SR25 ECC
This is one of the newer ECC’s with ACC upgrades such as double ejectors. I purchased it from Kelley Enterprises and have to give a shout out to Chuck Malta as he was excellent to deal with.
This will be a utilitarian review, not a fit/finish. If the rifle works and performs as billed, that’s all I care about. That said, I am a bit of a KAC whore and the guys from KAC have always treated me good, even former guys like Marvin Pitts. Despite that I will try to be objective in the following.
I could easily take time in punching out the groups on this rifle to see what the best precision I could ring from it is, but since the rifle is intended to be more of a fast action, higher volume of fire option I was interested in seeing what it would do when the barrel was pretty warm. More or less to try and get a “worse case” mapping of the precision potential it holds. Everything I shot for record was ran with the barrel around 150 degrees at the starting shot, which is close to what 10 rounds through the rifle will put the barrel at. I used a thermal temperature camera to check the barrel temperature before each group in order to be halfway consistent. Think worst case, you are a cop with this rifle in a Charles Whitman like scenario, needing to take shots at a small target at distance after having possibly just shot a mag suppressing the perp from firing.
I also wanted to know what this rifle does straight out of the box. Say an LE Agency buys one, and has minimal to no time to break it in other than grab a load, get a zero and shoot. With these types of rifles that test opportunity is not an everyday option, due to most who buy a rifle in this price range baby it. There is also often an emotional investment that comes with the higher price and sometimes things can go misreported. I’m setting out trying to give an honest, no B.S. evaluation.
The following are from ammo I had on hand. I did 10 shot groups at 100 yards on most everything I ran through the rifle. With FGMM I did several 10 shot groups to try to gain a better average since it is probably the most popular factory ammo option. I also ran everything through my Oehler 35P to get some velocity data for anyone out there who may need it. I hope to expand on this with other ammo types later on, and hope that I can become better with the rifle as there is a bit of a learning curve to shooting a big bore gas gun well. I ask you to also take into account that I shanked some shots. Not snatching the trigger, but more of a follow through issue. I am learning the platform and follow through is huge on these rifles. I am humble enough to own up to fact I suck 2-4 shots out of 10.
My normal long range rifle is an AI AX 308. I used my S&B 5-25 with H59 reticle for both rifles. I can do so-so with AI, but there is no doubt it is so much easier to run well at this point for me compared to the gas gun. This particular bolt gun can make pretty much anyone look like a stud. For a frame of reference, here are two groups I shot during this review as a comparison, with 2 common precision rifle “duty” rounds as a control if you will. Max Spread in MOA.
175 gr FGMM was .48 MOA
155 gr Hornady TAP FPD was .62 MOA
Thus far I have ran about 250 rounds through the ECC. It has not been cleaned at all since it was purchased new. The only issue I had was with Hornady 110 gr TAP FPD. I had several failures to feed with this ammo. Everything else ran like a champ. I was very surprised at one load, the Federal LE 165 gr SP Tactical Bonded LE308T1. For a bonded type duty round it showed excellent potential in precision. Pretty much the word on the street from the KAC guys was if you want the tightest group, go with the EC and that the ECC usually gives up a bit in that department (or at least that is what I was told). I am looking at measuring the potential of the ECC in regards to how it fares in LE or real world duties, not necessarily a competition role. I would say that with the duty type loads I shot, if the nut behind the rifle does his job right the ECC is plenty accurate enough for just about any sort of LE or defensive use.
For velocity numbers through the Oehler, set up at 15 ft from muzzle I have the following:
Federal 175 gr Gold Metal Match (20 shots total through chrono)
2460 fps
Group 1 was 1.32 MOA
Group 2 was 1.50 MOA
Group 3 was 1.26 MOA
Group 4 was 1.48 MOA
