As promised, I am here to report back after I took the NR Makasi to the range.
I took out 500 rounds to the range and only managed to get through 80. Here is what happened:
Constant failures to feed. I used the supplied 5 Rd PMag, 10 Rd DuraMags and Crossmags. The issue seems to be the magwell and/or the bolt. This did not totally surprise me as I had issues feeding snap caps when I was dry firing at home.
The charging handle often gets stuck and it is difficult to charge the rifle with the bolt forward and a magazine inserted. It loosened up throughout the day but you gotta put a lot of strength into it.
I checked and was on the unsuppressed gas setting. I still ended up taking the hand guard off and switch to the suppressed setting. Of course that did nothing but I wanted to try everything.
I was able to occasionally chamber the next round by manually charging the rifle BUT that only worked about half the time with the bolt not picking up the subsequent round.
As we all know, the dust cover opens up for some reason. This leads to it not opening fully when an optic is above it. I removed my optics and still had the same issues.
Weird enough I did manage to get through ONE 10 Rd DuraMag. That happened towards the end of the range session and surprised me. But it didn't last and the same issues persisted.
The folding stock is difficult to fold. You can get it with enough strength but you will feel like you are breaking the rifle.
A guy on the gunnutz forum just posted his experience and it mirrors mine. So it unfortunately seems like these are persistent issues.
Overall I am pretty disappointed. My WK 181 was more reliable out of the box. I am going back to the range tomorrow and will attempt to get through to 500 rounds to see if anything changes.
Pray for my arm strength cause I'm gonna be rocking that charging handle all day.
This should be at the surprise of nobody. Company claimed the fixed the first ones, not actually fixed. But we're super serious now guys, it's really fixed. Lol.
Brigade Manufacturing is a small manufacturer that got flooded with orders by Canadian retailers. I can't image how much bad tooling and blind qc passes are coming out of thier shop just to get the guns out and cash in on the Canadian market while demand is still high.
Yeah imma let these guys figure out the issues and pick up a used one for 50-60% of the msrp. If they dont go down in price, who cares- bet they will tho!
As I've said before, I trust a state backed arms manufacturer with decades of experience over a few guys with a CNC in a garage. Glad I didn't get this one (hopefully the other one actually arrives).
I don't think most of the Canadian gun owners here understand the importance of proven high level firearms manufacturing history is when picking between different companies. I recall one post had multiple people saying the Carmel looks ugly and like a fish so therefore they want the Makasi. Canadian gun owners are some of the most naive people around, you can spot it immediately by just reading some of the comments on here.
Low-key the same people saying it's ugly and heavy are probably the same ones who shit-kitted an alcor up, or put a full stock and magwell setup on an SKS. Then they also talk about wanting a reliable "SHTF" gun.
Ugghh I’m sad to hear because it’s just insane how much the Canadian market gets screwed over, a reliable semi 223 is just a unicorn at this point.
Glad I cancelled my pre-order. I honestly feared that QC would just completely drop when you have a very small company now taking 4,000 plus orders working on a strict timeline.
We're smaller so we are cautious with things like this. Luckily our MK15 preoder is all sold out. We stopped doing preorders on the Carmel after 2 though cause north sylva's timing is unreliable for us as well due to not being a big enough fish. So hopefully theyre actually quality.
For sure. We have so little options nowadays. Best of luck man, either way with some patience and elbow grease I think you'll be left with a nice rifle.
Don’t recommend to anyone. A gun that expensive with that much tinkering is a no go. How long until your “tinkering” undoes itself and now you’re fucked. Maybe if warranty fixes it but that just sucks so bad for a brand new 2k gun
Out of curiosity, did you check to see if the magazine had any vertical wiggle after it was seated, by pushing up on the bottom? Your issue almost sounds like the magazine catch isn't holding the magazine as high as it ought to, which you should be able to test for.
Lol, seems like you are biased against the Carmel even when I posted about it. Everyone's carmel somehow runs perfectly with no issues, no break in period out of box.
IWI is a decades old reputable arms manufacturer with military contracts, and their offerings including the X95, Tavor 7, and Galil ACE. It won't even be in the same ocean, let alone the same boat.
They literally had a mandatory safety recall on the Carmel because the firing pin blocker wasn't engaging properly.
Just like a chef, you're as good as the last plate you sent out. It doesn't matter what came before it.
Due to a bad batch of parts affecting 1094 rifles 3 years ago... The problem was identified and rectified. Seems the chefs plates over the last 3 years haven't had any issues
Really doesn't sound the same as "we've fixed the issues here's the rifle" and immediately seeing issues.
I mean, sure? But your point was to say IWI isn't going to have issues due to their heritage and size, compared to a small operation like Brigade MFG.
I pointed out the big guys can have problems too, as a rebuttal to you saying not even the same boat let alone ocean.
The MK15 had glaring design/build issues that were partially addressed, and now they've sent out seemingly untested rifles.
The carmel suffered from a batch of bad parts affecting an extremely small number of rifles relative to their production numbers. Not design/build failure. Any manufacturer can have a batch of bad parts. Even the SCAR has had a recall due to bad parts batch.
not sure if anyone asked (I didn't catch your previous post if you made one either) - but was this NR Makasi the latest version with the "fixed" QC issues?
yeah that's troubling. I posted on CGN - I wonder if polishing the bolt might help?
I've got the FDE on order, and I'm glad you guys that have yours now can give us some honest to goodness reporting back and see if some slight tuning/polishing/etc might be needed.
I've only polished the BCG from the alcor, so i'm not sure if it'll work...but Sma the Average on CGN posted a pic of the BCG from the Makasi (pic below) - Sma mentioned that it looks like the BCG doesnt come tested/pre fired from the factory, so maybe a good cleaning/etc is in order?
Yep. Tbh bad QC is what I feel about NR Makasi. A bunch of guys with CNC machines in garages. I hope you only got a lemon but seem like there are more lemons than limes
Aw man sorry to hear that bro. So disappointed so far, my pre order will probably be here in the next few weeks, might just cancel it and get the Stoeger coach gun with my $500 lol
I don’t understand how the quality control is so bad when this rifle has been out in the USA for several years now. It’s not like this is the first production run.
It's possible they make and sell maybe 200 a year to Americans that are somehow unaware that they have their choice of dozens and dozens and dozens of AR models. Suddenly they have orders for 2000. What could go wrong?
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u/Eyeronick 5d ago
This should be at the surprise of nobody. Company claimed the fixed the first ones, not actually fixed. But we're super serious now guys, it's really fixed. Lol.