Yesterday I received my V7 57 degree selector which I purchased from Vertex Ops and I wanted to post a quick review of my initial impressions. I tried to take some pictures of the actual product which I received, but between bad lighting and a cell phone camera, not many of them were useful. The selector which I had on the rifle came from a White Oak lower parts kit and it was the best feeling GI style selector I have ever tried. It was smooth and crisp and I was happy with it but I bought this because I like the way the B5 Grip 23 extends the reach to the trigger, but it also extends the reach to the selector. This forced me to break my grip in order to put the weapon on safe so I wanted to try a short throw lever.
For the sake of full disclosure, I have never handled a Battle Arms Development selector, so I can only really compare this to the GI style selectors which I have handled, most of which have been Colts. I chose the V7 over the B.A.D. because I didn’t want an ambidextrous selector for consistency reasons and I didn’t want to have to grind anything to make it fit in my receiver.
The first thing I noticed upon receiving the selector was that the machining and finish were perfect. If you look at the photos on V7’s website what you see is what you get. When I compared it to my White Oak selector the detent channel was notably more precise and smooth. The selector is also noticeably lighter than the GI selector and finish is a nice matte black, if those things are important to you. The other thing I noticed, which others have said, is that the detent spring it comes with is longer, as shown below.
The single sided selector comes assembled and V7 states that they use blue loctite on the screw, so I saw no reason to mess with it. I installed it as it came, with their spring and it went in with ease and fit nicely against my receiver. Installation was made all the more easy by the fact that the B5 grip comes with a phillips head screw, which I think is great. Once I started playing with the selector I was happy for that screw, because, while workable, the selector is tough to move when using the V7 detent spring. I put the White Oak detent spring back in and this solved the problem. Even with the other spring, moving the selector still requires intent and there is virtually no play in it. It also has a VERY tactile and audible click when moving from position to position. Some might find the loud click unappealing, but I figure if the safety is going off, something much louder is about to happen. This selector is also either on or off with no stops in between and it moves quite smoothly.
The one area that I’m a bit unsure of is the shape. It is sort of a stepped triangle, rather than the half oval of the standard selector. The steps are fairly square and after about 50 clicks on and off my thumb was a bit sore, but in the real world I’m sure this is a non-issue. The triangular shape also seems like it may be a tiny bit easier to slip off, but after a long period of practicing with it I didn’t find it to be a real problem.
I haven’t gotten to shoot with this selector on, but it functions perfectly and I can’t see my satisfaction with it changing after that. It also solves my problem with breaking grip to turn the safety on. If anything changes I will certainly update. I’ll also include a couple of pictures of it disengaged for those wondering how it lines up with receiver markings.
