Aug A3 Review
Hello All,
So I sort of went from zero to mach 1 in a very short time with bullpup rifles. To be quite honest, I really enjoyed the Aug comments from some of the respected board members, particularly the one that basically said that folks start with the premise that they want an aug and then work backwards, coming up with a rational to justify the purchase. I think that is absolutely true. After 20 years of lust, I finally had the means method and opportunity to buy one. I initially decided to get an e4, but I got a “too good to pass up” deal on an aug a3 with 25 magazines. I picked it up Thursday evening. I managed to get the left handed bolt into the gun on Thursday evening (reassembling it wrong – more on that later). I borrowed an Aimpoint T-1 from a friend, threw on a sampson flip up front site, put on the sling and headed to the range. I didn’t have a flip up rear site to use, so I’ll have to work on that later. I headed off to Yakima to try it out. The environment in Yakima is fine blowing dust, it sticks to everything. Its tough on guns and gear, so I thought it would be a good initial outing.
Here are my initial impressions, tasks, and next steps.
Damn these guns are short. Sitting, getting and out of vehicles, eating lunch, peeing… are all much easier with an Aug then an M4, AK, or FAL. Even with the stock folded/collapsed, the other platforms are noticeable longer.
The trigger was no where near as bad as I thought it would be, and not as bad as the trigger pull gauge said (right around 11 lbs). based on the horror stories one reads. Shooting off the bench, it does feel heavy but I was still able to hold a 10 round 1 inch group at 50 yards with it. This won’t impress the accuracy geeks but shooting GI ammo with an Aimpoint, its plenty good for a defensive rifle. I have a trigger tamer and have the “secret recipe” for improving the trigger, but I had not installed them yet. Shooting offhand, on the move, and rolling around on the ground, the trigger is definitely good to go as is.
Recoil impulse is very light. And seems to push the gun to the left somewhat. I easily reacquired the target by the time I caught the link. No issues there.
I have 15 30 round magazines and 10 42 round magazines. They work great. Love being able to see the rounds in the mag at a glance.
We had 2 AXRs in the class as well. One ran great, one had just gotten back from Kent and had one hiccup but was generally trouble free. I do prefer the rail set up on the A3.
For my purposes the high larue mount for the T1 is a touch too high. I’ll be getting a medium one shortly.
Issues to work on:
The light rail is in a pretty good spot for a lefty, in terms of access. The challenge is that when using a 2 point sling, the sling ends up right in front of the light when you shoulder the gun. I’m going to need to put some thought into that.
The edges of the safety are sharp and need to be filed a bit. That’s easy.
I discovered that you can screw up reassembly and put the trigger group back in in such a way that you can disable the last round hold open device. That’s something I’ll need to be more careful about.
Manual of Arms:
Shooting the gun left handed poses some unique challenges. The school I teach for is teaching military reloads (where the magazine is retained, instead of jettisoned). Whether this is absolutely the right thing or not is out of scope. What I do know is that it significantly reduces the time advantage of reloading ARs. I think you can probably reload an Aug very nearly as fast as anything else, using a military reload. As a lefty, I’ve had to do some thinking on how best to do that. I think what I’ll end up with is having magazines on the left side of my body. When I hit slide lock, I’ll remove my left hand from the master grip on the gun, depress the mag release, remove and retain the mag, retrieve a new mag from the pouch , reinsert and slap the bolt release. I’ll use my right hand to keep control of the weapon using the forward grip. If a threat is so close that I don’t think that’s workable, I’ll transition to my pistol and use that. I’m not thrilled with the idea of giving up my master grip on the gun, but given the problems with using my right hand to reach a cross my body for the mag and reaching over or under the gun to chamber the round, I don’t see much of a choice. Thoughts on that would be most welcome. Having said that, I doubt that many fights between aussies or kiwis and bad guys have been decided on how quickly the aug mag can be changed. 42 round magazines also mitigate the relative speed issue quite bit.
Shooting the left eject aug right handed is something I have yet to work out. My issue is my right eye is crap, so whatever I come up with, I’ll still have to use my left eye. Canting the gun down will work ,but I’m going to have to figure out how to do the optics…
Next Steps:
Confirm zero, remove barrel, retest zero. Document POI shift if any.
Get medium mount for aimpoint Micro
Buy an e4 stock from MSAR. Apparently the aug will fit in it and may give me the ability to shoot with AR mags and have left hand eject. I’ll still run it primarily with aug mags, but given the amount of ar mags I have and the guys I shoot with, having stanag capability makes sense.
