Firstoff, I would like to offer a disclaimer that I am not any sort of expert, just a gun enthusiast with an expensive rifle habit, so please keep that in mind.
I received my new AIAX yesterday. I bought it from Paul Gonzalez at Trigger Time Gun Club in Colorado. Paul was great to work with when I purchased a Schmidt and Bender 5-25x56 a while ago, so I preferred to do business with him again. He was a pleasure to deal with this time as well, and I would recommend him to anyone.
Mine came through as all have- as a fully loaded model. It is a flat dark earth folder, with a quick adjust cheekpiece, quick adjust/target buttplate, and buttspike. Mine came through with the Bartlein 1 in 10 barrel with an SAS brake fitted. I had Paul pull the barrel off before shipping it to me.
Luckily, my spare barrel came back the day before. I had my factory 26" AIAW barrel cut back to 18.5", recrowned and rethreaded for my 18x1.5 SAS Ti Arbiter. I installed the barrel upon receiving the AX. It requires removing the front fore grip (2 screws) then the handguard (8 screws.) The barrel torques into the action using an AIAW action wrench and a barrel vise. The barrel fit exactly as it did on my AW- brass that was tight in my AW (.001 over SAAMI minimum headspace) was tight in the AX, and brass that had minimal resistance in my AW (SAAMI minimum) chambered the same in my AX. My go/no-go gauges will be here on Monday, but I am confident based on this brass test that the headspace is correct.
Getting into the review- to sum it up, the AX is an upgraded AW. Most of this review will draw direct comparisons to my AW because of this.
The action, bolt, and safety are all the same. The trigger internally is the same, but is adjustable fore and aft, an has a wider, serrated trigger shoe. My AW trigger was perfect out of the box, where my AX trigger was a little on the heavy side, enough that after substantial dry fire practice, my finger started to feel a bit fatigued. I lightened it up three full turns, adjusting the weight screw only, and now it is just a bit lighter than my AW.
Ergonomically, the rifle excels. It feels a lot like an AW, should feel very familiar to anyone with significant time on a chassis/AW/AE, but it is more comfortable for me, which is saying something, because I really like the way my AW fits. The two biggest improvements to the ergonomics to me-
1: The pistol grip is more comfortable on my thumb than my AW. The front of the grip is flat and feels very similar to my AW, the overall hand position is similar, but it doesn't push my thumb "down" like an AW stock. It never hindered my shooting, but did feel a bit awkward, and was more apparent when shooting offhand. The hand position is excellent on the AX.
2: I was able to set the scope up more to the rear on the AX, which helped set proper eye relief and length of pull. My AW is a dovetail, and using the dovetail mount in the rear position with my Hensoldt 4-16x56 ff pulled all the way to the rear, I had to remove one spacer from my ideal LOP, and still had to crane my head forward to get a correct site picture. Not so on the AX. I was able to get perfect head position and length of pull. Note- this will not be a bit deal for most shooters, as eye relief is not usually an issue on the AW.
The QA buttpad is nice, it is a lot handier than the spacer system, and allows the pad to be adjusted for height and angle. You can quickly make adjustments to LOP for different shooting positions, which would be impossible with the spacers. The QA cheekpiece is also nice.
One of the biggest selling points for me was the buttspike. I am a big fan- combining a buttspike with a small rear bag results in always having the right rear bag height. I carried three rear bags in my shooting bag when shooting my AW, in this case I only need a Tac Ball. This buttspike had ample range of motion, and also was a viable option by itself (no bag.)
The handguard system is also nice, and modular. The picatinny rail segments can be moved around or removed, as can the Harris bipod mount- allowing a further forward mount than on an AW.
As far as how it shoots- I can't comment on the Bartlein barrel as I haven't shot it, only my chopped UK barrel. As for the barreled action, it is for all intents an purposes an AW.
So, to sum it up- is it worth it? That is subjective. It is $8,000, which is a lot of money. I have read that option to option, it is only $300 more than an AW (with the Bartlein barrel/SAS brake another $300 option on top of that.) For $300 more than an AW, I think it is an upgrade. Less optioned models will be coming out further down the line, and they will cost less. For me, the biggest upgrades are the ergos and the buttspike, if my AW was a fully equipped folder with the Q/A options and buttspike I would probably feel that this is less of an upgrade. My AW is a 1.5 however, so this gun carries quite a few nice features I don't currently have.
Here is the only pic I have currently (I'll try to get more up later as time permits):
Other sidenote- I'm not sure I care for the new mag/magwell setup. It is certainly taking some getting used to, and doesn't seem as intuitive as an AW where I can just slam the mag up in and be good to go. Only time will tell. The mag essentially appears to be an AW mag with a tab formed in the front by punching the sheetmetal forward.
