D9Firearms

We recently outfitted Luke with a DPMS LR-308 AP4 with a JP Adjustable trigger for his bear hunt coming up. We were a bit more surprised by the results of his test he performed for us. I have included several threads of emails that we went back and forth on. I have to say I was thouroughly impressed.

April 18.2007

Hi Darrel,Got the scope! Thanks so much for sending. It is sleeping safely at home in my safe. Looking forward to trying it on Saturday. You were right–that thing is SOLID. Probably could pound nails with it. Upon brief inspection, the quality does seem to be exceptional. I was thinking that I would take a Leupold VX-III with me as well to test accuracy of the AP4, but I can see that it will have nothing to offer (except perhaps so weight saving but that will be irrelevant at range). I’ll just be taking your IOR.

I’ll try to give you a call later tomorrow with the rest of the details.

Your very happy customer,

Luke

April 19, 2007 Hi Darrel,

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Didn’t have time to get the pictures taken but I do have an additional follow up report for you. As I mentioned, I went plinking with some friends yesterday. Distances were not huge, mostly just 50-100 yards. We bought four different kinds of ammo to try–Fusion 150 grain, Remington 150 grain, Remington 180 grain, and Federal 150 grain. The rifle continued to be laser beam accurate–but without exception, ALL FOUR KINDS had the same reliability problems. Five jams with the Fusion, three with each of the remingontons, and one jam with the Federal. In all situations, the jam was caused by a failure of the spent case to eject before the next round was loaded. For the ones that did eject, most of them did not fly very far at all–they were just barely making it out. So I think that there is something wrong with the rifle. A friend of mine had similar problems with an FAL thought that maybe the gas port was not quite big enough so there isn’t enough “umph” on most shots to get the bolt to fly back hard enough to eject the round.

What do you think?

Luke

Hi Darrel

Just got off the phone with DPMS about the reliability issue. They are really nice people there. Sounds like it is something they have seen before and will be no problem for them to fix. The guy I spoke with–Shane–thought the gas system just needed to be opened up a little bit. Might have gotten shut slightly when the front sight was installed.

Your very happy customer,

Luke

Sorry for the long silence once again. I finally had a chance to take the pictures yesterdy and then was able to get them uploaded today. Here they are. The final picture (#61) shows the competition–my Springfield M1A National Match topped with a Springfield Government 4-14×56 scope pitted against the DPMS AP4 topped with your I.O.R. 2-12×35 scope. The first picture (#49) shows a closer view of the DPMS and the target. THe second picture shows the target up close. You will see three 3-shot groups, all shot at 100 yards from a cement shooting bench. Temperature was about 55 degrees. Sky was overcast with a few sprinkles every now and then, but nothing much to speak of. The upper left was shot by the DPMS with factory Winchester Supreme 168 gr ammo. It is exactly 1 MOA. The lower middle group was shot with the M1A National Match with your 168 gr special loads. It is 2.125 MOA, and I know that there was no operator error there. I had a rock solid rest, must better I thought than either of the AP4 groups. The final group–far right–was shot with the AP4 with your special 168 gr loads. That group measured 7.5mm from center to center of the two furthest shots, or exactly 0.30 MOA. The final pictures show that group up close. You will see that the group is easily covered with a dime (yep, a dime…) with room to spare. I also included a picture of the group with a ruler, both in inches, and in centemeter for scale.The JP trigger on the AP4 was without question superior to the NM trigger in the M1A. However, I do not think that this accounted for much, if any of the difference in accuracy. The AP4 is, with the right ammo, simply a superior rifle. And weighs a fraction as much, too boot. However, the ammo makes a huge difference. Winchester Fail Safes (150 gr, I think…) would not even stay on the paper out of the AP4.Anyway, I guess the bottom line is that if I had to only have one of them, I would take the AP4 hands down any day. That rifle is one of the nicest that I have ever shot. The telescoping stock makes it a bit harder to comfortably shoot from a bench, but cearly it does not negatively affect accuracy in any way. If any of your customers ever want to talk about the AP4’s performance, I would be more than happy to chat with them. You have phenomenal product, and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone.

Good shooting,

Luke

Luke did call us back with some questions of the rifle short cycling on his 2nd trip out. We tried several immediate trouble shooting tips (adjust gas rings, verify bolt is lubed, use US ammo, and cleaning.) Unfortunately Luke did have to send the upper back in for a gas block adjustment, but needless to say DPMS stepped right up and took care of it immediately. Just a short note about the fellows at DPMS, they more than stand behind and gaurantee of their rifles. If you buy a DPMS from us and experience any problems do not hesitate to call us or DPMS directly. 1st DPMS wouldn’t put out a bad rifle, but if there is something that didn’t get set right from a gas block or a trigger install that D9 installed we will make sure it is right.

Thanks to Luke for providing us with excellent data and feedback. If you are interested in a DPMS please contact us here at D9Firearms we will be glad to outfit you with your next DPMS.

Darrel