After waiting a grueling 18 months my SIG 516 Gen2 10" CQB upper arrived in the mail. I already own a Gen2 16" and noticed some interesting differences that I would like to highlight below. In my opinion it looks like Sig may be cutting some corners (no surprise there) to cut cost and get guns out the door due to demand. I purchased my SIG 516 16" last summer…before the surge in demand that created AR Armageddon. I can tell it has more/better attention to detail than this 10" CQB model that arrived today. I’m not saying that it won’t function, but I appreciate my 16" more.
In these two pictures my new 10" is the top photo and my older 16" is bottom. Not sure if you can tell on these pics but the gas block in the top photo is grey in color and has a rougher finish and the other has a VERY nice, smooth deep back finish. You will also notice the 2 rectangular sections on the side of the gas block (bottom photo) is milled-out (probably to cut weight) whereas on the top photo Sig just did a rectangular “outline”. Sig also changed the design of the gas adjustment switch. Lastly, and what is a mystery to me, is the one extra hole on the side of the gas block in the newer 10" in the top photo. My best guess is that it vents excess gas.
Next is the bolt carrier. I immediately noticed that the new 10" was black in color and has the finish of a typical AR carrier. However, the carrier on my older 16" has the “special top secret” coating (has been discussed on the forums in the past) that gives the bolt a super slick feel and a brown/bronze color. I am very pissed that Sig decided to skip this step on my new carrier as this is one of my favorite features of the SIG 516. I’m thinking of calling them and asking if I could exchange my new carrier for an older one with the special finish. It’s so slick that when I sprayed it down with parts degreaser I couldn’t tell a difference in the slickness. Very similar to Nickel Boron.
New black bolt carrier out of the 10":
Older, “slick bronze” bolt carrier out of the 16":
Rather than wait until I could drive out to the range and zero, I decided to drive to a local friends property and put some ammo down range to test function. I used a 30 round PMAG and put a box (20 rounds) of each of the following ammo all in .223: PMC X-TAC, Remington UMC, Prvi Partizan PPU, Wolf Military Classic (steel case), and Tula (steel case). On the Tula I fired as fast as I could pull the trigger. After firing all of this I’m happy to report there wasn’t a single malfunction of any kind. Flawless. Granted, it wasn’t a lot of ammo through it, but it did give me a lot more confidence in this platform. FYI…The upper receiver is attached to a Bravo Company (BCM) lower. The light is the new Surefire X300 Ultra and a TangoDown Quick Detach vertical grip. Due to the gas block getting extremely hot and being so close to the user’s hand I went with tape switch activation. I’m not getting my fingers anywhere near the gas block. If I were to mount the light at the 12 o’clock position on the gas block it would simply melt the plastic picatinny rail mount.
I wish I could give an accuracy report, but that will have to wait as I only tore up milk jugs full of water. The only similar rifle (actually very similar) I have to compare it to is my 11.5" DI operated AR. When I shot this 10" SIG516 I could immediately tell the felt recoil and impulse was quite different. And by different I mean better. It was much more smooth and controllable. I could feel that the SIG516 is much more front heavy than my 11.5" DI due to the massive gas block, but it’s not that bad considering the barrel length is so short.
Here’s a non-crappy cell phone pic that I took with my wife’s Nikon D7000.
