Scar16 tips

[VERO1]

I walked into a deal on an unfired FN Scar16. Never played with one before. Are there any things I should know about it, any must have accessories, never do this's,etc?

[CommsNBombs]

Theyre pretty damn nice stock. Had a SCAR-H when I was stationed in Flordia, dont see why the civilian version wouldnt be as good.

The one thing to watch out for is the reciporcating charging handle, it'll pull your shots to the right a little and give you a nice thwack in the hand (or face if youre a lefty)

The 45 degree safety is a little wierd getting used to, as almost everything else is 90, it took a bit to not want to snap it off by pushing it down lol.

Congrats on the buy, its a really nice rifle - by Operators for Operators lol.

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk

[Danger Rane]

If it is literally new from the factory be sure to break it down and do a really good cleaning/degreasing, particularly of the moving parts assembly and the gas regulator/piston area. There is not usually anything real noticeable like blobs of cosmoline or anything like that, but the corrosion preventative they use at the factory turns into quite a gummy mess after a couple mags.

The gas regulator once reinstalled after degreasing should be in the 12 o clock position for normal use. The other position is to aid proper cycling when used suppressed.

As noted above, the reciprocating charging handle can take some getting used to but it is self correcting. It is easily switched to either side for shooter preference. I've seen this hit and tear thumbnails off of several guys' support hands, so be cognizant of it and watch new shooters to the gun closly or it will bite them.

Some guys like to switch out the flash hider, as the original issue had a bit of a tuning fork "twang" to it with each shot (particularly on the 16/Light)

New the rifle should come with a torque wrench for the barrel screws (barrel is easily switched out at the user level). If it does not have it be sure to get one as loose or stripped screws were some of the biggest issues with these during initial fieldings to the SOF units.

If your Google fu is strong you can find a couple companies making after market trigger modules for these which might be worth looking into. On that note, even though at first glance the trigger module on the SCAR looks very similar to an AR lower, it is not the SN# controlled part, the receiver itself is. So you can order a trigger module and have it shipped right to you.

I was fortunate enough to be on one of the Early User Assessments for the SCAR several years ago. We shot the crap out of them for 6 weeks straight and even did some dunk test shooting with them that had most of us expecting a catostauphic failure in our hands, but they kept chugging along like no body's business. After the initial operational fielding of both heavys and lights it was decided that the light was not enough of an improvement over the M4 to be worth replacing all the M4s in the SOF inventory but the majority liked the heavys over the M110 and various versions of the M14/M21, so the heavys have stayed in use and increased in numbers while most of the lights have been collected back up or turned in as they wear out.

At the end of the day they are both great guns, though a bit over priced in my opinion considering the amount of plastic on them. I always figured the high commercial price was FNs way of recouping the 5-6 years of R&D that SOCOM put them through.

Enjoy your new gun! Feel free to PM if you run into any issues.