Received my .22 700mm M3 on Friday and have already done a bunch of mods and tuned it for slugs.
Here's my impressions... keep in mind I have *only* owned Edguns for the last 10 years or so... started with a .22 R2.5, then progressed through .22 & .25 R3, .22 & .25 R3M, and now a .25 R5M. Also have a Leshiy but that's not really a good comparison to the M3, while the Matadors are. I've shot and tuned several Daystates and FX rifles for friends over the years, but this is the first time I've owned anything other than an Edgun myself.
My main reason for trying the M3 was I wanted a slug gun, and my R5M doesn't really agree with slugs. The M3 offers several liners and lots of adjustments and I figured I could get a slug dialed in relatively quickly for the M3.
Initial impressions:
Coming from Edguns, the FX build and design feels somewhat fragile. It's rather light feeling, there are a bunch of parts held together with relatively small screws, there's very obvious barrel flex, etc. The scope rail is only held on with 3 screws and the fit is somewhat sloppy before the screws are tightened (be nice to see FX add 2x dowel pins between the scope rail and upper plate, 1 engaging a hole and 1 engaging a slot to positively locate the scope rail every time you removed it.) Ed's guns are built like tanks and are extremely solid (especially the R5M, where the entire frame and upper receiver is held together with dowel pins and the tensioned barrel.) Cocking action of the M3 feels very smooth and much lighter in terms of effort than the R5M (the R5M is a straight pull action so you don't get any mechanical advantage from levers like the M3.) The M3 2 stage trigger has a good break, but I can see where those who like light 8 oz triggers aren't happy with the Impact. Coming from Edguns (which have always had higher pull weight 2 stage triggers) I have no issues with the M3 trigger. The large magazine capacity of the M3 is nice, but the cutout it requires leaves a large open gap in the rear of the frame with only a small aluminum bracket for reinforcement across that opening. I'm sure if you hit the rifle hard on the bottom of the butt with the magazine removed you'd likely tweak it... someone on here who recently purchased an M3 had it arrive with a bent top plate and a pinched closed magazine cutout probably because it was dropped butt first during shipping.
Thoughts after installing mods but before shooting it:
When the M3 arrived I had a bunch of mods ready... Superior heavy liner, Huggett replacement shroud, nielsen slug pin probe, K&L arca rail, FX slug power kit, and an FX wika gauge for the 1st regulator pressure that matches the bottle and 2nd regulator gauge. I installed them all before even firing the rifle. Working on the FX is a mixed bag. While it's very modular and allows a lot of customization and adjustments, that comes at the cost of a very high parts count and a lot of fasteners and o-rings. Compare this to Ed's design philosophy on the matadors where there is minimal parts count and as few o-rings as possible. On the R5M you can get unobstructed access to the breech for barrel cleaning by only removing one screw and the entire pin and magazine block slides off, you can remove the entire air reservoir and regulator assembly by only pulling 2 stock screws and the 1 wedge block screw, etc. FX on the other hand has hardware everywhere. When pulling all the screws to remove the cheek rest, scope rail, and top rail to install the slug power kit and nielsen slug probe in the M3 I realized just those 3 parts had more screws than the entire R5M. The FX liner system, while I know it works, just seems very fragile compared to the Edgun. The R5M has a very solid, large OD LW barrel that's threaded both ends and tensioned between the breech block and front of the frame and shroud. It's a super solid design, always under ample tension, zero has never shifted on me even after knocks while out hunting, and the tensioned barrel also serves to tie the entire upper frame together. The FX liner system on the other hand seems like a bit of a wet noodle. The rather thinwall liner is held in the outer sleeve by o-rings and held under compression which would want to make it buckle if you tighten the retaining nut too tight or the o-rings inside bunch up (the upcoming carbon liner sleeves will help with this), the entire barrel assembly is floated in the frame with o-rings, and the entire barrel assembly is held into the rifle with only a single setscrew at the breech end. I know they shoot well but it just feels so fragile compared to the R5M... and I don't doubt that an accidental smack on a tree while out hunting might tweak the FX barrel setup and shift your zero at the best or even bend/tweak the barrel at the worst.
Thoughts after initial rough tuning:
Concerns about the durability and high parts count aside, here's where the M3 shines. When I tuned my matadors, you had to have them out of the stock and in some sort of rest to tune the hammer spring tension. If you wanted to adjust the regulator, you had to remove the air reservoir, degas the air tube, remove the regulator, adjust it, check the regulator pressure in the regulator tester, then reassmble and refill the rifle. The R5M made this somewhat easier with a detent adjustable hammer spring tension system, you can remove the air reservoir with only a single wedge block screw, and it finally added a degassing screw to the reservoir. Adjusting the reg on the R5M was much faster than the previous matadors. No real choices for barrels on the Edguns unless you have one custom made... you get what Ed ships you, and while I've never had one not shoot JSB's extremely well my R5M did not care for slugs (and I tried quite a few.) Now for adjusting the M3... on the M3 you adjust nearly everything without disassembling anything-- hammer spring tension, valve travel, 2nd reg pressure. Adjusting the 1st reg requires removing the bottle but not degassing the entire bottle and gun. It's very user friendly and very fast to try different adjustments... the rifle really lends itself to tinkering to find the best tune for your chosen ammo and power level and it has so much adjustment range you can probably get darn near anything to shoot good out of it provided you have the correct liner installed. When I was first testing regulator pressures and hammer spring tension to find peak velocities for 6 different slugs it was a simple process to play with the macro wheel to find the velocity peak for a given regulator pressure, and if that wasn't enough all I had to do was get a 2.5mm allen driver and slightly increase the regulator pressure and try again. If I had to do that on my R5M I'd have to remove the air reservoir, degas it, remove / adjust / test the regulator, then refill it and reassemble, then go shoot and retest. The M3 is an absolute joy to tune with all the externally accessible adjustments. I've only had the M3 3 days now and put ~700 slugs through it so I can't comment on long term consistency and repeatability, but so far it seems quite consistent.
