problem pistol that jammed more than a Dixieland jazz quartet.

But rumors need to be taken with a whole Jimmy Buffet shaker of salt, especially when it comes to firearms. Let’s face it, the gun culture community is a lot like a suburban middle school. Information rolls off the desks like Tic-Tacs, disappearing into cracks and corners never to be seen again, while rumors travel fast and last forever. Which doesn’t account for the irrefutable fact that while many rumors are utterly false, others are absolutely true.

To put theory and rumors to the test, I headed off to the range carrying the Desert Eagle and several boxes of ammo that collectively cost about as much as a new Smith & Wesson J-frame revolver.

Handling and Shooting the Desert Eagle

The .50AE pistol is a hefty 4.5 pounds, about as much as two fully loaded 1911s plus a six-inch Subway sandwich. The big bazooka is 10.75” long from stem to stern and 6.25” high. The bore axis is a good 1.5” above the bottom of the long beavertail and it’s very muzzle-heavy. To accommodate such big rounds, the handle needs to be extremely thick. Achieving a good grip is a bit of a “challenge.”

With this much mass and such epic proportions, you don’t handle this gun; you wrangle it. And that’s before the shooting starts. As for portability, I personally wouldn’t want to tuck this monstrosity into my Thunderwear for a trip to the Piggly-Wiggly but your chafing may vary. [ED: Louisville Leathers is developing a Desert Eagle holster for Ralph's dining and dancing pleasure. Stay tuned.]

Touring the landscape of the pistol, I immediately loved the patridge sights. Employing the old saw of “equal height, equal light,” I found it easy to put these sights right on target while dry-firing. Overall fit and finish seemed perfect, with the entire gun feeling like one solid piece. Field stripping and reassembly was a no-tool breeze.

The ambidextrous safety was very stiff and required a firm push of the thumb to move up to the fire position or down to the safe position. The hammer cocked and de-cocked more easily than I expected. Racking the slide was tough, requiring a tight grip and a 2.75” long pull against the powerful gang of recoil springs. The magazine release button likewise required a decisive push before it would give up its chokehold on the mag.

While working with spring-loaded hand grips would be a cheaper way to develop forearm strength, racking the slide and working the controls of the Deagle will likewise turn the average Joe into Popeye with none of that messy spinach.

Loading up the magazine was easy. The big cartridges provided plenty of leverage, and the magazine spring wasn’t fighting me like the controls had done. Magazine insertion required a degree of force. Once inserted, it seemed like the magazine fit a bit loosely in the well, but that’s the way it’s supposed to fit. According to the manual, any attempt to stifle that little bit of mag movement would result in a jam. When the manual says, “don’t do that,” then I don’t do that.

My first shot was a “ranging shot” to get the feel of the pistol and locate its true point of impact relative to point of aim. I used my preferred Weaver stance with my dominant arm fully bent at the elbow. The reason I bend the elbow is to shorten the distance between the front sight and my ancient eyes. That has the unfortunate effect of also shortening the distance between the recoiling mass of metal and my coconut. With .45s, .44 magnums or anything less, the recoiling handgun’s proximity to my noggin is a non-issue. Not so with .50 magnums. Recoil with this pistol is prodigious.

Here’s a viddy of Eddie shooting the Deagle. He’s a very powerful guy; watch the pistol jump around in his hand like an angry snake as his fires a miniscule group. I was subsequently to best that group by placing five shots touching in the same little outline.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Back to my initial firing experience. My first shot was on target, but the pistol overwhelmed my stance. The recoil forced my arm to pivot at the elbow, like a football referee signaling a first down. That pushed the pistol unreasonably close to my face, which is an organ that I prefer to leave just the way it is.

I found that the big sights were easy to see, even at full arm’s length, so I didn’t need to shorten up the focal distance between the front sight and my eyes. The long sight radius of 8.65” also made for accurate sighting. My second shot was fired from a Chapman-style stance with the dominant arm straight out and the elbow almost locked. It’s not my normal style, but it worked very well, reducing muzzle rise and improving my follow-through.

I normally prefer to test self-defense handguns at self-defense distances, meaning five to seven yards. It was quickly apparent that testing the Desert Eagle at such a distance was the equivalent of testing a sniper rifle at snowball distance. I loaded four, moved the target out to fifteen yards and proceeded to drill the bullseye, effortlessly.

