K&M M17s Bullpup UPDATE

[ddavis]

Who has one? From the research I've done, they seem to be well made and have good triggers, a robust design, etc. I was really hyped about the MDR and I'm glad I didn't jump on the bandwagon. I put a deposit down for a 20" 308 M17s a couple of weeks ago. K&M has a 10-16 week lead time.

I'm wondering what I should expect for accuracy with decent ammo like FGMM. Also, any reliability issues?


UPDATE:

Now that I've had some time with the rifle I can report my experience. I started out with some Saltech 150 grain surplus, basically Swedish M80 ball. First 20 round mag through the gun was flawless. I did notice that the bolt catch was flopping loosely like there was no spring behind it. It's an AR bolt catch so I'm familiar with it. Also there was no rear QD socket on my rifle, though there was a place for one.

The next trip I tried my AAC Cyclone. This gun has a 7 position gas block. The factory setting is "5" which gives you some wiggle room for weak ammo or a dirty gun. For a suppressor, it is recommended to start out at 12 o'clock/lowest setting which makes the marking on the adjustment knob look like a "T." It is typical to end up at position 2 to get the bolt to lock on an empty mag. With my TBAC Ultra 7, the bolt would lock back at the lowest setting. Putting several rounds in the mag the action was so violent that it was trying to shove 2 rounds in the chamber and bend one like a banana.

I spoke to Ken, owner of K&M and he said that the bolt catch should be just like an AR and that I could send it back or just check it out myself and he would send me a missing spring or plunger if it needed it. I pulled it apart and everything was there, but the plunger was pretty much crimped in place like a military primer. I was able to take the right size hex wrench and "ream" away some aluminum to free it up and it was fine after that. Another range trip (this time with an AAC Cyclone) proved that the bolt catch had nothing to do with the issues I was having.

Ken said send it in so he could check out the gas system. After a couple of weeks he said everything checked out, though he was hoping there was something wrong with it since it wasn't working with 2 different cans. He has a YHM Phantom and AAC 762 SDN IIRC that he is able to test with. He put the QD sockets on the rifle, replaced the recoil springs with some that he said should be stiffer since he didn't do the compression he usually does, and sent it back.

This time I tested it with my final 30 caliber can, a TTF Archangel from the group buy years ago. I don't know if the can has slightly lower back pressure or if the stiffer springs helped, but now it does not bend rounds like a banana. It still locks back the bolt with the M80 at the lowest setting. I did a little more extensive test with some other ammo and logged the results:

(T setting is 12 o'clock/lowest gas setting and I was single loading mags 3x to check for bolt lock)

PPU Steel case
T setting- locked bolt back 1 of 3 rounds. One round stayed in chamber and had to be smacked open.
Pos. 1- brass either barely trickled out at 5 o'clock or flipped back into receiver but bolt did lock back every time. Seems to barely be enough gas.
Pos. 2- bolt locks back firmly but spent brass flips back into receiver.
Pos. 3- bolt locks back firmly but spent brass flips back into receiver

PPU Brass case
T setting- brass ejects but bolt does not lock back
Pos. 1- bolt locks back, ejection seems strong at 1-2 o'clock
Pos. 2- bolt locks back firm, some brass falls back into receiver
Multiple rounds in mag at position 1 (seemed to be best for gas) would give me a dead trigger every few rounds

M80 Saltech
T setting- bolt locks back firm, ejection is strong
Pos 1- very strong ejection, brass is thrown at 5 o'clock
Multiple rounds in mag at T setting I had several dead trigger situations, but otherwise rounds seemed to chamber and eject fine.
Multiple rounds in mag at Pos. 1 I had dead trigger greater than 50% of time


So depending on ammo, I either get no bolt lock or what seems to be overgas situation which seems to be causing the hammer to follow or throwing brass back into the receiver. This was all done with the TTF Archangel 9" which seemed to have the best chance of the 3 cans I have.

TLDR: This gun is not a viable option if you want to run suppressed unless you have an OSS or MAYBE one of a handful of cans with really low backpressure. I haven't measured the gas system length but it appears to be between 8-10" on a 16" barrel. It is likely just too short to run with a can and therefore picky and needs infinite adjustment rather than 7 settings. If you don't use suppressors, the gun has ran fine so far. Low recoil, decent controls, etc. For me, it was meant to be a suppressed night hunting gun so I pretty much have no use for it now. It's going to sit in the safe for a couple years until I can come up with a can that works for it. Pretty shitty that it's going to cost me another can and stamp to make it work when I already have 3 well made 30 caliber cans.