Thoughts after fine tuning and shooting more:
Worked up some promising slug loads at 50Y in the backyard the other night and took the rifle out to 100, 125, and 150Y today to fine tune. Extra distance quickly showed that a couple of the slugs that looked pretty darn promising at 50Y weren't so hot at 100Y+... specifically the .217 diameter slugs. The .217s grouped tight at 50Y and had higher velocity peaks than the .218 slugs being they fit a little looser in the bore, but the .217s opened up to about 2 MOA at 100Y and liked throwing flyers. The .218 diameter slugs of the same weight had about the same group sizes at 50Y compared to the .217 slugs, but the .218s immediately shrank group sizes at 100Y and were grouping about 0.75-1 MOA at 100Y without any fine tuning. Did a little fine tuning with the micro wheel to test groups going up and down in about 6fps steps and got them dialed in fairly quickly... had a couple of 0.5-0.75 MOA 5 shot groups at 100Y when the breeze stopped. The whole time I'm fiddling between 3 different slug weights and quickly adjusting the hammer spring tension in between shot groups to test the effect of small velocity changes on group sizes without even getting up off my shooting mat I was thinking to myself "I'd have to take the R5M apart every time to do this." Once I found what the rifle liked best (NSA .218 27.5gr slugs) I set up the hammer adjustments so that 16 on the macro wheel is the highest tuned power at 965fps, and dialing the macro wheel all the way down to 1 yields about 720fps if I ever want to dial the power down. I also tried some JSB 18.1's with the macro wheel on 1 and they were going 930fps, and what surprised me is how accurate they were at 50Y even with the faster twist superior heavy liner. I forgot to try to close down the valve adjuster to see if I could get them down to about 875-900fps and improve accuracy even more-- but I could. I need to try some JSB 25.4 redesigned monsters when I can find some in stock. Something else that was made obvious while shooting is that the M3 cocking effort is very easy and smooth and the 28 shot mag capacity is great coming from my .25 R5M with 9 shot magazines. I do miss the ambidextrous cocking levers on the R5M though, sometimes while shooting from a tripod I like to cycle the rifle with my left hand and the R5M let me do that. With the M3 I have to choose between right hand or left hand-- can't have both.
Summary:
While I'm not 100% satisfied with the overall design of the M3 when it comes to perceived durability (so many little screws to loosen up and so many o-rings to leak) I can't argue with how it shoots. It's damn accurate and being able to adjust nearly everything without disassembly or degassing the rifle is great. If you like tinkering you can probably get everything you want out of the rifle and your desired ammo. That being said, with all the adjustments readily accessible it's also easy to get turned around and end up with a tune that's past the power curve if you aren't paying attention or don't know what you're doing. The micro and macro wheel for the hammer spring adjustment also move somewhat easily and could easily get disturbed bouncing around in a carrying case or if you rub them on something while carrying the rifle, so keep an eye on them. For a "grab and go" rifle that I can always count on to be ready to go right out of the safe, I still give the nod to my R5M... for now. It always holds zero, the velocity is always dead on, the regulator doesn't drift or stick, and it just flat out works. Time will tell on the M3. My takeaway for now is if you are one of those people that's never satisfied with a rifle out of the box and like being able to adjust everything and dial the rifle in with your chosen ammo, the M3 offers a lot-- it's by far the most "tuning friendly" rifle I've ever messed with. If you just want to take a rifle out of the box and shoot it with pellets the manufacturer set it up for and not have to worry about adjustments, you might want to look elsewhere at a rifle with a simpler and more durable construction.
As of right now the M3 looks like a keeper since it's doing so well with slugs, which is exactly what I bought it for. Might also pick up a Delta Wolf to play with, and eagerly awaiting to see what Ed comes up with for the R6.
That is a nice analysis. I own a impact mk2, and among others, a taipan veteran. I can totally understand why some would prefer a more solid rifle, than the impact, but just as you also mentioned, it just shoot so good when it is properly setup, and it just is so easy to set it up. FX actually do have solid oldschool rifles, the royale, and the bobcat. They still make them (as fas as I know), and they are still being sold. I still have my first pcp, a bobcat in .177, and it does have a solid feel to it. So regrading FX only making flimsy rifles is not entirelly true.
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