That’s a Desert Tactical Arms Gen 1 SRS, before they changed the company name to Desert Tech. Go to Page 1 of the DTA SRS, Covert thread in the bolt action section and you can see the Gen 1 and if you read through the 220 pages, you can see the changes that Desert Tech made to the rifle over the years, some changes were simply made without changing the generation of the rifle. It’s worth going back and reading to be sure you’re informed. But the rifle operates the same now as it did in the past.
To summarize the progression of the rifle;
- Gen 1: what you see here. Some of the Gen 1 chassis were tapped for a monopod and could be retrofitted.
- Gen 2: changed the barrel extension design a bit so the barrel indexes on a larger area instead of a small roll pin. The Gen 1 chassis can still use the latest barrels being made today, but you cannot use the Gen 1 barrel extension in the Gen 2 chassis. But you can use the Gen 2 barrel extension in a Gen 1 chassis. If that’s a big deal, the barrel extension can be swapped out by someone with the right tools; I’ve had it done. They also offered a shorter handguard and called it the Covert; the short handguard being the only difference between it and the SRS. Somewhere along the line they also made a change to how the handguard attaches to the chassis and they updated the recoil pad to something a little softer. They also made a change to the bolt handle shape and added the monopod somewhere along the line. Again, only Desert Tech knows what serial number they started on when some of these minor tweaks were made to the rifle. I may be missing some Gen 2 modifications but all the tweaks were made are creature comforts based on feedback from shooters and don’t actually change how the rifle functions at its core.
- SRS-A1: they made the cheekpiece adjustable, every rifle had a monopod, changed the bolt handle again, changed the handguard to remove the quad picatinny rails on the handguard, I think they changed the handguard attachment to the chassis method again, but that’s about it.
- SRS-A2: you can watch the Desert Tech video about what changes they made in the A2 since they explain it, but they were trying to lighten up the rifle so they shaved some metal off, removed the monopod and it’s now an option. But the biggest thing they did was lower the A2 price which is killing the value of the A1, Gen 2, and Gen 1. Their Marketing Dept claims the A2 is more 36% accurate but I think I’d rather see a test being done by a 3rd party.
I would have the guy pull the barrel and take a picture of the barrel extension. You can easily see the difference and it will talk you if this is a Gen 1 or Gen 2.