-Dan

 

[ddavis]

Anyone here have one?

 

[ShooterwithNoName]

Free bump, I dont have one but I'm interested in one possibly in the near future.

ddavis, I'm hoping that someone here has one they can chime in on. Looks like a quality piece, hell I'm looking forward to when yours comes in. Hopefully you can let us know how you like it. I'm in the market for a bullpup too so I'm interested in what it's like also.

 

[Kickin45]

Looks much more promising than the RDB

 

[Potss]

Agreed, keep us posted.

 

[ddavis]

I've got an RDB with about 500 rounds through it and I really like it, but just don't have that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you know you can trust something. I'll have the K&M and the RDB at the same time to compare even though it will be 5.56 vs 308. I'll post a full update in a month or so when I get the K&M.

 

[Kickin45]

?
Are you meaning the RFB in .308?

 

[shoobe01]

Ugh, so someone has started making the old Bushmaster M17s again? With no obvious changes? It was always wonky, and is now something like a 40 year old design.

Innovation!

 

[ddavis]

?
Are you meaning the RFB in .308?

My RDB is a 556 and the M17 will be a 308. The RDB shoots pretty consistently 1.5 MOA with generic 75 bthp handloads. I haven't been able to find a bad review on the M17 and in fact most folks say the trigger is good regardless of it being a bullpup. The only real downside is that it is strictly a right handed gun and it looks like the awning on an RV.

 

[Potss]

Ugh, so someone has started making the old Bushmaster M17s again? With no obvious changes? It was always wonky, and is now something like a 40 year old design.

Innovation!

Looks like someone needs to learn how to read. Almost everything has changed....

 

[ddavis]

Original post updated with info. Bump.

 

[shoobe01]

Okay, you got me. Actually, in November of last year, but it arrived at the end of April of 21, for my birthday present to myself, and now I am shooting it, here’s my excessively-detailed take. So far. Must do much more with it.

First of all:
This is by a wide margin the worst-marketed gun of all time. When I posted my last response to this thread I had actually been on the K&M site for a few minutes, and skimmed a couple other reviews. I still had zero idea it had been broadly reworked. The All New 2021 Toyota Sienna is also not all new, so just /saying/ it is new doesn't really do it. Much later I stumbled across an article that had a photo of the bolt, and worked my way back from there to figure out it was THIS gun. Ah... ha!

Also, “M17S” was a stupid name for the old Bushmaster, and is criminally dumb for the new K&M products. And now we have the Sig service pistol so good luck searching any gun forum for M17S anymore. None of my friends STILL can even remember what it is called. It’s “the weird bullpup.”

The name is dumb not least because K&M does lots of Bushmaster updates and parts also! Once you know all that, it is still very hard to find relevant info, or even the correct K&M disassembly video as they support both, fully. So, not just annoying, but with limited knowledge and a small number made so a tiny user community, this actively impacts my ability to use and enjoy the gun.

I like the AR18 (a carrier on two round rails!) and like almost all weird stuff that works. I have long dreamed of finding stuff like a Leader Dynamics T2 on a shelf gathering dust in some backwater gun store. We even were teased a few years back that a nouveau T2 was gonna be made in the US but that seems to have blown away on the wind like the US made EF88s.

Anyway, the new K&M M17S guns are to my mind, basically bullpup Leader Dynamics rifles. Or maybe slightly updated Armtech C30s. This is not just some styles, or going back to the history of where the Bushmaster gun came from, but all the way to the triangular bolt. Or suspicious things like that K&M shared a table with (or were at least next door to) Charles St.George showing off his .50 version of a suspiciously-similarly laid out Bullpup at SHOT 2016. Hmmm...

Overall Impressions:
Heavier than expected but balance is good. Easy to shoot. Offhand, blast away and it points where I want, etc.

I hate to say things that are weird are ugly, but man that receiver extrusion does look like leftover parts from an RV awning. Most of it is nice, but that’s not great, and a few other odd style choices I wouldn’t do.

Almost too short at 16” to shoot by itself. Very blasty. I have shot 16” 308s before and short 9mm and 5.56, but bullpup really matters when it gets to 30 caliber, as it is real close to your face. With a suppressor, a delight though. A nice short carbine, even with the suppressor length and weight, and enough adjustment (once I got it dialed in, see below) that it’s about as calm as I can imagine a .308 being.