Why not 25 yards? Because indoor range lighting is no friend of mine, that’s why. But it is my firm opinion that offhand shots at 25 yards and far, far beyond would be child’s play with this pistol at an outdoor range bathed in even moderate sunlight.

I shot a couple of boxes of ammo with no jams or any other stoppages whatsoever. Six or seven other people, selected at random from the crowd at the range, also fired the pistol. The shooters ranged from trainers like Eddie to experienced gunsels to near-noobs. The purpose of sharing the pistol with others was to make the pistol jam. But voila, there were no failures, period. I was beginning to think that the whole jam-o-matic business was so much bushwah.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But hosanna, one of the range instructors did have two jams while firing a magazine-full. It did not appear that he was limp-wristing, but he was shooting from a Weaver stance and permitting the pistol to roll up with each shot. Well, Deagle don’t like roll-ups, and it got to jamming right away to show its distaste for the shooter’s style. That shooter never did manage to dial-in his presentation, but subsequent shots by other operators went off without a hitch.

We went through a lot of expensive ammo trying to get this pistol to sh!t the bed. For all our efforts, all we got were those two lousy jams. So this is what can be said about this particular specimen, if not all its siblings out there: the pistol will do its job if the shooter does his or her job. However, this gun doesn’t make it easy for the shooter to do his or her job. Far from it. Any defects in stance or grip will be penalized. That’s not a good thing.

A great pistol should assist the shooter by being accurate, safe and easy to shoot well. The Desert Eagle is dead-nuts accurate shot offhand, and probably scary accurate if shot from sandbags, vise or rest. Most models are drop-safe, so the gun is just as all-around safe as other single action autoloaders.  But when it comes to helping the shooter to shoot well, the Deagle doesn’t give an inch. Therefore, it’s not a great pistol.

Conclusion

The Desert Eagle is a powerful.50 caliber pistol that is capable of producing muzzle velocities exceeding 1900 fps and muzzle energy of 2800 ft-lbs. To put those numbers in perspective, .50AE bullets can travel twice as fast as.45s and hit with the force of a .308 Winchester.

The Desert Eagle is also challenging to shoot. Marksmen who master it will be rewarded with a fun experience. Those who don’t master it will find that it jams. When it comes to jams I prefer Smucker’s over pistols, but that’s just me.

I’m not really sure why anyone would want a Desert Eagle. Punching holes in engine blocks comes to mind, but how often would someone really need to do that? Maybe once or twice a month, tops. Target practice? Ixnay. Not at two bucks a round. Self defense? Any handgun from .38Spl to .45 caliber would be a far better choice. Surviving the zombie apocalypse? A .22 would do just as well. Taking out Neo? Agent Smith had his Deagle. Neo had guns. Lots of guns. Neo won.

No, I have to say that the Desert Eagle is simply the most useless gun ever made. Paradoxically, it’s also, maybe, the most fun gun around, at least in .50AE. If I was rating the Desert Eagle’s fun factor using TTAG’s star system, the gun would get more stars than Hollywood.

So what makes the Desert Eagle a not-so-obscure object of desire? Maybe it’s the fun, maybe the glamour, or maybe it’s the excitement of hanging out with a movie star. It might be the power. While it’s not the biggest hitter out there, the fifty is definitely near the top.

Frankly, I don’t really know what it is about the Desert Eagle that makes it so intriguing, but I’m jonesing to shoot this one some more. I’m jonesing bad.

SPECIFICATIONS

Model: Desert Eagle Mark XIX
Caliber: .50AE
Magazine capacity: 7 rounds
Materials: Steel
Weight empty: 72.4 ounces
Barrel Length: 6.0″
Overall length: 10.75″
Sights: Dovetailed front and rear “combat-style,” windage adjustable
Action: Hammer fired, single action
Finish: Matte black
Price: around $1500

RATINGS (out of five stars)

Style * * * * *
Love the look or hate the look, the Desert Eagle’s been photographed more often than Paris Hilton and featured in more movies than Ron Jeremy. It’s an icon. I mean the gun. Not Ron Jeremy.

Ergonomics (carry) *
On a scale of zero to five, with five being an Airlight and zero being a flaming porcupine, the Desert Eagle is a one. On a scale where anything short of a flaming porcupine is a zero, the Desert Eagle is a zero.

