Not when you actually try to chamber them in wierd funky cartridges that a lot of custom actions get challenged with. One of the locals was shooting our club match a couple of months ago and had an AI melt down during a speed stage. He's running a BRX in it. He's also the first guy to say about AIs, "It.....flat....out.....runs.". So while he's ripping shit apart I'm saying over his shoulder, " They just run!".
You know what runs in a 308 sized/ based action? 308 variant cartridges. There's two problems with comparing AIs to every custom action as a group.
1. Custom actions, by far, get challenged with trying to pull off everyone's bad ideas. AIs don't. You get what you get. This does speak to your point about it being a vetted system, but it also says that you can't compare them to"every custom action" because they aren't getting challenged to prove they can work in those same conditions. I bet if more people tried to run wildcats in AIs you'd start to see many of the same problems. I think a better comparison than which action is more reliable would be which cartridge facilitate a more reliable rifle.
2. The second problem is comparing AIs to every other custom action. You've now just made Surgeons responsible for every problem a Stiller has had. The net has been cast so wide that the available population of fuckups is endless.
