I hit the firing range today to keep the ol’ skills up and was greeted by one of the guys there with an invite to lay my furry paws on the Fabrique Nationale SCAR-L in 5.56mm.  The SCAR is FN’s answer to the military requests for a new battle rifle for US special forces.

First impression — the gun is incredibly light, which is not what I expected with all the plastic on it.  The company’s F2000 is a bullpup version of this gun, but feels like it weighs about twice what the SCAR does.  The stock folds to the right and does not interfere with the shooter’s grip, nor with operation of the ejection port.

It uses standard AR mags, and the seat easily and drop free when the release is hit.  Manipulation of the charging handle (on the left side of the gun) is easy and could be used to chamber a round as easy as the bolt release.  Trigger is smooth and felt to be about 5ish pounds.  Fold down sights are standard, and there is a Piccatinny rail for optics.

Take down looked to be very easy, and there were a minimum of moving parts.  (I only counted four…)  The weapon has about the same recoil as my old CMMG piston-driven AR, despite being lighter.  This weapon also uses a piston to drive the bolt carrier, and this makes the gun function much cleaner and more reliably.  (My CMMG was a delight to clean, compared to my service-issed M16 and M4.)  Accuracy for a rifle is hard to assess on a 25 yard range, but the SCAR drilled a single ragged hole in the head of a silhouette target with 10 rounds…so just as good as any AR or P90 at similar distances.

This would be an excellent shooter for the field, without a doubt.  However, the $2500 price tag was a bit steep for my blood.  (Which would have undoubtedly been spilled by “she who must be obeyed”, had I bought the thing.)  There is a .308 version on route sometime later this year.