It is built like a very nice tool room prototype. Impeccable finish and all (it may not be made, but have appeared as a result of incantations), but screws where you’d expect dovetails and detents. Red Loctite, because no other mechanical retention. Some parts are hard to re-assemble without lots of tools. No way to access the gas piston (say, for cleaning) without removing the barrel at some length, and then… um, I am not sure even then. I have had the barrel off a couple times and still don’t get how to disassemble the gas pistol it without removing roll pins. So I have not.

Very flat and soft recoiling once I got it tuned. Can see muzzle flash and hits through the magnified scope at quite close ranges.

Very accurate. More so than I expected. Always hits as I expect, and while I have only shot a few for group, at 100 yds, GM308M2 is just over 1”. Good “M80” ball like the Saltech or Hirtenberger is 2.5-3 moa. And garbage like Indian or Russian steel that runs as bad as 18 moa in my FAL or a 308 SMLE I had, so I just never even use it, will do more like 5” in this gun. It seems to get all the accuracy it can out of most all ammo. Nice.

I run a YHM Nitro 30 with the comp on the front on this. I use the YHM brake/QD mount.

Range Report:
It IS picky on gas settings. Everything else I have with adjustable gas will run great with the same basic type of ammo even when I change brands. Not this. And I'll note, all have the same exterior ballistics within a very narrow margin so... weird. Almost like a .22, in the ammo-picky nature.

Too much gas is a catastrophe. Lots of stovepipes and worse. It likes to trap the spent round between the bolt or new cartridge and the third guide rod, flexing it a concerning amount. Once it even managed to get between the bolt carrier and left side of the receiver. That took stripping to remove. Too little gas and you better get used to mortaring or barricade clearing to get the case out. The charging handle is strong though, I now know for sure!

Some gas settings and other reliability notes for the four types of ammo I tried with it, with the suppressor:

• Saltech - 100% reliable at Gas 1
• Hirtenberger - 100% reliable at Gas 2. Very much not at Gas 1.
• Malaysian – No failure to feed, or eject at Gas 1, but numerous light strikes still. Too bad, very accurate ammo.
• WPA (steel cased) — Almost entirely unreliable, Gas 1, 2, or 3. No light strikes, but consistently failed to eject cleanly, sometimes to feed, etc. I am not a big fan of steel case but it has never caused stoppages in any caliber, any gun I have had before. So just need to remember this and keep it in the "Crap .308" ammo can in the back of the shelf still.

I... forget the setting for GM308M2. I can look if it matters as it is written down, but it is not next to me.

The poster child for Pistons Run Clean And Cool. I can tell it gets warm after a couple rapid fire mags. That’s it. Never IS hot, doesn’t even smell hot. Just some heat wafting from inside, but the aluminum receiver you grab onto never gets hot.

By far the cleanest running gun I've ever seen. Bunch of suppressed and the lower is still factory fresh, I literally haven’t cleaned the lower at around 300 rounds, most suppressed. I wiped a few bits to make sure there’s no invisible layer of carbon and no, nothing. The mags and ammo on top of them are clean, which doesn’t even happen on my other gas piston guns. My bolt rifle literally gets dirtier in normal operation. The NP3 is awesome as always, but also the clean shooting means after a few hundred rounds when I pulled the bolt carrier apart, no dirt under there.

The trigger is… well, it’s very very good. Not my favorite, but easily second or third favorite of all the things I own. Anyway, that’s simply outstanding, stunning trigger for a bullpup and everyone who makes a bullpup must immediately give K&M a few million dollars to borrow his design. The key bits are dirt simple also, in the sense of right out there in the open so could be cleaned easily, and with minor tweaks could probably have field-disassembly without tools so could be easily cleaned even if immersed in mud etc. Amazing work. Worthy of wider knowledge and praise.

Trigger IS a tidge gritty at first. Good weight, like the sorta two-stage nature, but needs some time to smooth out. I initially thought I might do stuff like add some UHMW plates or bushings, but even by 100 trigger presses it was notably better. It came around around 4.5#, and after 200 rounds or so I played with it, decided on about 3.5# (my trigger gauge isn’t that precise). It doesn’t feel crazy lighter, but feels… better. For a self-loader, not sure how much lower I’d want to go anyway, so I feel happy about all this.


Field Report:
I have, a couple times, done day and night walks in the wild with it, for ostensible hunting or just as an excuse to practice movement, etc. on the way to the firing point for target shooting.

Heavy. It is notably heavy compared to what I normally carry, my 12.5” 5.56 AR, even with suppressor. Balance is a bit better, so it hangs off the 2 point sling fine, but when carrying horizontally or just rotating that way to change how it nags my shoulders, does so easier than conventional layouts.