After the intial testing, I hooked up with my colleague who is far handier then I am to do the trigger tamer install and "trigger tuning" work. To do this work, you'll need a digitial camera, access to the internet, some 1500 grit sand paper, some 600 grit sand paper, some polishing compound, a dremel with cloth polisher, and some action majic from Brownells. Action magic is essentially a bottle of some sort of oil and another of some sort of liquid graphite type stuff.
First impressions: the directions included in the trigger tamer package were definately written by someone who did not have access to the schematic that they included - either that or they reallly need to employ a technical writer. They constantly refer to parts as "the rear part" or the "back portion" and talk about moving stuff "rewardly". The instructions on "scribing" the trigger bar/trigger area were confusing. Here is a hint, scribe the trigger bar, not the stock. My strong advice is to take high quality digital pictures as you take stuff apart, so that you can put it back together.
The Aug trigger was really totally usable as it was, but I ordered the trigger tamers so we decided to give it a try. Interesting enough, the pull measured between 10 lbs 13 ozs and 11 lbs. It didn't feel that heavy. Not even close. I think it has something to do with the fact that the trigger is not on a hinge, so maybe the measurement is skewed somewhat. At any rate, we followed the instructions, started with course sand paper, going to fine, then going to the polishing compound. Its important to take your time, take lots of pictures and make sure you get everything back together correctly.
The first time we put it back together we got a great trigger pull but the trigger would not reset. We went back in and adjusted the screw in the trigger bar. When all was said and done we ended up with a very smooth trigger. No grit, no bumps. It has a bit of take up and a crisp break and reset. Not like a match AR, but definately a vast improvement. We ended up with an 8 lb pull but it feels more like a 4 lb. It has a great reset. Sort of what a Glock carbine might feel like. Dry firing in the garage, the gun clicked without the aimpoint dot moving at all. I'm sure accuracy will be much improved due to the vastly smoother, slightly lighter trigger pull.
So all things considered, if you proceed slowly, have some basic tools, you can do this pretty easily. If you have a digital camera and a PC it will make your life much easier.
So all in all, I’m very impressed with the A3. It’s a small, accurate, reliable package. Whats not to like.
So I sort of went from zero to mach 1 in a very short time with bullpup rifles. To be quite honest, I really enjoyed the Aug comments from some of the respected board members, particularly the one that basically said that folks start with the premise that they want an aug and then work backwards, coming up with a rational to justify the purchase. I think that is absolutely true. After 20 years of lust, I finally had the means method and opportunity to buy one. I initially decided to get an e4, but I got a “too good to pass up” deal on an aug a3 with 25 magazines. I picked it up Thursday evening. I managed to get the left handed bolt into the gun on Thursday evening (reassembling it wrong – more on that later). I borrowed an Aimpoint T-1 from a friend, threw on a sampson flip up front site, put on the sling and headed to the range. I didn’t have a flip up rear site to use, so I’ll have to work on that later. I headed off to Yakima to try it out. The environment in Yakima is fine blowing dust, it sticks to everything. Its tough on guns and gear, so I thought it would be a good initial outing.
Here are my initial impressions, tasks, and next steps.
Damn these guns are short. Sitting, getting and out of vehicles, eating lunch, peeing… are all much easier with an Aug then an M4, AK, or FAL. Even with the stock folded/collapsed, the other platforms are noticeable longer.
The trigger was no where near as bad as I thought it would be, and not as bad as the trigger pull gauge said (right around 11 lbs). based on the horror stories one reads. Shooting off the bench, it does feel heavy but I was still able to hold a 10 round 1 inch group at 50 yards with it. This won’t impress the accuracy geeks but shooting GI ammo with an Aimpoint, its plenty good for a defensive rifle. I have a trigger tamer and have the “secret recipe” for improving the trigger, but I had not installed them yet. Shooting offhand, on the move, and rolling around on the ground, the trigger is definitely good to go as is.
Recoil impulse is very light. And seems to push the gun to the left somewhat. I easily reacquired the target by the time I caught the link. No issues there.
I have 15 30 round magazines and 10 42 round magazines. They work great. Love being able to see the rounds in the mag at a glance.
We had 2 AXRs in the class as well. One ran great, one had just gotten back from Kent and had one hiccup but was generally trouble free. I do prefer the rail set up on the A3.
For my purposes the high larue mount for the T1 is a touch too high. I’ll be getting a medium one shortly.
