Re: Surgeon Bottom Metal good or bad?
The Surgeon was one of the first to have a low profile mag latch that doesn't hang out and yet not have to put your finger inside the trigger guard to access. Some view the later as a possible safety issue under stress.
The Surgeon was one of the first to offer a bottom metal, DBM or otherwise that was completely chamfered and deburred on all exterior edges in addition to a nicely beveled mag well.
Surgeon was not crazy about designing a magazine support in the front that would protrude past flush with the stock. I lobbied hard for them to go ahead and run it that way.
#1: Even if you are using a 5 round magazine, the bottom of the magazine extends below the bottom of the stock anyway.
#2: Any of magazines that protrude (all of them) are subject to getting creamed into rails, car doors, fences, etc. when in actual field use and you push the rifle into these type make do rests. Besides being not healthy for the magazine, some rifles that are borderline on their cartridge to boltface pickup can be made to misfeed if the magazine is biased out of position.
#3: There are two ways to get good magazine function and minimal rattle in a DBM system. One is to go for a minimal clearance between the mag well and the mag body. All of the systems that stop flush with the bottom of the stock have to do this. The other approach is to get a lot of Z-axis support controlling the magazine body similar to what the parent Accuracy International rifles and AICS do. After all, they are what these magazines were designed to work with. Surgeon and myself with the SENTINEL bottoms went this route.
The Surgeon allows best control of the magazine and still room for debris and gives protection to the magazine (see #2 above) on par with the original AICS design. Function over cosmetics every time.
There are a number of excellent DBM systems out there as well as 2nd party enhancements for those DBMs. I am just trying to answer your original question in regards to the Surgeon product. It is extremely well made. It is designed to be safe, realiable and user friendly.
