Intial impressions:
The gun looks fairly cool. It has Magpul BUIS, a MOE stock and grip. It features a full length quad rail grip with a low profile gas block and mid length gas system. The barrel is matte stainless steal in 16 inch with a 1-10 twist rate. Every thing a boy could want, right?
Not really. First off the buffer tube is out of spec so that sweet MOE stock fits like dads cowboy hat on his little buckaroo's head. And sad to say that this is just one of the fit issues. The MOE grip is no good either. You see the beaver tail is meant for an ar-15 not is big brother the AR-10 so it has a gap just shy of a half inch between it and the receiver. Nothing says shortcut like a gap of sunshine between the lower receiver and the grip that makes you think of a woman's whale tail. While very sexy on a lady its not a scene I want played out on my rifle. The quad rail is another joy to behold (fair warning, I'm not a ninja so I have no need for a quad rail so I don't tend to like them). As I said it is full length and features exactly zero QD points. It does however feature it's own very sophisticated sling attachment system that allows you to screw in a tradition stud (provided courtesy of DPMS) which allows you to position a sloppy stud and swivel tightly at completely the wrong angle or let it flop about like a streakers naughty bits as he attempts to elude fat security gaurds on the 40 yard line. Awesome. I did notice a very cool flash hider on this marvelous engineering achevment though, its an AAC 51 tooth adaptor that allows you to attach thier (AAC) suppresor. It looks meaner than Chuck Norris performing a Walker Texas Ranger head kick too. I am a Surefire man so this does me little good but good for DPMS for putting on one cool part right. All this for a mere 8 lbs and $1200. Over all I give DPMS an A for effort and a -C for results.
Reconstruction:
I decided that it was time to address some issues so I started with the handgaurd. I fixed the hand hambugering problem with some magpul ladder covers. When you've got a problem spread some magpul on it right? I digress. Next was the grip. I pulled off the magpul MOE and went to a BCM gun fighter grip. Best part, no girly whale tale! The buffer tube was just out of spec (I checked it with my Micrometer thinking it was a commercial stock on a mil spec buffer tube) it wasn't mil spec or commercial. It was too lager for mil spec and to small for commercial. So I decided to try a Magpul CTR. They always seem to fit a bit tighter. It worked. A little bit. Now the fit is like having a size twelve foot and wearing a a size 13 shoe, it works but it still feels wrong. Now time for a scope which means I won't need those cool Magpul flip up BUIS. Since this thing weighs just slightly less than Gilbert Grapes mom I decided to use my rock solid (by rock solid I mean I think they make it out of rocks) rock river scope mount and a mid range Nikon 3-9. After all it's a 16" .308 I'm not going to be winning any 1000 yard national championship matchs with this thing (turns out I was right about not winning any matches with this gun, more on that later though). With all these little irritations behind me it was time to swap the one cool part on the gun (AAC 51 tooth flash hider) out for a Surefire suppressor mount. I looked up the cost of the part which was 88-109 bucks depending on the outlet. With that in mind I called my gunsmith to have him pull it off and mount my Surefire. Wonder of wonders he answered the phone and told me that he actually had a few minutes to help and that it was a very light chore. He also stated that he just happened to have a special tool for the AAC adaptor that he had picked up through Midway USA. I was speechless. A gunsmith, no not just any gunsmith but my gunsmith accutualy answered the phone (and didn't call me back two days later) and had a little time to spare for me. Surely the gun gods were smiling upon thy. Nay, but I'll get to that in a minute. So I arrive promptly and we begin. My gun smith, we'll call him Yoda because he's small and wise, puts the upper in a vice block and tightens it into place in the vice on his bench. Next he pulls out the heating torch and starts warming up the threads through the flash hider to hopefully loosen the lock tight. I said hopefully right? Next he positions his supper cool AAC flash hider tool and begins to apply gentle torque. Read gentle. No dice. Still not wanting to get western with it he apply more torque. As I'm watching I notice that the supper spiffy quad rail is becoming misaligned from the upper and so does Yoda. Yoda being no first timer becomes concerned about damaging the barrel extension pin and upper receiver. "We'll have to do this backward" says Yoda. I though "We'll" hell your f***ing Yoda what's this got to do with me. Yoda was right sure enough we were both knee deep in to trying to take the upper apart backwards. We got the gas block and tube free easy enough which allowed Yoda to turn the handgaurd. Yoda quickly realized that the whole assembly was wanting to turn with the tension ring. Yoda said "what the hell, the dumb asses didn't lock tight the whole thing did they." Thirty minutes later and what I must say must go down and both the most creative gunsmithing and cursing that I've ever seen we had freed the barrel from the confines of the upper which had been imprisoned in what must have been a full bottle lock tight which was spread on the barrel nut like lube on a male performers unmentionable before a certain sex act featured in films of a less reputable nature. Now that the barrel was out he locked down tight in the vice and placed a heating torch on the flash hider and literally let it do it's thing for 12 minutes. Yoda grabed his special AAC tool again and went to work. Can you guess? Did it magically come free? Negative Ghost Rider the pattern is full. F***. Yoda looked at me and said "the only way that's coming off is with a pipe wrench". I knew deep down that this was going to suck but I also knew it had to happen. After all this wasn't my fault that it was amuture hour at DPMS and I figured that I could call them explain what happened and we'd work it out. I gave Yoda the goa ahead and he twisted it off. When it came free the barrel threads were completely filled with lock tight. "What an unbeleivable mess" said Yoda. To his credit he only damaged eight of the 51 teeth on the flash hider but thats enough to ruin it. I left Yoda's place down one flash hider and a hundred dollar bill, I'm sure more for the frustration of simple project turning into an epic fight than for the actuall labor.
