Armory Sponsor
Posted: 1/24/2012 10:11:00 PM EDT
| one of my good friends just bought his first gun. an H&K SL8. he's been wanting one since i got his fiancee into guns, and now i guess we've worn off on him. haha. but in all seriousness, does anybody on here have one that could offer some tips for me to relay to him. i know NOTHING about them, and thought this could be the spot to find something out for him. he's shot, and he loves it as far as i know, but, any info would be great. thanks! |
| Do you have any idea if/what he want's to do with it? That would really help me narrow it down for you. Best thing I can recommend is head over to HKpro.com and check out the HK long gun talk section and the reference library. There are tons of threads in the where guys talk about use and modifications. |
|
I had one, ended up selling it because of the single stack magazine and the ridiculous cost of additional 10 round mags. I never did find any 20 round single stack mags and didn't want to have the receiver hacked on to modifiy to double stack.
Mine also developed a crack in the trigger group housing (lower piece). I was told it was a design flaw in the single stack version where the bolt stop took a harder hit because the single stack bolt had fewer lugs to spread the force of impact around, so every time the bolt stop on the lower was hit, it received more force to a smaller area, causing the lower to crack at that place. Don't kow for sure if that is true, but it made sense when I looked at the crack, and the single stack bolt does appear to be different than the double stack bolt.. That would have been expensive to replace. It still functioned, but it could be seen getting larger and I didn't want to wait until it failed if it did. I actually liked the gray color of mine. While the rifle was accurate and functioned flawlessly, and was fun to shoot, those two factors made me get rid of it. Modification is costly and not worth it imo when there are so many other options out there now. I would advise against if it was me, but if someone fell in love with it, it was not a bad gun overall. |
| I own one as well, and mine also has the infamous crack. As stated above hk parts .net has lots of resources for him. I think the general consensus now is the crack is only cosmetic, that's what some folks have posted there who are more knowledgeable than me. I can say this from my experience my rifle preferred heavier bullet weight with the 1 in 7 twist. Also tell him to watch the height of any optic he may want to add, the rail on top is already tall as is. |
| I'm not sure if the US/Single Stacks have the same trigger group as the normal SL8's like what I have(do yours have the auto sear?), but the trick to the trigger is knowing to feel for the takeup point, which sorta clicks/tings immediately prior to the front end of the rifle going noisy. |
|
IIRC there's a fix/prevention for that crack... you can find it on hkpro. They are sweet shooters. I don't think they are worth modifying beyond factory conversions, IMHO. -Not like the USC/UMP which is every bit as good converted as not (or TONS better...). They actually make pretty good small game/varmint guns as-is. If it's grey, and he wants black, take out all the easilly removeable metal parts, clean/degrees (shaving cream&hot whater works great) and soack for a few days in a HOT water and 4-5 bottles of Rit dye mix, rinse several times in cool water, blow dry ensuring to get all small areas, reassemble and lube WELL, and enjoy!
I think common market prices are unreasonable, but I'd rather have an SL8 than another lame ass AR15 like everyine else, and everyone elses mothers.... (of course I'd take an Armalite AR10 over either, and have 2...). The main reason they never sold better, IMO, is that there arn't a lot of "cool guy pics" of people holding them down range. -Oh, and 'cause they picked a lame grey color to paint it at first (no offense if you like it, I enjoyed my USC when it was grey, and to some extent as a hunting rifle it's not an impractical color for a SL8. -JTR |
Armory Sponsor