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Near miss

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Minuteman
  • Apr 8, 2019
    1,321
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    Finland
    So I have aquired HK MR223 as my first CF rifle. Thanks for helping me with gun and ammo questions and all the other threads that I have just browsed through looking for information.

    The gun's uses will be reservist shooting competitions and target shooting / plinking out as far I can find ranges open to. Might see use in hunting too.

    I thought to give my view on it as there are not many MR223 reviews made by lowly peasants out there.

    20201011_153956.jpg



    My final MR223 layout is:
    -Ferro concepts slingster
    -Aimpoint T2 - I am considering NXS or Kahles LPVO for it also, maybe covering expenses by selling the T2.
    -Ase Utra muzzle break
    -Ase Utra SL5i suppressor - is attached onto the muzzle break
    -HK adjustable gas port - the older version. I enlarged one hole on the hand guard with a diamond file to adjust it with the hex key without any disassembly of the handguard. The hex key is stored in the receiver extension by few small magnets.
    20210125_185856.jpg

    -Magpul MOE+ grip - HK grip was good but I wanted more friction, it got a bit slippery in the rain at least with bare hands
    -Magpul XTM and some camo self grip band on it to soften the gripping surface on the handguard and help keep frostbites off.

    20210106_150241.jpg


    For ammo testing I loaned an Atlas PSR bipod and an Athlon Cronus scope from my rimfire.

    My background:
    I have shot mainly Sako RK62 and 95 and only 10-30 shots with AR platform before purchasing this. Now I have put approx 2k through it and the AR platform has become quite familiar to me. Yes, this was quite a leap for me from the AK side. While waiting for it to arrive to shop I tested few other ARs like Noveske on a training session so I have small insight to ARs.

    I chose MR223 A3 as it seemed to be a very good value over here in Europe and the best I could get for my purposes (reliability, accuracy). Got it slightly used for €2.6K ($2.8K). The 223 match ammo variety helped decision too.

    As I picked it up in the shop I noticed it was too heavy for me and I am going to sell it away.

    Joking, it indeed is heavier than most ARs but it does have a heavier barrel and as I am a user of milled AKs, the weight does not feel "wrong" to me.

    Main grasp was the trigger. I have mainly used BnA, Sako and Anschutz triggers on rifles.. as new it was not up to spec for me. It however got tremendously better with use compared to when I first got the rifle.

    I can explain how it first felt like:
    You start pulling. The slack is easily removed, with just a hair of it. Then comes the pull itself. You keep on pulling, and can feel the sear working it's way. You continue to pull it, but it does not break until too late to the pull.

    This caused the trigger break to be VERY hard to estimate, although the break was crisp. I even thought of buying a german UHL match trigger but I decided to not change it before trying few tricks.


    I did get the trigger improved to a start with the paracord trick:
    You can see that the right side of the sear wore out to a shiny state. I had to make few attempts to get an image of it, it is very close to mirror polish now. I expect the rest of the sear will follow it with time..
    3/2/2021 Trigger is very smooth now, still breaks clean and is very nice to use. Hammering good groups is even easier now.
    20210112_102249.jpg


    On the accuracy side I bought many different ammo brands for it and made a small test of which it prefers with the suppressor on.

    Here is the link to the cloud file:

    Briefly, the gun shoots decent group with all sorts of bulk (surprisingly low amount of variance between them) and loves match ammo! Soon I will finish testing Match ammo, particularly Sako Racehead, which has very good ballistics / MV and GGG 69gr which has the best price to performance ratio. I just need to put few hundred rounds again through it to get it dirty.

    21/1/2021 I finished Sako Racehead testing, done over 3 separate range visits:
    At 100 meters, 3 groups were 0.79"/0.69MOA and 1 (shot on concrete) 1.18"/1.07MOA. Making it 0.79MOA gun on average. Two of those groups (both 0.79") were done with a cold bore. 3/2/2021 I bought a lot more of Racehead and the current lot has 0.78MOA average accuracy, so quite predictable and I still have plenty of room to improve.

    If collaged into 2x 10 shot groups, first one was 1.02" and the second 1.18". So also 10 shot group average is under moa (0.98MOA). It seems my scope mount needs threadlocker (taken care of now) as the hits were going low as the screw has unscrewed by 1/6 of a turn. The last 0.79" group was done rifle totally uncleaned, pretty much pitch-black over 3 days of range use with roughly 400 on the barrel and 300 rounds on action ran suppressed.