Ergonomics (firing) * * *
Try a little experiment. Take all the guns out of your gun safe. Now hold the safe straight out at shoulder level with one arm. Comfy? If it is, then you’ll like hefting the Deagle. As heavy as the gun may be, the single-action trigger is light and precise. The trigger pull is smooth, with a short, nice ‘n’ easy take up. Reset is faster than most DA pistols in lesser chamberings, which is irrelevant since accurate follow-up shots will be slower than erosion. The sights are very good and the long sight radius makes for accuracy. One-handed shooting is something best reserved for a scene in Jackass 4.0.

Reliability * * *
It’s not a jam machine, but it can jam. A grip that would be firm enough for any other pistol might be too limp for the Desert Eagle. Oddly enough, habitual snubby shooters who have practiced a “convulsive grip” (trying to crush the handle into powder) will have no limp-wristing jams with this pistol. Keeping the gas valve clean is imperative to assure proper functioning. Field stripping is so easy even a cave man can do it, so there’s no excuse for not cleaning this big noisemaker. Long term durability is difficult to assess based on just a few range sessions, but any gun this heavily built should have a longer half-life than Uranium-234.

Customize This * * *
If the gun isn’t heavy enough for you just the way it is, there’s that long rail atop the barrel where one might mount a light, scope, a set of toy trains or an electric hoist. The .50AE Desert Eagle is also convertible for shooting .44Mag and .357Mag cartridges simply by purchasing expensive drop-in replacement gear that requires no gunsmithing to install. Why anyone would want to fire mere .357s from a gun this heavy and unwieldy is beyond me.

OVERALL RATING * * *
Shooting a Desert Eagle is like taking a honeymoon in Las Vegas. There’s no justification for it, except for having a raucous good time and burning through all those cash wedding gifts when your spouse isn’t looking.

When I first reviewed the Smith & Wesson Model 640 Pro Series, I berated the trigger. Like most S&W revolver triggers, the go-pedal was as smooth as a baby’s backside. However, it was heavier than reading Heidegger. In the original German. In fact, the Model 640′s factory trigger pull maxed out a 12-pound gauge. So we hooked the trigger to the engine block of a Peterbilt to get a reading. Okay, I’m exaggerating. It was the rear end of a Fiat 500. Bottom line: the 640′s trigger pull assured inaccuracy at any reasonable distance . . .

Fortunately, a revolver is a simple machine: a collection of small pipes, bent pieces of metal and a couple of springs. If any one of the components don’t work as well as they should, fixing it isn’t a big deal. Especially if you’re competent gunsmith like Dave Santurri.

RF schlepped the 640 Pro Series to Dave for a quick trigger fix. A feathery, target-style trigger wasn’t the objective. We asked the Massachusetts man to deliver unto us a giggle switch with enough resistance for safe pocket or IWB carry and sufficient impact for perfectly reliable ignition yet light enough to shoot with precision. The goal was 50-50 blend of yin and yang, sacrificing as little as possible of either one for the benefit of the other.

A little time and $69 dollars later, Mssrs. Smith and Wesson were ready for their close-up. Dave had reduced the 640′s DAO pull by about a third to a bit over eight pounds (8.4). 1911 shooters may cringe at the thought of an eight-pound trigger; for a revolver, that’s fairly light.

With its trigger sorted, the 640 Pro is a completely different gun.

Pre-fix, shooting with the “power crease” was a requirement; it’s become an option. I can smoothly press the 640 Pro Series wheelgun’s trigger with the pad of my trigger finger without snapping my distal phalanx like a matchstick. Which leads to less pulling and pushing. Which leads to more accuracy and more comfort.

Shooting .38Spls, the all-steel Model 640 Pro Series is a pussycat, and, now, an accurate one to boot. [ED: Puss in Boots?] You could even say that the Model 640 Pro Series makes sense. With a controllable trigger, you can use the 640 Pro Series’ night sights to hit a target at greater than bad breath distance quickly, easily and reliably.

Properly sorted, the Smith & Wesson Model 640 Pro Series is a bedside gun you can take to the range and carry (proving you find an appropriate pocket holster). A snubbie(ish) gun that can shoot .357s—should you decide that follow-up shots aren’t as important stopping power.