Painted, very comfy in all weather so far. Black was atrocious in the sun of summer Kansas, so I had to. Sad they do not offer in anodized colors anymore.

Expected, but LOP being longish and not adjustable wasn’t great for snapshooting or even using the scope to observe while on the move. LBE then ruck is a lot of stuff to push the butt out.

Other Notes:
These are in no particular order, some are things I like, some are things I do not, often with additional info provided to try to document and help anyone else who finds this.

It’s a bit heavy. On purpose, it has heavy walled aluminum in the upper and explicitly wasn’t built with a left ejector port to assure it is strong in the off chance it blows up. Much like the other lack of marketing, this is a secret for no good reason. Ken did an out of battery blow-up test, and there was zero deformation of receiver. So you can tell your friends who are afeared of bullpens it’s not going to kill them the next time they say “a bomb next to their face” and so on.

Too long a grip screw, like those that come with many aftermarket ones like the TD grips, hit the fire control group, interfere with it. Added a couple M5 lock washers as a shim, that was enough.

Instructions like to disassemble, are out of date, incomplete or confusing. Wrong screw type, doubles up some instructions, skips others. Took a video to halfway put the charging handle back in. Halfway because it still made some assumptions that I sorta had to finagle, didn’t work as shown. After I got it hung up and had to pull the barrel again to get it in, I have resorted to lining up the barrel, then halfway screwing down the charging handle, then tightening the barrel.

The trigger is an Elftmann Tactical adjustable one but the manual barely mentions it, and eventually I found a video where it doesn’t say which way to dial the screw to adjust the “poundage.” I found it on the ELF site, it’s clockwise for lighter if you were wondering. I over-adjusted it, and after 20 rounds at the low weight started getting dead triggers (maybe following?). I turned it tighter one turn, and it felt the same but runs 100% so: check for reliability after adjusting.

The barrel is so tight into the receiver it took (careful!) hammering to get it disassembled, screwing (before assembly, without the washers) to pull it back together. However, it is entirely repeatable. NO re-zero needed after removal and re-assembly.

The gun is broadly considered to be “maintenance-free.” I am 94% sure Ken would object to me calling it that, but even when saying its not that big a deal to remove e-clips and unscrew the bolt carrier to get the bolt out, it was made clear the guide rods do not come off the guide rod back plate. But… at around 100 rounds I did a fairly full teardown, to inspect it all because new, because I am interested, and because of the stoppages. And indeed, the third “guide rod” was about to fall off. Loctite didn’t hold. So I am attempting to reject their method of assembly for the barrel and most parts, and using torque instead of Loctite. All torque values are written down, I’ll re-torque to check periodically and since an experiment, I have witness marks on many times to check they aren’t trying to fall off.

When I mentioned that heat or soaking then unscrewing was “involved” to disassemble, Ken disagreed, so all about approaches to design, etc. E-clips though!!!

Likewise, it is not free floated. Why? Because just an aluminum tube, they say the barrel won’t hold without the forward attachment. They bolted to the bottom, but extruded aluminum tubes or sheet steel channels are common in firearms design. Everyone else just builds a trunnion they rigorously attach to the receiver tube so… to me this seems a choice, not a constraint. It would be fun to sit down with them, and look at their prototypes and dig into the design philosophy.

Field stripping is harder than expected to assemble. Front pin has no locating so you can’t put it back together like a FAL or AR, but I have to push it ALL together, and I have ended up doing the back pin first. Note that it comes apart easier than many, which is great when there’s a horrid stoppage. You can even disassemble with the bolt back partway! One of the real issues on full sized FAL or any AR on a bad stoppage.

The crossbolt safety is odd. Not awful to switch to fire though very, very different manual of arms from every other gun I own, but engaging it requires the left hand. And yes I put the safety on exactly as often as I take it off. Every time I move, set it down, etc. In addition, pretty easy when new at least to miss, push the front takedown pin instead of the safety lever!

Speaking of, the takedown pins have pretty soft detents. Bump them out of fully locked pretty easily. If nothing else, hollow pins to allow thru-wiring to lock them in would have been nice to have.

Ambi bolt/mag controls are pretty darned good. I exclusively use the left side mag release and it works great with the overall layout of the gun. Very quick to reload. Better than any other 308, with those big mags. Mags go in and drop very smoothly.

The rear has two rotating sling sockets. That’s it. Nothing on the front at all. And swivels always drive me nuts as they swivel. So they tangle. This should have sling loops, and esp at the rear, several places they could have been integrated into the lower or upper receiver machining. I removed the right side rear sling socket and carefully used some center punches to dent the tube ever so slightly, to turn it into a rotation-limited socket.