    Ammo test in-depth:
    20210105_170601.jpg


    Testing procedure was:
    1. Shoot targets and get warmed up.
    2. Take ISSF 10m air pistol target, use marker on to the backside to make a small POA and take it to the 100m line.
    Shoot 2x5 of different ammo. I did 2 groups of 5 shots per ammo per range visit. So no ammo was tested during one day only. I also did not choose targets, I only made 4 "official" targets per cartridge and those were to be used, so no more than 4 were ever captured. I also tried to do 2 targets with the barrel dirty (200-400 rounds) and 2 targets cleaner. So far for match loads it has been successful. I did not notice dirty barrel doing any worse, even when nearing 1000 rounds.
    3. Take picture of the target, flip it and scan to the targetscan app. Verify images match targets.
    4. Input info to excel to be compared


    I removed overall few shots that I pulled in a bad position, as my shoulder involuntary tensed up, most likely after getting annoyed by heavy mirage from the suppressor. Lapua Scenar had 1 shot removed and Lapua FMJ 2 shots. I do this as it is better to keep data as clean as possible, to test the bullet, not my skills. I now have a cover for the suppressor.

    With 4 groups of 5 shots each, there should be enough data to cover for few lost shots.

    I did get considerably better at precision when shooting the rifle with the match ammo. Considering I shot around 1k+ bulk in prone to get used to the gun without much change and noticed improvement after only 20-40 match rounds, it cannot be denied they work wonders on identifying poor habits and improving shooting skills.

    But, scenars might get a second run being the first match cartridge to have been tested.

    As an added bonus, I calculated the correlation between price and ammo: 0.91. So it looks like the cash thrown at ammo is not meaningless at all. But I was slightly surprised, before the test I expected to find some cheaper ammo that would run clearly better than others. 3/2/2021 I found PMC Bronze to be the best bulk ammo, I sort the long ones (by eyeballing) and do around 1.1-1.2MOA with them. They also had the smallest AMR of bulk ammo.

    I also ran correlation between average mean radius (average, as in averaged from all groups) and group size and the correlation was 0.99.. So it seems they represent quite well each other (difference being Average Mean Radius counts in all 5 shots, ES only 2 farthest shots)

    I am very satisfied with the gun now and cannot wait to shoot it more. It is freaking amazing. I have so far ran it in -2F for two days without any problems.
     
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    How prevalent are ARs in your country? Is it difficult to get them along with the ammo and accessories?
    Not rare. In the competition side almost everybody has one. The sakos and others are mostly for other reasons, they are fun to shoot of course.

    Buying a semiauto rifle requires 5 rifle shooting sessions within a year. Your shooting organization has someone certified by police department that writes you a document that serves as a proof of practice for the police. You show the police your diary and the proof of practice.

    Getting more than 10 round mags requires having passed IPSC or Reservist shooting compliance course. They are quite easy for people but there is such a surge in to the sport that no matter how many courses are held, they all are filled in hours or days. (The course I joined filled in minutes) It has been like this for few years. I searched for courses not actively for 1 year until one reservist organization I joined held it's annual course. I did not have hurry as I pondered gun choices (rifle and pistol) for a long time.

    But once the gun permit has been given, you can order thousands of rounds and the AR with a silencer in mail either to the nearest mail center or home. Legal gun parts requiring permit along with silencer are gun barrel, action and bolt. All the pieces that hold pressure upon firing. I like it, could be way worse.
     
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    Not rare. In the competition side almost everybody has one. The sakos and others are mostly for other reasons, they are fun to shoot of course.

    Buying a semiauto rifle requires 5 rifle shooting sessions within a year. Your shooting organization has someone certified by police department that writes you a document that serves as a proof of practice for the police. You show the police your diary and the proof of practice.

    Getting more than 10 round mags requires having passed IPSC or Reservist shooting compliance course. They are quite easy for people but there is such a surge in to the sport that no matter how many courses are held, they all are filled in hours or days. It has been like this for few years. I searched for courses not actively for 1 year until one reservist organization I joined held it's annual course. It did not have hurry as I pondered gun choices (rifle and pistol) for a long time.

    But once the gun permit has been given, you can order thousands of rounds and the AR with a silencer in mail either to the nearest mail center or home. Legal gun parts requiring permit along with silencer are gun barrel, action and bolt. All the pieces that hold pressure upon firing. I like it, could be way worse.
    This is crazy and awesome at the same time.
     
    What do you like and dislike about the hk compared to the sako AKs you are used to shooting? Not many of us here in America have had a chance to shoot the Finnish AKs like the valmet, so most don't realize how accurate an AK can be. But I am curious at what your comparison thoughts are. Lots of good info on this thread! Thanks!
     