I’m still happier with my Plain Jane 642 shooting .38s, keeping the money I didn’t spend. But the 640 Pro Series with a trigger job has been elevated from a “no thanks” to a “I wouldn’t say no” revolver.

Just don’t say ANYTHING about her breasts. The last time I pointed out that Ms. Falia was a babe capitalizing on her babe-osity I got into a comment war with the gun gal that left me bruised and battered. On second thought . . .

Does it deserve it?  You bet it does…

Overview

The Marlin Model 39 is a lever-action .22 rimfire rifle, manufactured by Marlin between 1921 and 1937.  It has a 24″ fully octagonal barrel, a color-blued receiver, and a tube magazine that holds 16 and maybe 17 rounds of .22 Long Rifle.  The sighting apparatus is  a beaded front post and a drift-adjustable semi-buckhorn rear with an elevation ramp.    Like most .22 lever-actions it will also feed and fire .22 Short and Long cartridges, although we didn’t have any to run through our test rifle.

History

The Model 39 is descended from the Marlin Model 1891, a solid frame lever-action .22 introduced in…wait for it…1891.  The 1891 used the same side loading gate as the Winchester series of lever-actions, but jamming the tiny rimfire rounds through the tiny loading gate proved to be a major pain in the ass and Marlin switched to tube-loading the next year.  In keeping with their cryptic product designation codes, Marlin called this slightly-revised design the Model…1892.

Five years later the solid frame was changed to a takedown design which allowed the gun to be separated at the receiver for cleaning and storage, using a nickel for a screwdriver.  You’ve probably guessed that this model was called the Model 1897.  More minor changes were made in 1921 and the gun was renamed the Model 39, even though it wasn’t 1939 yet.  Go figure.

Toward the later part of the Model 39s long production run it became apparent that the old bolt design wasn’t strong enough to handle then-modern ‘high-speed’ .22 Long Rifle cartridges.  The bolt was redesigned to handle the higher pressures, and those Model 39s were designated with an “HS” prefix to their serial numbers.  Our test gun was such a rifle, happily safe to shoot with any .22 Long Rifle ammunition ever made.

Only minor changes were made throughout the evolution of the 1891/1892/1897/39/39A design, and most parts and dimensions remained constant from one year (and one model) to the next.  The 1897 has as much in common with a brand-new 39A as a 1980s Gen1 Glock has with its own latest iteration.  It’s not too much of a stretch to say that the 39A has been continuously produced since 1891, although there was a 4-year break in production during WWII.

Operation

The Model 39 is a little different in operation from a modern rimfire lever-action.  Which is to say, it’s a little bit better.  The despicable cross-bolt safety that has infected most of the lever-gun biosphere (although not the Henry) simply didn’t exist back then, and neither did the awkward and easily-broken tube magazine plunger.

My very first rifle was a Marlin Model 60 semi-automatic.  I still own it, but I can’t remember how many times I cringed as the spring-loaded plunger slammed violently into the magazine tube when I tipped the muzzle upwards to load it.  I also dropped it several times, and it’s a minor miracle (not quite the loaves and the fishes, but better than a good card trick) that it still works at all, much less perfectly.

The Model 39 is so old-school that they hadn’t invented that kind of silliness yet. Instead of pulling out the plunger with the magazine spring inside it, you press the detent button (above) and pull out the outer magazine tube itself.  When pulled out about 18 inches the outer tube locks in place, and this reveals an inner magazine tube with the little cartridge-shaped cutout to slip the rounds into.  Since the outer tube locks in the ‘open’ position, you can tip up the muzzle without the plunger ramming itself back down, and one-handed loading is suddenly made simple.

While it’s still slower than feeding cartridges through a receiver loading gate, the Model 39′s design is infinitely better than the ‘modern’ (read: cheap) loading design of my Model 60 and of the Model 39As.  It doesn’t take two people to load a Model 39!  Why do so many modern tube-fed rifles get it so wrong?  If the Henry Rifle Co. would switch to this much more elegant loading system it might cost a few more bucks, but could gain them legions of shooters who simply cannot abide their loading procedure.