I tried added a Magpul socket to the front left and… it’s not actually MLOK. I used their rails and got confused without comparing as they are identical in operation but totally different. Larger, and also just different pitch. Weirdly to me, as I don’t know why not just use standard sizes for things like this?

One receiver length. I might have gone with a longer barrel if I could get more rail space for things like clipons, etc. I am a bit surprised they didn’t have the receiver end at the front of the trigger guard, then handguards interchange to whatever length you want. Could probably have sold more aftermarket bits.

It’s not cheap to old people like me or commodity rifles, but at around $2100 all up, shipped, it’s a very good deal for the quality and uniqueness. Hard to believe that cheap for the number they are making.

Delivery time (21 weeks) is entirely on target for custom stuff. But it’s not like you can order custom anything so feels long. I assume that’s just funding, etc.

Gas regulator has enough ranges, and is marked well enough to index. But also hard to get to and see above about it being picky so you’ll either have to shoot one ammo ever or do this a lot. To change you get a long screwdriver and point the gun at yourself. Also unclear regarding directions, it is a normal rotating-to-vents gas plug, not a screw. So it says you “start” at position 1 then rotate clockwise but it just goes around and around so I go two clicks between suppressed and not 7.

Weirdest thing about the trigger assembly is that it has a half cock. And I can’t tell why but sometimes when I fail to drop the bolt, I don’t get a dead trigger but something like pulling through the half cock, so I think the gun failed to fire, then go to cock it and… no force. Drop the bolt, fire. Not sure what is happening here, but it’s weird.

It came with a T-shirt! I could have used a few stickers as well, but SO many places let you buy swag instead of giving it away for self promotion!

Final Words:
In case anyone takes any criticism too much to heart: while not yet reliable enough to be the first thing I grab when "SHTF". It is hard to conceive of a situation that would result in me selling it also. I like and will eventually be spending a LOT more money to put more scope on and make it if not a semi-auto precision rifle, at least something rather "DMR" like. I'd like it if this was reliably a 600 yd gun.

 

[shoobe01]

Update: you have to clean it /sometimes/.

Once dialed in and with ammo it likes, runs like a top, but I am somewhere over 500 rounds (maybe a lot more, I don't log this gun) and all of a sudden, won't fire two rounds in a row. Naturally a day I brought friends to the range.

Got home and pulled it apart: filthy. See the photo above, and the inside was black. Seafoam was under there, but took a lot of cleaning to find it.

I have too many dead reliable guns, that I only have to oil when they start to feel slow, then clean when I get home, or things like bolt guns that feel dirty and I also clean immediately then. This tricked me with short term being-clean and reliability, so I let it get out of hand. Will have to remember to give a basic strip and wipe down after each session to stay ahead of it.

 

[shoobe01]

This is all shared not as a gripe in case it comes across that way, but in the interest of sharing info for anyone else who might run into this issue.

So, I was wrong when I said that the gun runs clean. See, it only /appears/ to run clean.

The outside of the bolt carrier, and bolt, are as clean as anything you'll see. Guide rods can get dirtier. Not sure why but not that hard to push the carrier to the end and wipe them; not perfect but keeps ahead of it so no problem if you don't take the guide rods off the carrier.

Now... around 500 rounds my gun started having stoppages. Failures to extract and/or eject, often enough resulting in double feeds. Tried a lot of stuff with ammo, mags, grabbing it differently. I got all the tools out and took the barrel off to take the gas system off and clean that. No change. Which is good, as the gas system was dirty but not dirty enough to cause stoppages yet.

But when I finally dug into the bolt I found around the dirtiest internals I have ever seen. Like the inside of the bolt group on an HK roller lock after a whole weekend. Sludge, and packed in there, not just dirty but quantities of dirt that made it clear why it was failing; the sludge was physically getting in the way of the bits moving far enough.

Cleaned and just got back from the range — yes, in the heat — and it's great. Runs like a top again.

Okay, you may say: duh, clean it. But remember two things:

• Looks clean. Really really deceptively clean. Other things that get dirty inside at least have the grace to leak so you can see the shmutz coming out the gaps. No hints here till I got inside.
• Hard to disassemble. Screws that take drivers to remove and torque wrenches to put back, roll pins. SMALL roll pins that are hard to get out, and the bolt is round so it's a PITA to get it stable enough for removal or reinstall. Oh, and that's me with torque; it came with loctite and rocksett so normally it's heat or a day of soaking in water.

So now we know, and around 500 rounds I'll take some shop time and disassemble it.