Ok, so I am hesitant to post this but in the spirit of honesty and in the theme of this thread here it goes...
A disclaimer first:
It is no secret that I have been a fan / supporter / believer in VGW and Mike Bush starting with the Black Ops and UGSW days. Mike has always been so very helpful and has taken more time than he needed to to answer my questions about his products well before VGW was a company, not to mention the Black Ops and UGSW rifles were so well done! When he started VGW I was on board from day 1 b/c I knew how the company would be ran and the product would be on point. After I met Jay @ Ft Benning a few years ago and shot the rifle they donated to raise money for the Sniper Association (which I purposely bid up as high as I could and ended up winning, for a great cause) I was sold. I watched Jay interact with everyone at the vender shoot and the banquet and could see how much they care about their customers, their products, and their company. My brother and I immediately placed orders for more V-22 rifles. They both were early models and we ran them hard along with the rifle I won and gave to my dad. All 3 have been 100% reliable and very accurate.
With that said I am not here to talk bad about ANY other company, I fully support the free market. I feel competition is what drives innovation and betters our sport. When Zermatt released the Rim X I knew I would eventually own one to test, after all I have owned every other high end precision rimfire repeater that has been made / sold in this country. So what I am about to say is simply my experience and personal opinion. Feel free to disagree with me, point out where you may think I am wrong, I am open to anything & I have very thick skin.
Sorry about the above, but in these times of special snowflakes who can’t take constructive criticism I felt it necessary. On to the point. I purchased a Zermatt Rim X barreled action that was new (0 rounds fired), installed a Timney R700 2 stage trigger and put it in a KRG Bravo chassis. I was going to use a T7T trigger but it would not fit in the Bravo. I checked the action for stress in the chassis, the fit was good. I found the trigger would not release the cocking piece unless the over travel screw was backed all the way off and at that the action was very stiff to open and close (bolt travel from in battery to out of battery, cocking the action, not front to back cycling). I determined the cocking piece of the firing pin had too much pressure from the trigger. When shooting it I had some light primer strikes (FTF) which confirmed the extra drag on the firing pin. I reached out to Timney and got no response, so I spoke with Ray @ Zermatt and he said it was common with that trigger and to reduce the cocking piece by 0.010” or he would be happy to send me a modified cocking piece. It is a very simple job so I did it myself in 0.002”-0.003” increments testing along the way and found that at 0.010” it was much better, not perfect (still tighter than I had prefer, but better). I decided to stop at his recommended amount. That solved the FTF. I also was struggling with setting the magazine catch up for perfect cycling of the round into the chamber without any damage to either the bullet being chambered or the on sitting below the bolt as it closed. I was able to find the mag height that made it all but disappear but it was VERY finicky to an exact location, a few thousandths of an inch up or down would cause problems. I do believe the chamber had a role to play in this, but it is hard to say how much without either trying a different barrel / chamber or modifying this one (which I did not want to do). All that said I was not exactly impressed with the Rim X, it seemed to me to be a solution looking for a problem. There are a few other design details that I am personally not a fan of and feel like may not be optimal for the best ignition, but those are my opinions and difficult to substantiate so I will not bring them up here. Ultimately I sold the Rim X after I was comfortable that it IS capable so being a reliable platform with work, I will NOT pass along a problem to someone else **I say this to point out that I believe the Rim X can be reliable and function pretty good.**
On to the comparison:
After selling the Rim X I ordered a V-22 from Mile High and another one from Altus (both Gen II Kukri barreled actions a 20” & a 22”). The 20” from Mile High arrived last night and after picking it up I inspected it and noticed some nice updates from the original V-22’s I have owned. I installed the same Timney trigger that was giving me trouble in the Rim X, and found there was no excessive drag / upward pressure on the cocking piece like there was with the Rim X. No modification needed, that is good. Then I installed the barreled action in the same KRG Bravo chassis that I had the Rim X in, the fit was also good (no stress in the bedding). I used the new magazine and 4 of the old magazines that I purchased years ago for the V-22 and loaded them all up with 10 rounds of Center X (same lot # that I was shooting in the Rim X). I cycled 50 rounds through the V-22 with 5 different magazines operating the bolt both fast and slow and had zero issues. I closely inspected all the rounds under good light and the only marks I could find on any of the 50 bullets were the imprints of the lands. Not even a scratch on them.
I hope to shoot it this weekend and I will report back then. I will also do the same with the 2nd barreled action when it arrives next week and will report back. Please keep in mind this is MY experience with 1 Zermatt Rim X and several Vudoo V-22 repeaters, it is not exactly a scientific study so take it for what it is. But now you know how I feel about the 2 options...