The rest of the rifle works exactly the way you’d want a lever-action to work.  Once you’ve loaded up the tube with sixteen rounds, you’re ready to rack and roll.  Unlike modern Marlin triggers, this old-school rifle sports a solid one-piece trigger which will not flop around.  It also uses a one-piece firing pin, which makes it more theoretically vulnerable to slam-fires if it’s dropped on its muzzle while loaded.  Since I’ve never done this with any firearm, I wasn’t concerned about it on the Model 39.

Takedown

With the twist of a nickel, the split receiver opens like a Faberge Egg, revealing a marvelous lockwork of hand-fit Steampunk intricacy.  This particular rifle was built between 1937 and 1939, with essentially the same lockwork that Marlin had been using for 30 years.  The craftsmen who built this gun knew what they were doing; even almost 75 years later it still fits together and runs like clockwork.  The only exception is the bolt itself, which seems as though it might have been a replacement part, transplanted from another rifle at some point.  It doesn’t fit with the same precision that every other part does, but it still fits better than the bolts I saw on new-manufacture Marlin 39As at a gun show last month.  And speaking of fit and finish…

Fit and Finish

You have to give a 75 year-old gun a little slack, especially when it comes to noncritical internal surfaces, blueing and wood-to-metal fit.  Those guys didn’t have CNC mills to do the work for them, and fancy coatings like Melonite or nickel-boron were decades in the future.  Every cut was measured twice, cut by hand-adjusted machine tools, and detail fit with files, stones, and emory cloth.  Steel was either in the white, color-hardened, or blued.

The blueing on this rifle has held up remarkably well.  I’m not a whiz at rating firearm finishes on the NRA scale, but the blued barrel still retains almost all of its original blueing except at the corners.  The color-hardened receiver hasn’t fared so well, because color hardening doesn’t produce as durable or protective a finish as ordinary blueing.  The receiver’s finish has dulled to a pleasing satin, with some patches of minor surface discoloration.

The wood is still in remarkably good shape.  75 years have caused some shrinkage away from the metal in places, but it still boasts a wood-to-metal fit that puts modern Marlins to shame.  The only jarring ‘character mark’ on the whole rifle is the hard plastic buttplate.  It’s a poorly-fitting replacement part, not made for this rifle, and the heel of the buttplate sticks out about 1/4″ proud of the wood of the buttstock itself.  It’s a pity, but I wouldn’t dream of having it ‘repaired.’  A gun like this can be ‘restored’ by an expert restorer (more akin to a museum conservator than to a gunsmith) using period parts, but never ‘repaired.’

With this in mind, the quality of workmanship that went into this rifle is excellent. The octagonal barrel flats are true and flat, and the receiver halves mate together like the hand-fit sidelocks of a bespoke English double.  All of the moving parts, of course, are slicker and smoother than silvered glass: they’ve been lapping against each other for three-fourths of a century, yet somehow they’re still tight and solid.

The lever and trigger are better than a brand-new Marlin, which may be scant praise, but also slightly better than the action and trigger of a heavily-customized race gun like my .357 Magnum Model 1894.  The old Marlin is at least the equal of the finest brass-framed lever guns I’ve ever fired like Henrys and Ubertis, and that’s the highest praise I can give.

The lever works with smooth and nearly silent precision.  The trigger offers only minimal takeup, breaks very cleanly at exactly three pounds, and then follows up with a little more overtravel than we’d like to see.  Did it affect accuracy?  We doubt it.

Accuracy and Functioning

Feeding and functioning was, um, perfect.  The old Marlin fired all the contents of my ‘remainders’ bag of .22s: standard and high-velocity  roundnoses, hollowpoints and truncated cones from a half-dozen brands, randomly fed into the magazine tube.  Somehow the point of impact didn’t shift more than a quarter-inch at 30 yards from one brand of ammo to the next; I’m not sure that’s physically possible, but there it was.

It was also perfectly zeroed, right out of the gun case, with no fiddling whatever.  Neither of us are crack marksmen with iron sights (thanks for my crappy eyesight, law school) but Kurk and I discovered that we simply could not miss with this rifle; the trigger was so clean and the handling was so steady that even firing offhand at 50 yards we rarely missed a tin can or clay pigeon.  Or a bottle cap.  Or a fragment of a clay pigeon.

Or basically anything.  Out to 50 yards, anything big enough to see unaided was big enough to hit with the first round.

