Ok guys.
I have to voice my opinion here. First off let me set the stage.
I am a former Marine Scout-Sniper with over 15 years experience both operational as a team leader and Chief Scout, civilian sniper instructor and now I am a platoon commander for a Scout-Sniper platoon on a foreign project.
We use the DSR-1 exclusively right now(not my decision), at least until our M107A1s and Oberland M6s arrive.
We have been training and using the DSR-1 in both .338 and .308 for the past year. Each rifle has averaged about 4k rounds of .308 and about 1k rounds of .338.
Let me break down how the rifle has performed in tactical use and on the static range. I will work my way from muzzle to butt as I talk about the not-so-fine points of this rifle.
The suppressor:
It's crap. It mounts using a paddle clamp which is attached to an unusually heavy chunk of aluminum behind the actual suppressor. The aluminum mounting block adds far too much weight to the rifle and the design is beyond poor. In fact, the suppressor is so much heavier than the average type(because of the gigantic mounting block), that it is extremely detrimental to barrel harmonics. So much so, that when the rifle is fired, the barrel visibly vibrates like a diving board after a diver vaults off of it.
After moderate use, the paddle clamps have ALL began to flap up out of the locked position into the fully open and unlocked position after almost every shot. In some cases and at random, they will even come loose so quickly when the rifle is fired, that the entire suppressor will leap off of the end of the barrel!
The chassis:
The chassis is poorly designed. It is designed in two main pieces. These pieces bolt together using hex bolts that WILL come loose from the shock and recoil of normal shooting that other rifles would shrug off like nothing. So you have to be OCD about constantly making sure they are torqued down and tight. The barrel mounts into the chassis with 3 bolts that torque down what I will call a "tension bushing". This literally and simply squeezes the barrel tightly into the chassis. The problem with these three bolts is that they also love to come loose during firing. When I say loose, I don't mean severely. They only come loose enough to lose their proper torque, sometimes as much as 2 full Newton meters. You also have to be OCD about checking the torque on these every 20-30 rounds or else your groups will start to open up terribly and your zero will be lost. This is horrible. Imagine an operational sniper rifle where the sniper has to carry a torque wrench in his bag, politely asking the bad guys to pause the fight while he torques his barrel bolts back down.
The grip:
The grip is not ambi. The contour of the grip makes it very uncomfortable for a lefty to shoot. Also, the bolt that secures the grip to the chassis love to come loose as well. Which means that during firing, you get a grip that is dangling from its mounting bolt.
"Fix the bolts with Loc-Tite" you say?, well, with the price that DSR gets for these rifles...should the end user have to do that? Shouldn't DSR have incorporated a more secure method of holding the rifle together?
The stock:
The adjustable cheek rest is also not ambi so lefties are SOL at getting a comfortable cheek weld. Also, because of the bullpup design, if you are lefty, you MUST break your cheek weld when you cycle the bolt or you will whack yourself in the mouth with the bolt handle.
The bipod:
The bipod is a joke. It is a top-mount design which suspends the rifle beneath it. This means that it's not possible to lock the rifle down when you get it set up. The rifle will always have a great amount of play which forces the shooter to exert additional effort and attention to making sure there is no cant in the rifle. The bipod also is so poorly designed that it is not compatible with most front-mount night vision devices. If you are lucky, you can move your scope mount as far back as is tolerable in order to get just enough room to fit the night vision device between the objective lens and the bipod block. If you can not do this, then you have to remove the bipod. Oh, and did I mention that there is NO option at all to mount any sort of bipod anywhere on the bottom of the forward stock?
Operation:
The rifle can be very accurate. But no more so than any number of very well built rifles available worldwide. So there is no "trade-off" with any component, feature or capability that this rifle gives. The action is VERY susceptible to dirt and sand. If you get a wind that is high enough to kick up any amount of dust or dirt, and small amount of debris gets blown into the action, you can just stand the hell by to get a very sticky bolt and frequent and random misfires.
The scope:
If you get the full deployment kit from DSR you will receive the rifle with a Zeiss-Hensoldt 6-24X72mm optic. This optic has good clarity and works well but is a second focal plane scope. Seriously DSR? Over $20k USD for a full deployment kit and you include a second focal plane scope which renders the mil feature of the reticle useless unless the magnification is kept at 12X?
My score for the DSR-1 on a scale of 1 to 10 is a definite 3 and only because it actually looks pretty cool, but thats the only reason it gets a 3. I would rather use a cheap Polish PSL or Iraqi Dragunov knock-off than this rifle. It is a combat liability.