To the range:
Accuracy was not very good. I broke the barrel in using my standard shoot and clean method. Once sighted in with some PMC rounds I proceed to shoot some groups. Factory ammo (Winchester, Federal, and PMC) all produced groups well over 2". I decided to go with a pet load that had a longer OAL. It's a 168 HPBT bullet charged with CFE 223. I was very happy with the 1 1/2 group that I got out of it. I think the groups would be much better if not for the creepier than a midget clown trigger. I could have summed it up with mil spec trigger I guess. All in all it's just not a super accurate gun and I needn't have feared winning any trophys or accolades with the DPMS G11 Recon.
DPMS Customer Service:
I called Today and spoke with Mike and his boss Dillon. I told them of Yoda and I's epic adventure down lock tigh lane. They explained in detail that they would not warranty any parts damaged by Yoda and that I should have sent the gun to them where there magical Umpa Loompas could have done better than Yoda and not harmed any parts. They also went on to state that there customer service was far better than most gun companies. He didn't want me to feel sore so he (Dillon) offered to sell me a new flash hider for the low low price of just 66 buck plus shipping to make it all better. Sweet deal right? I was actually shocked.
Bottom line:
Save your money for a Rock River I can't imagine that their customer service could be any worse than DPMS and you'll probably get a better gun. I'll be turning this gun into something else. I've decided to make a pig gun out of this one so I ordered up a .358 WIN barrel for it from McGowan precision here in Montana. I'll post with future up dates soon. It should be cool with 250gr bullets!
The gun looks fairly cool. It has Magpul BUIS, a MOE stock and grip. It features a full length quad rail grip with a low profile gas block and mid length gas system. The barrel is matte stainless steal in 16 inch with a 1-10 twist rate. Every thing a boy could want, right?
Not really. First off the buffer tube is out of spec so that sweet MOE stock fits like dads cowboy hat on his little buckaroo's head. And sad to say that this is just one of the fit issues. The MOE grip is no good either. You see the beaver tail is meant for an ar-15 not is big brother the AR-10 so it has a gap just shy of a half inch between it and the receiver. Nothing says shortcut like a gap of sunshine between the lower receiver and the grip that makes you think of a woman's whale tail. While very sexy on a lady its not a scene I want played out on my rifle. The quad rail is another joy to behold (fair warning, I'm not a ninja so I have no need for a quad rail so I don't tend to like them). As I said it is full length and features exactly zero QD points. It does however feature it's own very sophisticated sling attachment system that allows you to screw in a tradition stud (provided courtesy of DPMS) which allows you to position a sloppy stud and swivel tightly at completely the wrong angle or let it flop about like a streakers naughty bits as he attempts to elude fat security gaurds on the 40 yard line. Awesome. I did notice a very cool flash hider on this marvelous engineering achevment though, its an AAC 51 tooth adaptor that allows you to attach thier (AAC) suppresor. It looks meaner than Chuck Norris performing a Walker Texas Ranger head kick too. I am a Surefire man so this does me little good but good for DPMS for putting on one cool part right. All this for a mere 8 lbs and $1200. Over all I give DPMS an A for effort and a -C for results.