Fun

A marksman with better eyes than mine could teach more than a few bolt-action target shooters a lesson in accuracy with this rifle, but that’s not really what a lever-action .22 is for.  It’s built for small-game hunting, plinking and fun, and for me there may be no .22 rifle in the world that’s more fun a good lever-action.

How much fun is it?  Fun is hard to quantify (except perhaps in dollars, laughs or pints) but we had more of it after running 200 or so rounds through the Marlin than we did after running 400 rounds through my Evil Assault,  er, Modern Sporting Carbines.  We’d already had a great day shooting (great weather, no malfunctions, and we were both shooting exceptionally well) but the real fun didn’t start until we pulled out the Marlin.  After 75 years, it had both of us grinning like idiots and taking offhand potshots at tin cans 75 yards off.  And usually hitting them.

You just can’t buy that kind of fun.

Epilogue

No, I really meant it.  You can’t buy that kind of fun from Marlin; not today.  The virtues of this fine old rifle, sadly, are not embodied in the modern Model 39A’s on the rack at Wal-Mart.  Marlin’s historic Connecticut factory is an empty and shuttered ruin.  The clean lines of the Model 39′s receiver are now blemished by an ungainly cross-bolt safety with a plasticky look and feel.  The bright blued octagonal barrel is a thing of the past, replaced by a round barrel with a rough Dremel Tool finish.  The receiver halves of modern Model 39A’s no longer fit together tightly, and wood-to-metal fit is atrocious.

Marlin may yet rescue this design from a shameful demise (I keep hoping they’ll make it) but for now, if you want a good one, you have to get an old one.

RATINGS (out of five)

Accuracy:  ****
More accurate than I could hope to be with iron sights.  The excellent trigger, long barrel and sighting radius make it a marvelous offhand rifle.

Shooting Ergonomics:  ****
Marlin has had handling nailed for 120 years.   (Loading ergonomics are a different story: **1/2.  The old-style tubular magazine loading was vastly better then than it is now, but still awkward. )

Reliability: *****
It ate my whole bag of leftover .22s and then some.

Aesthetics: *****
The classic lines of a classic rifle that Marlin should never have changed.  Wish it still had its original buttplate, though.

Overall Rating: *****
How do you ‘rate’ a pre-’64 Model 70?  Or a pre-war Colt 1911, or a K98 Mauser?  The Model 39 is one of those designs that helped define what a firearm should be.

The United States hasn’t fielded a true .30 caliber battle rifle since Vietnam when the M-14 was replaced. And for good reason. A “full size” rifle cartridge like the 7.62 NATO has a lot of muzzle energy and consequently a ton of recoil compared to the gentle 5.56 NATO round and creating a gun that can operate well with those kinds of forces acting on it is a challenge. Fabrique Nationale d’Herstal (FNH) thinks they’ve got a winning design in their SCAR-H, which the military is in the process of adopting. Not to leave us civilians out (and our pocketbooks) FNH USA introduced the SCAR 17S, a semiautomatic version imported from Belgium that one of our readers let me play with this past weekend…

SCAR stands for “Special operations forces Combat Assault Rifle,” a name indicating who the intended client of the version with a giggle switch was. The rifle is designed around a short stroke recoil system much like the M1 carbine or even the Saiga shotgun, where the expanding gases are mostly contained within a telescoping piston which briefly acts on the bolt carrier. The short stroke recoil system allows for cleaner operation than direct gas impingement, with FNH claiming a 90% reduction in carbon in the action compared to an AR-15. That, in theory, should reduce the maintenance required to keep the firearm operating.

Short stroke recoil has another benefit, especially with larger calibers. The power behind short stroke recoil comes from a rather heavy bolt carrier assembly — the piston is only in contact with the bolt carrier for a short period of time. The bolt carrier needs enough momentum from that contact to successfully cycle the action, momentum provided by a beefy carrier. Having all that mass sliding around means that the force of the recoil is spread over a longer period of time, making it feel remarkably lighter and allowing for more accurate follow up shots. But we’ll get into that later.

With the SCAR, the controls are mostly ambidextrous. The safety and magazine release can be operated from either side of the firearm but the bolt catch is only on the left. So left handed shooters would either need to figure out how to manipulate the bolt catch despite their sinister characteristics or use the charging handle, which can be swapped from one side of the bolt carrier to the other depending on user preference.