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    What do you like and dislike about the hk compared to the sako AKs you are used to shooting?
    The choice branches to 2 calibers and guns.
    Calibers:
    -I chose 223 over 762x39 as there are more match ammo variety for it and usually ammo is better and very good heavier bullets (Edit: heavy for caliber, like 77gr in 223) for improved ballistic performance. I like 762x39 a lot but this was quite big reason. I like to aim carefully and that is gone to waste with poor ammo.
    -I wanted to stay away from reloading but it seems inevitable. At least I have a choice with factory ammo. I also like the 223 having straighter flight path.
    Calibers at the end of day are quite hard to judge against each other, every strong quality leads it to have a weaker quality in some other area.

    Guns:
    At start I was already 100% sure I will buy Sako 92. But slowly as I read I understood that it is somewhat out of spec for my chores.
    -More recoil pulse, which leads to longer clock times
    -That AK style safety lever, no bolt lock-back, clumsy (never as fast as an AR) mag release
    -My club already owns one Sako 62 that I can practically just loan for free of cost. I should go pick it up but I have not even bought ammo for it yet, I am busy with the HK.
    -I had the impression HK would be more accurate (in reality, they are quite close with bulk ammo at least)
    -Picatinny. I wanted the compability that AR has. I pondered installing a picatinny rail onto the Sako but it feels like it does not belong there. And I would still need a picatinny handguard..
    The HK looked like it was actually ready for my items. be worn on a good scope, red dot, bipod and a flashlight (in the winter time they really are needed, it gets dark after 3PM)
    -Price. Sako 92s go around 3k here, add to that all rail installations etc. I would have had to pay for things the HK had by default at the same price.


    I also considered Galil Ace but after asking over here about it, there was some advise against it. Just too pricey against HK, which I got for under 2.6K.
    I also know a lot more about spare parts etc. after a year.
     
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    You chose well! I would much rather have the hk 416 derivative instead of the iwi ace. For that matter, I would much rather have a Finnish ak than the iwi ace. The hk 416 system is really the only rifle system i would like to own that isn't a DI ar or ak style weapon. Speaking of which, does sako still make new AKs for the general public and/or military there?
     
    You chose well! I would much rather have the hk 416 derivative instead of the iwi ace. For that matter, I would much rather have a Finnish ak than the iwi ace. The hk 416 system is really the only rifle system i would like to own that isn't a DI ar or ak style weapon. Speaking of which, does sako still make new AKs for the general public and/or military there?
    Does not seem to make them, just one batch went for FDF too. Then FDF started to upgrade RK62s with optics and stocks. But I heard rumours of Sako having been hitted with a task to build a DMR type of gun, probably an AR variant. Sako had drawings for one already years back but they were strached. When/if it arrives, that will be a gun sought after.

    My opinion about brands is quite the same. I value Sako rifles much and place iwi below, but it having rails made it almost as good for me. I used to give HK less credit, but it is definitely up there with Sako with its accurate CL barrel, long lasting parts, and better shootability. Everything I prefer in a gun.

    I got to say, I was first quite confused when reading about 416 from mainly other forums, as it seems many people give negative opinions. Maybe without ever owning or using one? Eventually I realized it has really no inherent problems at all and is very capable to be moved from one role to another, just put on T2 and take bipod off for effective moving and shooting. Proprietary stuff is a nono for me, but if it really improves the product, then I am fine with it.

    Only thing is HK key slotting. But after all, that means I have to buy that just one rail for $55.
    I need it because at the moment the flashlight is attached to the 6 o'clock rail, to replace bipod, I need it on the side.
    And that is really not a huge problem, after all.
     
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    I am not sure why there is so much negative posting about the hk 416 series either. I think there is a lot of bad blood from the old days of HK's customer service to government agencies and the commercial market alike, but they have been great for the last several years at least here in America.

    The rifles themselves are in use with military contracts all over Europe, not to mention still being used by a couple highly selective small groups in America, and then of course the us marines.

    Too bad about sako not making AKs, but interesting about them making some sort of dmr rifle. I don't know how well the sako made AKs would sell in America anyway, since most of the people into AKs tend to be rather cheap and expect them to still cost $300 like they did when China was importing them in the late 80s and early 90s. They will not spend like the AR people or the higher end bolt gun people will. I believe that was the issue when valmet attempted to sell their extremely high quality
    AKs here in various calibers, but they do tend to go for a small fortune when sold today.
     