I have to voice my opinion here. First off let me set the stage.
I am a former Marine Scout-Sniper with over 15 years experience both operational as a team leader and Chief Scout, civilian sniper instructor and now I am a platoon commander for a Scout-Sniper platoon on a foreign project.
We use the DSR-1 exclusively right now(not my decision), at least until our M107A1s and Oberland M6s arrive.
We have been training and using the DSR-1 in both .338 and .308 for the past year. Each rifle has averaged about 4k rounds of .308 and about 1k rounds of .338.
Let me break down how the rifle has performed in tactical use and on the static range. I will work my way from muzzle to butt as I talk about the not-so-fine points of this rifle.
The suppressor:
It's crap. It mounts using a paddle clamp which is attached to an unusually heavy chunk of aluminum behind the actual suppressor. The aluminum mounting block adds far too much weight to the rifle and the design is beyond poor. In fact, the suppressor is so much heavier than the average type(because of the gigantic mounting block), that it is extremely detrimental to barrel harmonics. So much so, that when the rifle is fired, the barrel visibly vibrates like a diving board after a diver vaults off of it.
After moderate use, the paddle clamps have ALL began to flap up out of the locked position into the fully open and unlocked position after almost every shot. In some cases and at random, they will even come loose so quickly when the rifle is fired, that the entire suppressor will leap off of the end of the barrel!
The chassis:
The chassis is poorly designed. It is designed in two main pieces. These pieces bolt together using hex bolts that WILL come loose from the shock and recoil of normal shooting that other rifles would shrug off like nothing. So you have to be OCD about constantly making sure they are torqued down and tight. The barrel mounts into the chassis with 3 bolts that torque down what I will call a "tension bushing". This literally and simply squeezes the barrel tightly into the chassis. The problem with these three bolts is that they also love to come loose during firing. When I say loose, I don't mean severely. They only come loose enough to lose their proper torque, sometimes as much as 2 full Newton meters. You also have to be OCD about checking the torque on these every 20-30 rounds or else your groups will start to open up terribly and your zero will be lost. This is horrible. Imagine an operational sniper rifle where the sniper has to carry a torque wrench in his bag, politely asking the bad guys to pause the fight while he torques his barrel bolts back down.
The grip:
The grip is not ambi. The contour of the grip makes it very uncomfortable for a lefty to shoot. Also, the bolt that secures the grip to the chassis love to come loose as well. Which means that during firing, you get a grip that is dangling from its mounting bolt.
"Fix the bolts with Loc-Tite" you say?, well, with the price that DSR gets for these rifles...should the end user have to do that? Shouldn't DSR have incorporated a more secure method of holding the rifle together?
The stock:
The adjustable cheek rest is also not ambi so lefties are SOL at getting a comfortable cheek weld. Also, because of the bullpup design, if you are lefty, you MUST break your cheek weld when you cycle the bolt or you will whack yourself in the mouth with the bolt handle.
The bipod:
The bipod is a joke. It is a top-mount design which suspends the rifle beneath it. This means that it's not possible to lock the rifle down when you get it set up. The rifle will always have a great amount of play which forces the shooter to exert additional effort and attention to making sure there is no cant in the rifle. The bipod also is so poorly designed that it is not compatible with most front-mount night vision devices. If you are lucky, you can move your scope mount as far back as is tolerable in order to get just enough room to fit the night vision device between the objective lens and the bipod block. If you can not do this, then you have to remove the bipod. Oh, and did I mention that there is NO option at all to mount any sort of bipod anywhere on the bottom of the forward stock?
Operation:
The rifle can be very accurate. But no more so than any number of very well built rifles available worldwide. So there is no "trade-off" with any component, feature or capability that this rifle gives. The action is VERY susceptible to dirt and sand. If you get a wind that is high enough to kick up any amount of dust or dirt, and small amount of debris gets blown into the action, you can just stand the hell by to get a very sticky bolt and frequent and random misfires.
The scope:
If you get the full deployment kit from DSR you will receive the rifle with a Zeiss-Hensoldt 6-24X72mm optic. This optic has good clarity and works well but is a second focal plane scope. Seriously DSR? Over $20k USD for a full deployment kit and you include a second focal plane scope which renders the mil feature of the reticle useless unless the magnification is kept at 12X?
My score for the DSR-1 on a scale of 1 to 10 is a definite 3 and only because it actually looks pretty cool, but thats the only reason it gets a 3. I would rather use a cheap Polish PSL or Iraqi Dragunov knock-off than this rifle. It is a combat liability.