And that’s where we run headlong into the first complaint I have about this weapon.

The charging handle on the SCAR is directly attached to the bolt carrier. While it’s fantastic that the charging handle is forward of the chamber (as this allows for better manipulation), the fact that it’s directly attached means that it reciprocates. Every time the gun fires, the thing moves back and forth, exactly like the charging handle on an AK. This sucks for a number of reasons.

First, a reciprocating charging handle sucks because it has the potential to injure the operator. The DP-28 machine gun had a similar reciprocating charging handle mounted on the bottom of the gun. I had welts for weeks after firing one that reminded me to never try and fire it offhand ever again. If you get your meat in the way of that metal, it might hurt you and being hurt in a gunfight is an extreme disadvantage. Plus, pain sucks in general, even if you’re not being shot at.

The second reason a reciprocating charging handle sucks is that it has the potential to get caught on something and fail to cycle. From my own 3-gun experience I can think of a couple of scenarios where I had to fire through a tight space. There were plenty of opportunities to catch a charging handle on a strategically placed curtain or a particularly tight corner. In addition, the age-old trick of bracing the gun against the side of the obstacle might in fact cause the failure to cycle if you brace it in the wrong place. It adds one more thing that could go wrong.

Third, it throws off the balance of the firearm as it cycles. On a firearm like the AR-15 or the SCAR, almost everything about the action is symmetrical so that the recoil from the round going off and the action cycling goes straight back into the shooter’s shoulder and moves the barrel as little left or right as possible. Adding a big chunk of metal to the side of the gun that moves back and forth seems to be a good way to make the gun “walk” to one side or the other when firing. It’s unbalanced, and that annoys me.

There is one nice thing about a forward charging handle, though — press checks are amazingly quick and simple. Your thumb is already right there, you just need to reach up and slide it back. I thought that was nifty, but it probably could have been done without making me worry about smacking my thumb. I’ve already been to the emergency room once for a firearm related thumb injury and I’d rather not do it again.

Moving on…

Unlike the AR-15 which uses a buffer assembly in the stock to accept the moving bolt carrier and return it to battery, the SCAR uses a spring which fits entirely in the upper receiver. A number of companies have started fitting various AR-15 models with this feature, but it’s probably best implemented in this design. The internal spring means the receiver itself needs to be a tad longer but the buttstock can be folded to the side to allow for a smaller package for transport. It’s a nifty feature. Not necessarily one I require, but nifty nonetheless.

Speaking of the stock, one of the reasons that the M-14 was replaced with the M-16 was the stock. The M-14 used a traditional stock that placed the shooter’s eye level with the barrel and that recoil from full-auto fire was being directed over the shooter’s shoulder instead of directly into it. This led to uncontrollable muzzle climb, an issue fixed with the AR-15′s in-line recoil system. And while it may appear at first glance that the SCAR has the same issues as the M-14, in reality the barrel and bolt carrier are still directly in line with the shooter’s shoulder just like in the M-16. The swell in the stock you’re seeing is from the rail being placed above the gas piston system, which adds about an inch of height over the bore compared to the AR-15 and allows for optics to be placed on the rail without risers. Well, mostly.

Last but not least, I want to talk about the muzzle brake. While you might be able to get away without a muzzle brake on a 5.56 NATO rifle it’s practically required equipment on a “tactical” 7.62 NATO firearm. In order to make faster follow-up shots you need to be able to control the firearm and minimize any movement resulting from firing the gun, something which a muzzle brake was specifically designed to do. And despite the strange shape, this one does its job extremely well. Even from a standing position, I was able to keep the gun under control and recoil was close to nonexistent. It’s a nice touch that adds a ton of controlability to the firearm.

Oh, and the gun has side and bottom rails as well as a full length top rail and can be disassembled and reassembled easily. FYI.

A quick note about import restrictions before we move on to the end of our journey.

The “real” FN SCAR-H is manufactured at a plant in South Carolina, but the civilian version comes from a plant in Belgium. Yes, the country in Europe – a place where the market is significantly smaller for the civilian variant of a military firearm. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me for FNH to be importing these guns, especially considering that once you import the firearm into the country it comes under the control of that pesky 922(R) law that makes it a felony to slap a high capacity magazine in a freshly imported firearm.

