Dang it, Sig!

General Firearms Other Semi-Automatic Rifles
1

Hurry up and wait! Grab a chair and get comfy. If you need to save up $, then you are in luck! I just talked to Sig Sauer customer service. I asked the woman who answered if there was any information available regarding the release date of the 516 & 716 rifles. The woman sighed heavily and there was a long pause, then she said, with an inflection of uncertainty in her voice, “for the 516 prooooaaabably late summer…maybe a little sooner.” I asked about the 716. She said “hmmm, prooooaaabably the same time.” She changed her inflection back to perky and said “gives you time to save your pennies.” She was polite, I want to add.

:mad: So, typical industry and Sig BS. “…maybe a little sooner.” My foot! We’ll be lucky if they are out in any number in late sumer, and they probably won’t be out in greater numbers till late 2010 (Oct-Dec). I went through this when I wanted a Sig 556 Pistol. I heard about it, heard about it, heard about it. Called and asked and got the proverbial “two weeks” answer. Guess what, it was 3 months after getting my first 2 weeks response. They released only so many in the first string to gauge market demand and how many to make and when…smart and understandable, there. I finally did get one, and yes, I am satisfied with it. I hope that the Sig 516 & 517 rifles will be great, maybe we’ll here more about them as time goes by. Just don’t get too excited. It’s gonna be a while :rolleyes:.

I don’t understand why they would have the 516 reviewed for the January edition of American Rifleman if the rifle won’t be released until late summer. I’m guessing it is some kind of marketing tact to gauge the response from the community, and have a better estimate of how many to make and stuff. ??? Just a thought, what other reason could there be? The Ruger SR-556 was out before all the gun rags reviewed it, isn’t that selling well? Anyway, it makes me question all the info in the gun review. How do we know many of the aspects of the rifle, especially PRICE, won’t change before late summer (or later)? For that, I think it is irresponsible of American Rifleman. Hey, I’m not expecting it to be out tomorrow. Within 3-5 months would be acceptable. But I don’t know what they are thinking. Like most gun folk, if I start saving now, come June I will be distracted by another product and buy that. SO, when the 516/716 comes out, I won’t have the $ to buy:p.

2

Frankly, I’d be a little cautious going for piston ARs unless it is to be a H&K. Many of the designs have been suffering some design problems causing malfunctions and additional wear:

https://www.m4carbine.net/showthread.php?t=29852&highlight=piston

Sig Sauer is a great company. However, when it comes to new designs they do take some debugging time. They often experiment with different parts vendors to get the best bang for their buck as they make production changes and this can lead to quality control issues. They do get things ironed out after a while, but I would not buy a “new” design from Sig. I am a classic Sig pistol fan as they have worked out the ideal materials and manufacturing practices to make a quality pistol.

Keep in mind, that firearms is a business. In order to convince you to buy something new, the saleman has to convince you that what is available now isn’t as good as what they are trying to sell you. Even if there is really nothing wrong with what is available now, they will exaggerate things enough to make you believe that there are problems.

Do you have a Colt 6920, LMT, or Noveske M4 variant with direct inpingement gas system yet? The only “significant” advantage I’ve noticed with the XCR and SCAR over my Colt M4 is that there is a little less cleaning involved. If you follow the manual, keeping a quality M4 running reliably is quite easy. Yes, you get carbon buildup in the receiver, but most quality M4s will run a 1000-plus rounds in a carbine course without any problems or cleaning. Advantages of the M4 with the DI gas system over these new piston driven rifles are:

-Overall weight reduction(M4 carbine only weighs about 5.6lbs)
-Better rifle balance(piston rifles add 1-2 pounds to the front end)
-Better accuracy(piston rifles have more barrel vibration)
-Fewer parts(easier to produce, easier to maintain good quality controls)
-60yr old matured design(60yrs of engineers tweaking and improving the design)
-Military specifications and a proven design(depending on the manufacturer)

The only “real” downside in my opinion about by Colt M4s is that cleaning takes a little longer after I’m done shooting. There is some debate about how long uppers and bolt assemblies last. Colt recommends that you replace your upper after 50,000rds. Then again, the FBI academy in Quantico has reported that many of their training rifles have close to 100k rounds through their Colt uppers and they are still running fine. shrugs There are some parts that you want to replace on a regular basis such as springs and gas washers…but most of the time they will last longer than the average user shoots their rifle.

If you get some good trigger time with a quality M4($1200-$1400) in a carbine class, you’ll definately learn to appreciate it.

3

Ruger learned a while ago with their P-Series and Gold Label SxS’s that you can’t put something out in the gun press and then not have the product available.

It truely does piss people and dealers off and creates a lot of ill will.

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What you said Templar is my issue. Why is the gun out for review by a gun rag, when obviously (by the great amount of time before actual release) the final version of the gun will be different in some ways. How could they have even decided a price point yet? Do we know of any recent issues of publioshing a projected price and the final version has a greater price, do we? Anyway, that’s my rant.

I have two AR SBRs. My 10.5" is an Adams Arms Piston conversion on an LMT. No, I had no malfunctions from the LMT before the conversion. Wanted to try the piston for fun, and AA looked like the best coversion to me. The 12.5" is a DI gun put together by ADCO. Have about 1000 rounds through both, and no malfunctions from either. The difference is in cleaning, and the carbon build up on the bolt is significantly less in the piston gun. Does that mean piston guns don’t need cleaning or never get dirty. Of course not. However, I’m lazy and prefer cleaning less. That being said, for all I know the piston will have an issue sin a couple thousand rounds. Don’t know, part of this experiment is to see what happens.

I like what I’ve read and see in the Sig models as of now, but when they come out (if I haven’t spent my $ elsewhere) they will have to be re-evaluated.

5

Do yow know how many times the barrels were replaced, or were they the original barrels?

6

A word to the wise, if you want anything new from Sig Sauer, especially a rifle wait and let other’s be the beta test subject’s. Sig’s QC has slipped over the past few years and I can’t imagine that on their first AR (a piston at that) they wouldn’t have some kinks.

7

I was just gonna say.

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At risk of thread drift . . . .

Kent PD (WA) has several Colts used for training that have documented 50K plus on them.

As an aside, Pat Rogers has DI ARs that have over 20k through them w/o cleaning. Just lube.

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No idea on the barrels, but I know that they were working with the original uppers.