by Don_Stevenson » 08 May 2023, 12:20 pm
SCSA Taipan Light Review
Session 1 – 0 to 80 rounds – LPVO only, no bipod
Here are my initial impressions after my first range trip with the Taipan.
Set up – The new Taipans have changed the scale shaped slots on the angled upper sides of the fore end to slots that look like M Lok but which are narrower. The front end has 2 M Lok slots at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock.
I mounted my scope, a Vector Optic Continental 1-6x on one piece rings, more on the scope later.
Initial impressions are that unloaded the action cycles smoothly as long as the safety is off. With the safety on there is a noticeable hang up to cock the action. It’s not impossible but takes a lot of force and sort of feels like you are doing something wrong. Checking the manual reveals several mentions of keeping the safety on while cycling the action so this seems a bit odd.
Build quality, fit and finish look fine and more refined than some photos of prototypes and early examples, in particular the shiny plastic A2 style grip has been replaced with a much nicer looking, and feeling rubber overmoulded version that has SCSA markings.
The trigger is fairly heavy but doesn’t have huge creep and I found it acceptable for a rifle of this style.
The standard stock is heavy and really fugly but given the whole NSW appearance laws and AR style stocks being treated like they are the end of the world I can see why they left it as is from the TSP Chassis. I have an adapter and new stock coming.
Before shooting I ran a little ballistol and some patches down the barrel to make sure it was clean.
At the range.
Local range is St Marys so it got zeroed at 50m. Ammo was cheap Winchester super x 55 gr which was a bargain at $500 for 500 rounds at my local shop. I did also buy one box of Winchester 64gr soft tips at the range but the accuracy was worse with those.
Accuracy was acceptable, shooting off a front rest I was able to zero quickly and then consistently hit groups that were around an inch without putting a huge amount of effort into the absolute highest precision.
The action was a little stiff sometimes, particularly on extraction but that may get better over time.
I also shot about 20 rounds standing which was fun. I did get two rounds that failed to fire with light strikes.
Overall I was happy with how it handles and performs and will keep an eye on any changes as the barrel and action wear in.
Oh yeah, I did not follow the break in procedure in the manual which calls for cleaning after every 3-6 shots for something like 50 rounds, particularly because cleaning the barrel properly is a royal pain and requires a lot of disassembly.
Session 2 – 81 – 140 rounds – LPVO, Red Dot, bipod mounted.
A week later and some more bits have arrived, most notably a Warne 45 degree mount, Vector Frenzy red dot and UTG Recon Flex 2 bipod.
Went to mount everything and ran into my first issue which was that the mount for the scope is quite low and caused the zoom ring to rub on the red dot if the dot was mounted on the back section of the receiver. Moved the dot as far forward on the receiver as possible but ended up with it on the fore end so accuracy my be a bit variable.
Even under the front end of the scope its tight to get to the brightness + button and the windage turret obscures part of the sight window.
The UTG Recon flex bipod bolted straight on to the Mlok slots with minimal fiddling and I added a QD cup underneath for a sling.
Got to the range and zeroed the red dot which took a bit of fiddling since the Frenzy doesn’t have clicks so it was a bit of trial and error to get right.
Settled on a 35 metre zero.
Checked the zero on the scope since the mount had been on and off a couple of times and then shot some groups, again, around an inch at 50m and did a little bit of standing with the red dot.
This time I had a series of light strikes after about 40 rounds and called it a day after 60 rounds.
Going to pull it down and clean everything in case there is something causing friction in the firing pin hole or bot carrier.