FNH USA changes out a couple of minor parts to become 922(R) compliant and modifies the lower receivers to take the high capacity magazines once they enter the country (the remnants of the crippling process is the rib on the back of the magazine and the corresponding slot in the receiver) but it still doesn’t make sense to me that they would set up a shop overseas to make the SCAR 17S for the US market when they already have a plant tooled up right here in the States. I’m sure it adds some dollars to the final price of the gun, which is not an inconsiderable amount.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The real question is how well it shoots. And while the FNH 3-gun team seems to be in love with it (I suspect mainly because they’re paid to be so) I’m not so enamored.

There’s nothing technically wrong with the rifle. It’s accurate, it functions and recoil is negligible. It’s just a question of how the thing feels and to me, it’s too bulky.

There’s a lot of mass in that rifle, and moving it from one target to another (let alone manhandling it around a course) takes some effort. It feels like I have a German shepherd in my hands instead of a nice svelte rifle.

If I’m flying full tilt down a course of fire in competition shooting, I want something that I can maneuver quickly, not this oversized fish-like firearm. Unless I’m shooting heavy metal division, in which case this firearm would actually be a perfect replacement for the M1A and AR-10 currently being used.

If I’m out hunting, I want something that I can keep a low profile with and carry for miles without getting tired, not this eight pound monstrosity. Unless I’m hog hunting and using a vehicle, in which case the bulk would be much more manageable.

If I’m on the range I want an inexpensive caliber that I can fire without my wallet trying to strangle me. Unless I don’t particularly care about accuracy and am using cheap milsurp ammo.

If I’m getting a home defense rifle I want something with enough power to put down a bad guy without blowing out my eardrums and a round that stops or significantly loses velocity after hitting flesh instead of continuing through the next few walls. Unless I live on a ranch and expect my attackers to be at a distance.

The place where this kind of firearm works best is the military where you need to project firepower over great distances. I can definitely see improvements over the M-14 and AR-10 for that application, but not much else. There are some rather specific niches into which the SCAR can fit in civilian shooting, but the question is whether the benefits of the platform in those very specific situations warrant the hefty price tag.

In short, the FNH SCAR 17S is a perfectly viable solution to an existing problem for the military, but it doesn’t necessarily translate into a good firearm for civilians. It’s a cool firearm that’s fun to shoot, but save for a handful of very specific scenarios I just don’t see much of an application for it beyond that. I could see spending $500 or $1,000 on a gun just for the cool factor, but $3,000 is too much in my opinion especially when you take into account my problems with a reciprocating charging handle.

FNH SCAR 17S

Specifications
Caliber: 7.62 NATO
Barrel: 16.25″
Overall: 38.5″ (28.5″ folded)
Weight: 8.0 lbs Empty
Capacity: 10 or 20 rounds
MSRP: $2,900

Ratings (Out of Five Stars)
All ratings are relative to other similar guns, and the final score IS NOT calculated from the constituent scores.

Accuracy: * * * * *
We were singing steel at 250 yards with this rifle. Accuracy is not an issue if in the right hands.

Ergonomics: * * *
This gun is chubby. Yep, chubby. That’s a good word to describe it. I can’t even get my big hands around the gun for my typical aggressive ”thumb forward” grip.

Ergonomics Firing: * * *
That’s (-3) stars for making me worry about the safety of my thumb but (+1) stars for the fantastic job they did mitigating recoil. There’s also a bit of creep in the trigger which I find slightly maddening.

Reliability: * * * *
I’m dropping a star off for the external reciprocating charging handle. Other than that it works like a Swiss clock.

Customization: * * * *
There’s tons of stuff you can do to this rifle. In theory, at least. Changing out barrels and swapping accessories is easy as pie, but I haven’t seen that many aftermarket parts for these guns yet. Tango Down has some good stuff, but not many other places have parts.

Overall Rating: * * *
For three grand I was expecting… more. I was disappointed. It’s a fun range toy and probably great for hog hunting but I don’t see much of a use beyond that. There’s nothing this rifle does any better that an M1A or an AR-10 or even an FAL can’t do equally well for half the price besides looking cool and having slightly better ergonomics.

And let the FNH fanboy flood commence…