I received my new AIAX yesterday. I bought it from Paul Gonzalez at Trigger Time Gun Club in Colorado. Paul was great to work with when I purchased a Schmidt and Bender 5-25x56 a while ago, so I preferred to do business with him again. He was a pleasure to deal with this time as well, and I would recommend him to anyone.
Mine came through as all have- as a fully loaded model. It is a flat dark earth folder, with a quick adjust cheekpiece, quick adjust/target buttplate, and buttspike. Mine came through with the Bartlein 1 in 10 barrel with an SAS brake fitted. I had Paul pull the barrel off before shipping it to me.
Luckily, my spare barrel came back the day before. I had my factory 26" AIAW barrel cut back to 18.5", recrowned and rethreaded for my 18x1.5 SAS Ti Arbiter. I installed the barrel upon receiving the AX. It requires removing the front fore grip (2 screws) then the handguard (8 screws.) The barrel torques into the action using an AIAW action wrench and a barrel vise. The barrel fit exactly as it did on my AW- brass that was tight in my AW (.001 over SAAMI minimum headspace) was tight in the AX, and brass that had minimal resistance in my AW (SAAMI minimum) chambered the same in my AX. My go/no-go gauges will be here on Monday, but I am confident based on this brass test that the headspace is correct.
Getting into the review- to sum it up, the AX is an upgraded AW. Most of this review will draw direct comparisons to my AW because of this.
The action, bolt, and safety are all the same. The trigger internally is the same, but is adjustable fore and aft, an has a wider, serrated trigger shoe. My AW trigger was perfect out of the box, where my AX trigger was a little on the heavy side, enough that after substantial dry fire practice, my finger started to feel a bit fatigued. I lightened it up three full turns, adjusting the weight screw only, and now it is just a bit lighter than my AW.
Ergonomically, the rifle excels. It feels a lot like an AW, should feel very familiar to anyone with significant time on a chassis/AW/AE, but it is more comfortable for me, which is saying something, because I really like the way my AW fits. The two biggest improvements to the ergonomics to me-
1: The pistol grip is more comfortable on my thumb than my AW. The front of the grip is flat and feels very similar to my AW, the overall hand position is similar, but it doesn't push my thumb "down" like an AW stock. It never hindered my shooting, but did feel a bit awkward, and was more apparent when shooting offhand. The hand position is excellent on the AX.
2: I was able to set the scope up more to the rear on the AX, which helped set proper eye relief and length of pull. My AW is a dovetail, and using the dovetail mount in the rear position with my Hensoldt 4-16x56 ff pulled all the way to the rear, I had to remove one spacer from my ideal LOP, and still had to crane my head forward to get a correct site picture. Not so on the AX. I was able to get perfect head position and length of pull. Note- this will not be a bit deal for most shooters, as eye relief is not usually an issue on the AW.
The QA buttpad is nice, it is a lot handier than the spacer system, and allows the pad to be adjusted for height and angle. You can quickly make adjustments to LOP for different shooting positions, which would be impossible with the spacers. The QA cheekpiece is also nice.
One of the biggest selling points for me was the buttspike. I am a big fan- combining a buttspike with a small rear bag results in always having the right rear bag height. I carried three rear bags in my shooting bag when shooting my AW, in this case I only need a Tac Ball. This buttspike had ample range of motion, and also was a viable option by itself (no bag.)
The handguard system is also nice, and modular. The picatinny rail segments can be moved around or removed, as can the Harris bipod mount- allowing a further forward mount than on an AW.
As far as how it shoots- I can't comment on the Bartlein barrel as I haven't shot it, only my chopped UK barrel. As for the barreled action, it is for all intents an purposes an AW.
So, to sum it up- is it worth it? That is subjective. It is $8,000, which is a lot of money. I have read that option to option, it is only $300 more than an AW (with the Bartlein barrel/SAS brake another $300 option on top of that.) For $300 more than an AW, I think it is an upgrade. Less optioned models will be coming out further down the line, and they will cost less. For me, the biggest upgrades are the ergos and the buttspike, if my AW was a fully equipped folder with the Q/A options and buttspike I would probably feel that this is less of an upgrade. My AW is a 1.5 however, so this gun carries quite a few nice features I don't currently have.
Here is the only pic I have currently (I'll try to get more up later as time permits):
Other sidenote- I'm not sure I care for the new mag/magwell setup. It is certainly taking some getting used to, and doesn't seem as intuitive as an AW where I can just slam the mag up in and be good to go. Only time will tell. The mag essentially appears to be an AW mag with a tab formed in the front by punching the sheetmetal forward.