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    Range report:

    I was shooting from 100 to 500m with Sako Racehead and PMC Bronze this weekend to confirm Kestrel drops for upcoming long range courses. The bulk ammo assessment was ruined, as I accidentally changed to a mag loaded with another brand at some point during shooting, so the data is corrupted.

    The plan was to shoot at each distance until there are 3 shots within 1moa.

    Using Racehead this was easy! But at 500m my Kestrel drops were off so much that my group went over the paper. The mirage on snowy range (it can be very bad) and from barrel made it harder to spot hits and only on last 2 hits I noticed in disbelief that my shots are maybe in the snow..

    At home I studied and calculated needed corrections and as no BC/MV combination matched data I realized I must have some value off.. And I noticed that my Bore Height was off. I also moved zero range 2m further out as I shot slightly in angle. Now I have completely valid data for the next time to make (theoretically) first shot impacts within 0.1mil of target center. My temp table was also off, but enabling it would have only helped a small amount.
    20210214_174925.jpg

    I was a moron for not taking any kind of accurate measurement of the group, as I was a bit disappointed about the location of it. Although I was OK about the size of it, it was the size of a head, if one shot is counted off from either side.

    -The Bore height was set wrong as I had created the profiles before owning the rifle and had just guessed it, and by magic of ignorance never questioned it before this.
     
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    Report #2 - the last one. I added this since it seems the gun handles both cold bore and clean cold bores extremely well. And it seems to be consistently accurate out to distance.

    I did a throughout cleaning after another 1K and cleaned the barrel completely too. I also stoned some areas lightly on the handguard fastening area to make more friction. The previous owner and I had used the gun at first with not enough torque to the handguard screw and the wiggle had caused some spots to wear like they were polished. By default the surface is blued matte and has very good grip on it.

    I then proceeded to apply some VC3 to the stoned spots and reinstalled the handguard. It was quite stiff to get on.

    At the range my hits were 0.2mils to the right and 0.2mils high. I hope the VC3 will remain there and not degrade, causing POI shift. My guess is I should not have tried to fix a problem that does not exist.. The handguard was zero-repeatable before this modification.

    I did 2 groups at 100m on dirt.
    3 shots including cold bore and another 3 shots on the second target.

    But I pulled one shot on the 2nd group and shot 1 more to correct it. I was talking to my buddy while shooting and just went oblivious.

    1st group 0.48moa
    2nd group 0.62moa (with the pulled shot group was 1.07moa)


    Both clean and pulled groups combined below. I know the concept of calling shots but I prefer to keep all data, as I want to see the full history. In this case I show both for transparency.

    Pulled shot (12 o'clock, 4 ring), 7 shots 1.07moa
    Screenshot_20210319-113903_TargetScan.jpg


    Clean shots, 6 shots 0.64moa
    Screenshot_20210319-113940_TargetScan.jpg


    I moved to 300m (328yds) line on concrete and dialed 1.5mil more. Turned out that 1.4mil would have been better. I was shooting with break the first time at 300m and its Kestrel profile is still in the making.

    I did 3 groups with 3 shots each.
    Combined they make 0.9moa group, too bad I did not execute the last 3 so well. I shot them very quickly as everybody else was already done and ready to go check targets while I had not even started shooting.

    Screenshot_20210319-123601_TargetScan.jpg


    I did not have time to shoot more, there were some other things that took my time like zeroing another rifle etc.

    ----Above posted on 19. March---

    ---9. July update below---
    I have gotten even better at shooting this rifle. Last 200 to 300 match rounds at mainly 300m have gotten me a lot of improvement.

    Using SB 77gr I shot this rifle at over 500m in difficult wind conditions (10-11 clock 2-7mph near shooting position and 3-4 o'clock 0-6+mph wind at downrange) and gotten first round hits to 600 or so at 18" targets.
    I could not hit the 1.1km target, the wind was changing too rapidly. The elevation was very steady though. At 800-900 meters getting hits became very hard.
    At the 1.1km target I had to hold 5.5 to 7mil wind.

    Here are the latest paper targets from getting zeroed in for the longer range shooting:
    This was shot on concrete, with a bipod and without a rear bag.
    Screenshot_20210617-231342_TargetScan.jpg

    Between the second and third group I even ran out of ammo and ran to car and back to shoot 5 more. It seems this rifle is probably more accurate than I am.
    Whole group, 15 shots: 1.2moa
    10 last shots (grp 2 and 3): 0.85moa
    1 group: 0.84moa
    2 grp: 0.68moa
    3 grp: 0.64moa

    It could also be that the improved accuracy came from the paint job I did on it:
    20210611_170903.jpg
     
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