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POF P415 upper. Impressed.

Ape_Factory

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Minuteman
May 23, 2020
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San Antonio, Texas
Purchased a piston POF 415 upper with a 12.5" barrel, 1:7 twist, and got it out to the range today. Have to say, I'm really impressed. Shot amazingly well right out of the box, first three rounds were on top of one and other at 50 yards while I was dialing in the scope and prior to moving on to 100 yards. I swapped in an H3 buffer (Odin adjustable) into an SBR'd lower and an inexpensive 1-4X FFP scope I'd had lying around, new in box for two years, just to dial it in. I left the gas setting on normal with an OSS 762Ti can and it was extremely consistent, locked the bolt back on empty and just ran with zero fiddling.


Once I got out to 100, the 1-4 held me back as the dot covered at least an MOA if not more but I was not really interested in groups just getting it functioning and zeroed. I didn't break out the good bipod or bag, just threw on the cheap bipod and shot. I have no doubt, with a higher powered scope or different reticle that it'd be sub-MOA no problem, especially with hand loads. Took it out to 200 and was able to hit a head-sized target with ease using PMC X-Tac, one after the other. Was comically easy.


I did bore scope the barrel before shooting and it was very clean from a manufacturing standpoint, no tool marks or other maladies, looked good to go and I did clean it prior as all uppers are test-fired at POF. I had a chance to visit the factory last month and it was a great experience and I got to meet a lot of the individuals who put the rifles together.. I'm used to barrels taking 50-100 rounds to shoot well so I was pretty surprised with the performance using the X-Tac which can be hit or miss.

Being a piston gun, I was expecting it to have more felt recoil but it was surprisingly soft-shooting likely due to the H3 buffer. The sound was the most notable difference between it and a DI gun. Seemed to have more of a mechanical ping/ring to it but I really couldn't tell any difference in recoil impulse and it stayed on target as well as my DI rifle. I didn't bring the DI so I'll have to wait for a back to back comparison. I also didn't take any velocity readings but will do so in the near future. I'll back-to-back it with the DI which is a 16".

The lower has a Law Tactical folder on it so the 1-4x is comically far back on the top rail. It's actually not a bad little tactical type scope and I may just keep it on there.
 
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I have a POF 415 and it's a laser. Definitely get a better scope. You'll be amazed at how well it shots.
 
Shame they got away from using rock creek barrels
You know I completely forgot to ask who made their barrels while I was there. They make everything else and were setting up new CNC machines to handle increased demand. They have a few cool new products coming out that they let me see as well (lips 100% sealed) which should be out by shot show.

Not sure who's making them now or when they switched away from Rock Creek but both of my POF barrels shoot really well. I have a Revolution DI that I purchased in 2019 and now the P415. I looked at RC's website and they're no longer taking orders due to work load. POF might have had to look elsewhere due to the volume needed.
 
I have a POF 415 and it's a laser. Definitely get a better scope. You'll be amazed at how well it shots.
I have a bunch of scopes actually...I just had this one lying around unused and new in the box. I'm not sure what I'm going to do scope wise. I have a 1-8X Burris FFP on the 16" DI upper and I recently put a reflex dot on my 8.5" 300BLK which means I have a 1-6x Primary Arms leftover but it has a 300 blackout reticle.

Being a 12.5" barrel, kinda wondering if I really need anything more than a 1-4 or 1-6x. Want to try and keep it as light as possible. I don't think I'd have any issues taking it out to 300 or 500 yards with this 1-4X Bushnell. There's image falloff at the edges but it's surprisingly usable. It was actually my first scope purchase some time back and it had an internal flaw. Sent it in and they sent me a new one so it's just been sitting around.

Open to suggestions, not looking for anything super high dollar. I have a 2-12, 3-18 and a 4.5-29x along with the aforementioned 1-8x and 1-6X. Everything I own is FFP but kind of wondering if a 1-6 SFP might be the ticket. I almost never use the in between magnification settings on something like a 1-4 or 1-6. I'd do a red dot reflex and a magnifier but it seems most magnifiers are 3X and seems like it's just added complexity over a LVPO.
 
Piston guns get a bad rap for recoil for some reason. My ruger sr556 and sig 516 shoot very soft with t2 buffers and blue sprinco springs. I will say the ruger is overgassed tho and i have to leave it on the lowest setting. With a can its too much for it.
 
Can't speak for the current production guns but mine is a 2013 and IMO the best AR15 made.
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Nice! What generation would a 2013 be? 2? 3? When you walk into the lobby at POF, they have a display case up on the wall with the historical transition/evolution of their piston system. It's pretty cool. They've definitely gotten smaller over the years. Is that the original barrel on yours?
 
Gen 4 but made before they stopped using rock creek barrels. I've shot some really good groups with it when it had a higher power scope, 3/4" gun all day, sometimes much better. 75 hornady match w/varget hammers out to 500yds. I probably have 4k rounds through it and can't recall a single malfunction, it runs cool and clean, great factory trigger, gas block adjusts for suppressed/unsuppressed very easy and is tuned great. I plan to run this gun pretty much forever, I'll have a premium barrel spun up to copy the factory one when it eventually dies. Only thing I've wanted to try is a silent capture spring to try to get rid of that spring noise I hate in AR's.
 
Curious on the barrel, are piston platform barrels essentially the same as DI? So I could order a custom barrel with the right gas block journal size and mid length gas port location and it'd be good to go? Or is something proprietary on the piston guns?