Reconstruction:
I decided that it was time to address some issues so I started with the handgaurd. I fixed the hand hambugering problem with some magpul ladder covers. When you've got a problem spread some magpul on it right? I digress. Next was the grip. I pulled off the magpul MOE and went to a BCM gun fighter grip. Best part, no girly whale tale! The buffer tube was just out of spec (I checked it with my Micrometer thinking it was a commercial stock on a mil spec buffer tube) it wasn't mil spec or commercial. It was too lager for mil spec and to small for commercial. So I decided to try a Magpul CTR. They always seem to fit a bit tighter. It worked. A little bit. Now the fit is like having a size twelve foot and wearing a a size 13 shoe, it works but it still feels wrong. Now time for a scope which means I won't need those cool Magpul flip up BUIS. Since this thing weighs just slightly less than Gilbert Grapes mom I decided to use my rock solid (by rock solid I mean I think they make it out of rocks) rock river scope mount and a mid range Nikon 3-9. After all it's a 16" .308 I'm not going to be winning any 1000 yard national championship matchs with this thing (turns out I was right about not winning any matches with this gun, more on that later though). With all these little irritations behind me it was time to swap the one cool part on the gun (AAC 51 tooth flash hider) out for a Surefire suppressor mount. I looked up the cost of the part which was 88-109 bucks depending on the outlet. With that in mind I called my gunsmith to have him pull it off and mount my Surefire. Wonder of wonders he answered the phone and told me that he actually had a few minutes to help and that it was a very light chore. He also stated that he just happened to have a special tool for the AAC adaptor that he had picked up through Midway USA. I was speechless. A gunsmith, no not just any gunsmith but my gunsmith accutualy answered the phone (and didn't call me back two days later) and had a little time to spare for me. Surely the gun gods were smiling upon thy. Nay, but I'll get to that in a minute. So I arrive promptly and we begin. My gun smith, we'll call him Yoda because he's small and wise, puts the upper in a vice block and tightens it into place in the vice on his bench. Next he pulls out the heating torch and starts warming up the threads through the flash hider to hopefully loosen the lock tight. I said hopefully right? Next he positions his supper cool AAC flash hider tool and begins to apply gentle torque. Read gentle. No dice. Still not wanting to get western with it he apply more torque. As I'm watching I notice that the supper spiffy quad rail is becoming misaligned from the upper and so does Yoda. Yoda being no first timer becomes concerned about damaging the barrel extension pin and upper receiver. "We'll have to do this backward" says Yoda. I though "We'll" hell your f***ing Yoda what's this got to do with me. Yoda was right sure enough we were both knee deep in to trying to take the upper apart backwards. We got the gas block and tube free easy enough which allowed Yoda to turn the handgaurd. Yoda quickly realized that the whole assembly was wanting to turn with the tension ring. Yoda said "what the hell, the dumb asses didn't lock tight the whole thing did they." Thirty minutes later and what I must say must go down and both the most creative gunsmithing and cursing that I've ever seen we had freed the barrel from the confines of the upper which had been imprisoned in what must have been a full bottle lock tight which was spread on the barrel nut like lube on a male performers unmentionable before a certain sex act featured in films of a less reputable nature. Now that the barrel was out he locked down tight in the vice and placed a heating torch on the flash hider and literally let it do it's thing for 12 minutes. Yoda grabed his special AAC tool again and went to work. Can you guess? Did it magically come free? Negative Ghost Rider the pattern is full. F***. Yoda looked at me and said "the only way that's coming off is with a pipe wrench". I knew deep down that this was going to suck but I also knew it had to happen. After all this wasn't my fault that it was amuture hour at DPMS and I figured that I could call them explain what happened and we'd work it out. I gave Yoda the goa ahead and he twisted it off. When it came free the barrel threads were completely filled with lock tight. "What an unbeleivable mess" said Yoda. To his credit he only damaged eight of the 51 teeth on the flash hider but thats enough to ruin it. I left Yoda's place down one flash hider and a hundred dollar bill, I'm sure more for the frustration of simple project turning into an epic fight than for the actuall labor.
To the range:
Accuracy was not very good. I broke the barrel in using my standard shoot and clean method. Once sighted in with some PMC rounds I proceed to shoot some groups. Factory ammo (Winchester, Federal, and PMC) all produced groups well over 2". I decided to go with a pet load that had a longer OAL. It's a 168 HPBT bullet charged with CFE 223. I was very happy with the 1 1/2 group that I got out of it. I think the groups would be much better if not for the creepier than a midget clown trigger. I could have summed it up with mil spec trigger I guess. All in all it's just not a super accurate gun and I needn't have feared winning any trophys or accolades with the DPMS G11 Recon.
DPMS Customer Service:
I called Today and spoke with Mike and his boss Dillon. I told them of Yoda and I's epic adventure down lock tigh lane. They explained in detail that they would not warranty any parts damaged by Yoda and that I should have sent the gun to them where there magical Umpa Loompas could have done better than Yoda and not harmed any parts. They also went on to state that there customer service was far better than most gun companies. He didn't want me to feel sore so he (Dillon) offered to sell me a new flash hider for the low low price of just 66 buck plus shipping to make it all better. Sweet deal right? I was actually shocked.
Bottom line:
Save your money for a Rock River I can't imagine that their customer service could be any worse than DPMS and you'll probably get a better gun. I'll be turning this gun into something else. I've decided to make a pig gun out of this one so I ordered up a .358 WIN barrel for it from McGowan precision here in Montana. I'll post with future up dates soon. It should be cool with 250gr bullets!
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