Issues to work on:
The light rail is in a pretty good spot for a lefty, in terms of access. The challenge is that when using a 2 point sling, the sling ends up right in front of the light when you shoulder the gun. I’m going to need to put some thought into that.
The edges of the safety are sharp and need to be filed a bit. That’s easy.
I discovered that you can screw up reassembly and put the trigger group back in in such a way that you can disable the last round hold open device. That’s something I’ll need to be more careful about.
Manual of Arms:
Shooting the gun left handed poses some unique challenges. The school I teach for is teaching military reloads (where the magazine is retained, instead of jettisoned). Whether this is absolutely the right thing or not is out of scope. What I do know is that it significantly reduces the time advantage of reloading ARs. I think you can probably reload an Aug very nearly as fast as anything else, using a military reload. As a lefty, I’ve had to do some thinking on how best to do that. I think what I’ll end up with is having magazines on the left side of my body. When I hit slide lock, I’ll remove my left hand from the master grip on the gun, depress the mag release, remove and retain the mag, retrieve a new mag from the pouch , reinsert and slap the bolt release. I’ll use my right hand to keep control of the weapon using the forward grip. If a threat is so close that I don’t think that’s workable, I’ll transition to my pistol and use that. I’m not thrilled with the idea of giving up my master grip on the gun, but given the problems with using my right hand to reach a cross my body for the mag and reaching over or under the gun to chamber the round, I don’t see much of a choice. Thoughts on that would be most welcome. Having said that, I doubt that many fights between aussies or kiwis and bad guys have been decided on how quickly the aug mag can be changed. 42 round magazines also mitigate the relative speed issue quite bit.
Shooting the left eject aug right handed is something I have yet to work out. My issue is my right eye is crap, so whatever I come up with, I’ll still have to use my left eye. Canting the gun down will work ,but I’m going to have to figure out how to do the optics…
Next Steps:
Confirm zero, remove barrel, retest zero. Document POI shift if any.
Get medium mount for aimpoint Micro
Buy an e4 stock from MSAR. Apparently the aug will fit in it and may give me the ability to shoot with AR mags and have left hand eject. I’ll still run it primarily with aug mags, but given the amount of ar mags I have and the guys I shoot with, having stanag capability makes sense.
After the intial testing, I hooked up with my colleague who is far handier then I am to do the trigger tamer install and "trigger tuning" work. To do this work, you'll need a digitial camera, access to the internet, some 1500 grit sand paper, some 600 grit sand paper, some polishing compound, a dremel with cloth polisher, and some action majic from Brownells. Action magic is essentially a bottle of some sort of oil and another of some sort of liquid graphite type stuff.
First impressions: the directions included in the trigger tamer package were definately written by someone who did not have access to the schematic that they included - either that or they reallly need to employ a technical writer. They constantly refer to parts as "the rear part" or the "back portion" and talk about moving stuff "rewardly". The instructions on "scribing" the trigger bar/trigger area were confusing. Here is a hint, scribe the trigger bar, not the stock. My strong advice is to take high quality digital pictures as you take stuff apart, so that you can put it back together.
The Aug trigger was really totally usable as it was, but I ordered the trigger tamers so we decided to give it a try. Interesting enough, the pull measured between 10 lbs 13 ozs and 11 lbs. It didn't feel that heavy. Not even close. I think it has something to do with the fact that the trigger is not on a hinge, so maybe the measurement is skewed somewhat. At any rate, we followed the instructions, started with course sand paper, going to fine, then going to the polishing compound. Its important to take your time, take lots of pictures and make sure you get everything back together correctly.
The first time we put it back together we got a great trigger pull but the trigger would not reset. We went back in and adjusted the screw in the trigger bar. When all was said and done we ended up with a very smooth trigger. No grit, no bumps. It has a bit of take up and a crisp break and reset. Not like a match AR, but definately a vast improvement. We ended up with an 8 lb pull but it feels more like a 4 lb. It has a great reset. Sort of what a Glock carbine might feel like. Dry firing in the garage, the gun clicked without the aimpoint dot moving at all. I'm sure accuracy will be much improved due to the vastly smoother, slightly lighter trigger pull.
So all things considered, if you proceed slowly, have some basic tools, you can do this pretty easily. If you have a digital camera and a PC it will make your life much easier.
So all in all, I’m very impressed with the A3. It’s a small, accurate, reliable package. Whats not to like.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar