So I have aquired HK MR223 as my first CF rifle. Thanks for helping me with gun and ammo questions and all the other threads that I have just browsed through looking for information.
The gun's uses will be reservist shooting competitions and target shooting / plinking out as far I can find ranges open to. Might see use in hunting too.
I thought to give my view on it as there are not many MR223 reviews made by lowly peasants out there.
My final MR223 layout is:
-Ferro concepts slingster
-Aimpoint T2 - I am considering NXS or Kahles LPVO for it also, maybe covering expenses by selling the T2.
-Ase Utra muzzle break
-Ase Utra SL5i suppressor - is attached onto the muzzle break
-HK adjustable gas port - the older version. I enlarged one hole on the hand guard with a diamond file to adjust it with the hex key without any disassembly of the handguard. The hex key is stored in the receiver extension by few small magnets.
-Magpul MOE+ grip - HK grip was good but I wanted more friction, it got a bit slippery in the rain at least with bare hands
-Magpul XTM and some camo self grip band on it to soften the gripping surface on the handguard and help keep frostbites off.
For ammo testing I loaned an Atlas PSR bipod and an Athlon Cronus scope from my rimfire.
My background:
I have shot mainly Sako RK62 and 95 and only 10-30 shots with AR platform before purchasing this. Now I have put approx 2k through it and the AR platform has become quite familiar to me. Yes, this was quite a leap for me from the AK side. While waiting for it to arrive to shop I tested few other ARs like Noveske on a training session so I have small insight to ARs.
I chose MR223 A3 as it seemed to be a very good value over here in Europe and the best I could get for my purposes (reliability, accuracy). Got it slightly used for €2.6K ($2.8K). The 223 match ammo variety helped decision too.
As I picked it up in the shop I noticed it was too heavy for me and I am going to sell it away.
Joking, it indeed is heavier than most ARs but it does have a heavier barrel and as I am a user of milled AKs, the weight does not feel "wrong" to me.
Main grasp was the trigger. I have mainly used BnA, Sako and Anschutz triggers on rifles.. as new it was not up to spec for me. It however got tremendously better with use compared to when I first got the rifle.
I can explain how it first felt like:
You start pulling. The slack is easily removed, with just a hair of it. Then comes the pull itself. You keep on pulling, and can feel the sear working it's way. You continue to pull it, but it does not break until too late to the pull.
This caused the trigger break to be VERY hard to estimate, although the break was crisp. I even thought of buying a german UHL match trigger but I decided to not change it before trying few tricks.
I did get the trigger improved to a start with the paracord trick:
You can see that the right side of the sear wore out to a shiny state. I had to make few attempts to get an image of it, it is very close to mirror polish now. I expect the rest of the sear will follow it with time..
3/2/2021 Trigger is very smooth now, still breaks clean and is very nice to use. Hammering good groups is even easier now.
On the accuracy side I bought many different ammo brands for it and made a small test of which it prefers with the suppressor on.
Here is the link to the cloud file:
Briefly, the gun shoots decent group with all sorts of bulk (surprisingly low amount of variance between them) and loves match ammo! Soon I will finish testing Match ammo, particularly Sako Racehead, which has very good ballistics / MV and GGG 69gr which has the best price to performance ratio. I just need to put few hundred rounds again through it to get it dirty.
21/1/2021 I finished Sako Racehead testing, done over 3 separate range visits:
At 100 meters, 3 groups were 0.79"/0.69MOA and 1 (shot on concrete) 1.18"/1.07MOA. Making it 0.79MOA gun on average. Two of those groups (both 0.79") were done with a cold bore. 3/2/2021 I bought a lot more of Racehead and the current lot has 0.78MOA average accuracy, so quite predictable and I still have plenty of room to improve.
If collaged into 2x 10 shot groups, first one was 1.02" and the second 1.18". So also 10 shot group average is under moa (0.98MOA). It seems my scope mount needs threadlocker (taken care of now) as the hits were going low as the screw has unscrewed by 1/6 of a turn. The last 0.79" group was done rifle totally uncleaned, pretty much pitch-black over 3 days of range use with roughly 400 on the barrel and 300 rounds on action ran suppressed.
Ammo test in-depth:
Testing procedure was:
1. Shoot targets and get warmed up.
2. Take ISSF 10m air pistol target, use marker on to the backside to make a small POA and take it to the 100m line.
Shoot 2x5 of different ammo. I did 2 groups of 5 shots per ammo per range visit. So no ammo was tested during one day only. I also did not choose targets, I only made 4 "official" targets per cartridge and those were to be used, so no more than 4 were ever captured. I also tried to do 2 targets with the barrel dirty (200-400 rounds) and 2 targets cleaner. So far for match loads it has been successful. I did not notice dirty barrel doing any worse, even when nearing 1000 rounds.
3. Take picture of the target, flip it and scan to the targetscan app. Verify images match targets.
4. Input info to excel to be compared
I removed overall few shots that I pulled in a bad position, as my shoulder involuntary tensed up, most likely after getting annoyed by heavy mirage from the suppressor. Lapua Scenar had 1 shot removed and Lapua FMJ 2 shots. I do this as it is better to keep data as clean as possible, to test the bullet, not my skills. I now have a cover for the suppressor.
With 4 groups of 5 shots each, there should be enough data to cover for few lost shots.
I did get considerably better at precision when shooting the rifle with the match ammo. Considering I shot around 1k+ bulk in prone to get used to the gun without much change and noticed improvement after only 20-40 match rounds, it cannot be denied they work wonders on identifying poor habits and improving shooting skills.
But, scenars might get a second run being the first match cartridge to have been tested.
As an added bonus, I calculated the correlation between price and ammo: 0.91. So it looks like the cash thrown at ammo is not meaningless at all. But I was slightly surprised, before the test I expected to find some cheaper ammo that would run clearly better than others. 3/2/2021 I found PMC Bronze to be the best bulk ammo, I sort the long ones (by eyeballing) and do around 1.1-1.2MOA with them. They also had the smallest AMR of bulk ammo.
I also ran correlation between average mean radius (average, as in averaged from all groups) and group size and the correlation was 0.99.. So it seems they represent quite well each other (difference being Average Mean Radius counts in all 5 shots, ES only 2 farthest shots)
I am very satisfied with the gun now and cannot wait to shoot it more. It is freaking amazing. I have so far ran it in -2F for two days without any problems.
The gun's uses will be reservist shooting competitions and target shooting / plinking out as far I can find ranges open to. Might see use in hunting too.
I thought to give my view on it as there are not many MR223 reviews made by lowly peasants out there.
My final MR223 layout is:
-Ferro concepts slingster
-Aimpoint T2 - I am considering NXS or Kahles LPVO for it also, maybe covering expenses by selling the T2.
-Ase Utra muzzle break
-Ase Utra SL5i suppressor - is attached onto the muzzle break
-HK adjustable gas port - the older version. I enlarged one hole on the hand guard with a diamond file to adjust it with the hex key without any disassembly of the handguard. The hex key is stored in the receiver extension by few small magnets.
-Magpul MOE+ grip - HK grip was good but I wanted more friction, it got a bit slippery in the rain at least with bare hands
-Magpul XTM and some camo self grip band on it to soften the gripping surface on the handguard and help keep frostbites off.
For ammo testing I loaned an Atlas PSR bipod and an Athlon Cronus scope from my rimfire.
My background:
I have shot mainly Sako RK62 and 95 and only 10-30 shots with AR platform before purchasing this. Now I have put approx 2k through it and the AR platform has become quite familiar to me. Yes, this was quite a leap for me from the AK side. While waiting for it to arrive to shop I tested few other ARs like Noveske on a training session so I have small insight to ARs.
I chose MR223 A3 as it seemed to be a very good value over here in Europe and the best I could get for my purposes (reliability, accuracy). Got it slightly used for €2.6K ($2.8K). The 223 match ammo variety helped decision too.
As I picked it up in the shop I noticed it was too heavy for me and I am going to sell it away.
Joking, it indeed is heavier than most ARs but it does have a heavier barrel and as I am a user of milled AKs, the weight does not feel "wrong" to me.
Main grasp was the trigger. I have mainly used BnA, Sako and Anschutz triggers on rifles.. as new it was not up to spec for me. It however got tremendously better with use compared to when I first got the rifle.
I can explain how it first felt like:
You start pulling. The slack is easily removed, with just a hair of it. Then comes the pull itself. You keep on pulling, and can feel the sear working it's way. You continue to pull it, but it does not break until too late to the pull.
This caused the trigger break to be VERY hard to estimate, although the break was crisp. I even thought of buying a german UHL match trigger but I decided to not change it before trying few tricks.
I did get the trigger improved to a start with the paracord trick:
You can see that the right side of the sear wore out to a shiny state. I had to make few attempts to get an image of it, it is very close to mirror polish now. I expect the rest of the sear will follow it with time..
3/2/2021 Trigger is very smooth now, still breaks clean and is very nice to use. Hammering good groups is even easier now.
On the accuracy side I bought many different ammo brands for it and made a small test of which it prefers with the suppressor on.
Here is the link to the cloud file:
Briefly, the gun shoots decent group with all sorts of bulk (surprisingly low amount of variance between them) and loves match ammo! Soon I will finish testing Match ammo, particularly Sako Racehead, which has very good ballistics / MV and GGG 69gr which has the best price to performance ratio. I just need to put few hundred rounds again through it to get it dirty.
21/1/2021 I finished Sako Racehead testing, done over 3 separate range visits:
At 100 meters, 3 groups were 0.79"/0.69MOA and 1 (shot on concrete) 1.18"/1.07MOA. Making it 0.79MOA gun on average. Two of those groups (both 0.79") were done with a cold bore. 3/2/2021 I bought a lot more of Racehead and the current lot has 0.78MOA average accuracy, so quite predictable and I still have plenty of room to improve.
If collaged into 2x 10 shot groups, first one was 1.02" and the second 1.18". So also 10 shot group average is under moa (0.98MOA). It seems my scope mount needs threadlocker (taken care of now) as the hits were going low as the screw has unscrewed by 1/6 of a turn. The last 0.79" group was done rifle totally uncleaned, pretty much pitch-black over 3 days of range use with roughly 400 on the barrel and 300 rounds on action ran suppressed.
Ammo test in-depth:
Testing procedure was:
1. Shoot targets and get warmed up.
2. Take ISSF 10m air pistol target, use marker on to the backside to make a small POA and take it to the 100m line.
Shoot 2x5 of different ammo. I did 2 groups of 5 shots per ammo per range visit. So no ammo was tested during one day only. I also did not choose targets, I only made 4 "official" targets per cartridge and those were to be used, so no more than 4 were ever captured. I also tried to do 2 targets with the barrel dirty (200-400 rounds) and 2 targets cleaner. So far for match loads it has been successful. I did not notice dirty barrel doing any worse, even when nearing 1000 rounds.
3. Take picture of the target, flip it and scan to the targetscan app. Verify images match targets.
4. Input info to excel to be compared
I removed overall few shots that I pulled in a bad position, as my shoulder involuntary tensed up, most likely after getting annoyed by heavy mirage from the suppressor. Lapua Scenar had 1 shot removed and Lapua FMJ 2 shots. I do this as it is better to keep data as clean as possible, to test the bullet, not my skills. I now have a cover for the suppressor.
With 4 groups of 5 shots each, there should be enough data to cover for few lost shots.
I did get considerably better at precision when shooting the rifle with the match ammo. Considering I shot around 1k+ bulk in prone to get used to the gun without much change and noticed improvement after only 20-40 match rounds, it cannot be denied they work wonders on identifying poor habits and improving shooting skills.
But, scenars might get a second run being the first match cartridge to have been tested.
As an added bonus, I calculated the correlation between price and ammo: 0.91. So it looks like the cash thrown at ammo is not meaningless at all. But I was slightly surprised, before the test I expected to find some cheaper ammo that would run clearly better than others. 3/2/2021 I found PMC Bronze to be the best bulk ammo, I sort the long ones (by eyeballing) and do around 1.1-1.2MOA with them. They also had the smallest AMR of bulk ammo.
I also ran correlation between average mean radius (average, as in averaged from all groups) and group size and the correlation was 0.99.. So it seems they represent quite well each other (difference being Average Mean Radius counts in all 5 shots, ES only 2 farthest shots)
I am very satisfied with the gun now and cannot wait to shoot it more. It is freaking amazing. I have so far ran it in -2F for two days without any problems.
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