The nose heavy aspect probably deters as many sales as the overall look.
If front heavy kept sales down there wouldn’t be many AK’s out there, especially underfolders…
TS
It looks like an AR, so people expect it to feel like an AR. It’s heavier and balances much differently.
And don’t get me started on the safety levers … :rolleyes:
I never found the AK’s to be terribly front heavy. The 556 I held was a nose diver.
May just be a personal perception thing. I’ve owned AK’s that were nose divers. The SIG felt good to me… I may buy one with the Magpul stock.
TS
I apologize if I sounded smartass…
No problem.
I’ve never had the nose diving problem with any .308 semi-autos I’ve owned (even the 20-21’’ models) they all just felt kind of heavy throughout. Russian style RPK’s are awful in balance.
The 556 handguard is just weighty. Originals are available in europe, at $150.
I use a factory 551SWAT handguard on my 556, but just for the sake of something to do, I modified the original 556 handguard yesterday. I used a hacksaw to cut off the bottom rail, then profiled the bottom and sides using a Dremel with coarse grinding wheel followed by a sanding block. It feels much better in the hand now. I’ll put it in a blast cabinet next and will either dye it or paint it with some sort of epoxy.
Looks great Josh.
So how much money do you have invested in it now? Just curious.
Thanks M4. I love the 556; definitely my favorite semiauto rifle right now (blasphemy, I know…this is M4Carbine.net after all). I would estimate my total cost to be about $2500. I bought my 556 right when they were introduced and paid a bit of a premium ($1500). But I also bought my 551 and 552 parts kits from Larry Gaglio/CCF back before the prices jumped up so high (paid about $2k for each kit).
I am not really planning on using the handguards on this rifle. It was more of a Silk Purse From a Sow’s Ear project. Actually I’m planning on having this rifle converted to a 552 SBR by MarColMar Firearms. I love the Swiss 551/552 platform and will probably pick up two more 556 rifles in the next year.
Maybe you will luck out and SigSauer USA will come out with something at Shot that closer resembles the Swiss 55x so you don’t have to keep dumping money into your 556.
That might put a hurting on companies looking to make money on providing what SigSauer USA doesn't.
I saw the pics over at Sig Forum of the conversion with the welded receiver and I think they should have waited until the gun was finished before posting the pics. It looked pretty rough to me but I'm not an expert .
just my two cents.
I will take a look
I picked up a couple (held in my hands) of SIG 556 Swat or Commando with the rail. They were a little front heavy, but the Magpul stock just makes the rifle…
TS
The only “sand” that the 556 is going to see is if the owner happens to have some in the backyard.
This is not a combat rifle, it is a civilian sporting rifle. And it based on a design from 30 years ago.
The point was that the rifle was not designed for the sands of Iraq.
Internally, the 556 is a 551, minus the FA cabability. It does have ugly furniture, but despite this, I love mine, and will upgrade it to what I want the rifle to be. The 550/551 can handle the dust chamber just fine, as well as other test’s the rifle(s) were subjected too. If you ask me, that’s not bad for a 30 year old design…
Fair enough, but the point is that the 556 is NOT a military rifle, is not in service with ANY military and certainly isn’t a new rifle designed with the “sands of Iraq” in mind.
Also, internally, a DPMS AR15 is the same as a Colt M4, right? Using your rationale, they are. All the parts will basically interchange, right? Is a DPMS AR15 the equal of a Colt M4? I think most people who know anything about ARs would say that they’re not. For me, I find it a little hard to say that a 556 is the equal of a 551 when they’re not built by the same people in the same place and nobody is testing the 556 to prove that the parts that the Sig556 is made up of are really and truly the equals of the original Swissarms parts.
I have both a Bushmaster AR-15 ORC and a late-production Sig 556, and love both. Yes, they look and shoot differently (the Sig definitely much more front-heavy but lower muzzle rise) but both are reasonably accurate at 100 yards. I have a Trijicon ACOG with Docter red dot on the AR and a Leupold 4.5-14x40mm and Mepro21 reflex sight for the Sig (and harris bipod), but have used each sight on each rifle with success. Bottom line is both are fine products IMHO, and unfortunately the weak link in terms of accuracy is yours truly!
Of course, the 556 doesn’t cost anywhere near as much as a SwissArms 55X. I suppose that it would be reasonable to compare the 556 to a low-end AR as far as price is concerned. I haven’t seen any reliability complaints (unlike a cheap AR).
Now, are you saying that the 556 cut costs on its parts and that’s why it doesn’t cost as much? I’m pretty sure you don’t mean to say that, but if they’re “equals” then why does a 556 cost so much less???
Anyway, you may not be aware, but a Swissarms 551 is available for import to LE agencies, and the price for LE isn’t anywhere near the mark-up that a transferrable 551 is. So factor out the cost that the importation ban adds to a transferrable 551 or 552. A better comparison would be to say, “what’s a 551 cost in Europe?” And if the 551 is FAR more expensive in Europe, then you need to think about where all the costs are being cut on the 556.
I haven’t seen many reliability complaints either, but then again, I haven’t seen anyone really put a 556 through the kind of paces that it would have to go through before it would ever be adopted by a military or law enforcement agency. Have you?
Low end ARs HAVE been put those kind of paces and that is when their warts have shown. When the 556 has faced those kinds of tests and passes them, then maybe it’ll go from the civilian sport shooter rifle that it IS to a weapon that can be compared to other tested military systems. Or, maybe that’s when the 556’s warts will begin to show.
Until someone runs the 556 through the paces that military weapons have proven themselves capable of handling, then its all just speculation, isn’t it? And to be honest, I’d love it if some organization WOULD run some 556s hard and prove that they’re a worthy rifle. But again, nobody has, have they?
:rolleyes:
Chill out fella. I don’t have a horse in this race as I don’t own, nor am I all that interested in the 556. There is nothing “between the lines” in my post. I simply stated that based on price alone the 556 seems to be comparable to a budget AR, BUT unlike the budget ARs no reliability concerns have arisen.
Yeah, I WAS comparing the cost of the 556 with SwissArms rifles (not pre-ban imports).
If you ARE comparing the cost of the 556 with a Swissarms rifle, then answer the question I posed:
How is Sigarms managing to build a rifle that is the “equal” to a Swissarms 551for so much less money?
My answer is that until someone goes out and proves that the 556 can hold up to the rigors that a 551 has proved itself capable of, then its not the equal.
And I’m not sure where you shop, but on price alone, the 556 costs as much as a Colt, which is not a budget AR. Maybe you’re actually trying to say that a 556 is really a budget 551. And if you are, then we’re back to the question I just posed.
We know where a budget AR cuts corners and we know that when run hard, a lot of those budget ARs prove that they’re not equals, don’t we?
Federale, throttle back a little.