Went to the range for Independence Day and did a bit of shooting because ‘Murica.

Put a Magpul vertical foregrip and backup sights on the JAKL and fired another 100 rounds through it. No hiccups. And the bolt hold open is now functioning with the Pmags, so it looks like after about 300 rounds this thing is doing everything it should.

SO, have my impressions about it changed? Nope. It’s basically an AK in .223 with AR ergos. It has its pluses and minuses over an AR. It’s more compact and it can be shot without cleaning a good bit longer than the AR. Because it has moving parts up front along the barrel, it won’t be as accurate as an AR but it’ll certainly be ‘accurate enough’ for the sort of tasks a gun like this would be called up for.

In .223 there’s a good bit of variety these days…AR, Mini14, AK, AR180, Beretta, Sig, FN, etc. Seems like everyone makes a pew-machine in .223 these days. Not like in the old days. But although the AR still has detractors, (I know a Vietnam vet who swears up and down that the AR platform is garbage, but his experience discounts almost 60 years of development and improvement) it is probably the most developed, refined, and improved semi-auto rifle that ever existed.

When its time to run out the door with a rifle, I’ll grab the AR over the JAKL but that’s mostly because of the long and proven track record of the AR platform. But, I have to say, so far I’m liking the JAKL and plan to do a good bit more shooting with it. At the moment, I’m putting it below the AR but above the Mini14.

So I’ve decided that it took about 200 rounds to break in the JAKL pistol that I purchased. It runs just fine now, regardless of whether it is shouldered or fired from the hip. It still does not like to lock open on empty Pmags, however. With GI mags it’s just fine. But, mag hold-open aside, it hasn’t bobbled a single round since it’s second trip to the range where it got it’s 200th round put through it. So…I’m giving it a conditional nod.

And I bought a carbine version.

The interesting thing about the carbine version was that it had several choices for a stock. Since the back of the receiver is a segment of pic rail, you can throw any 1913-compatible stock on there. And, being a bit of a minimalist, I went with the JMAC aluminum side folder in matching green and it is….gorgeous. This thing is a nice looking stock and the lockup is tightighttight. Sadly, good looks and good manufacture do not come cheap. Oh, but wow is it a nice piece of gear. I may have to get something like that for my Ruger carbines.

The nice thing about this buffertube-less design is that it really does help to make things compact for transport while still keeping things ready for use at a moments notice. There’s always the likelihood that some day you’ll need to grab the essentials and hightail it somehwere…and when that happens, space will be at a premium. The smaller you can get a competent carbine, the better.

So, liking the JAKL so far once it’s been broken in. I’m curious to see if it’s disdain for the Pmag hold-open will remain after a few hundred more rounds. At the moment, however, I am without much reservation against this thing. No two ways around it, its the new kid on the block and as such needs a long time before a level of trust can be established that would make me feel comfortable running out the door with this thing. However…it seems promising. I ordered up a vertical foregrip and Magpul backup sights (in OD, natch) to mount to this and will be dropping a dot of some type on it eventually.

If the wrist-brace thing blows over, I could see dropping a brace on the pistol version and you’d have a very nice little piece of work. So, for now, I’ll continue putting some more .223 through it here and there and see how performance goes.

So, how much do I like those Palmetto Dagger pistols? Well, let’s put the money where the mouth is:

Yup. That much.

I won’t say its 100% a Glock-by-another-name, but it’s 95% a Glock. At, in this case, almost half the Glock price. And uses my existing logistics infrastructure. For the money, these are quite the value. It seems like every week theres a sale with a complete slide/barre/spring package for $200 and then theres some ‘blem’ frames for $60. Shoot, man…for $260 you can’t go wrong.

Anyway, just a quick pic to show that if you like something…well…one is none.

So, as you recall the JAKL was giving me some problems. I suspected that the problem might be that without a stock, the energy that would go into throwing the bolt back was being diminished by moving the gun backwards as well. Easy way to test this theory.

Fired from the shoulder with an Accessory That Shall Not Be Named, the gun ran 100%. Hmmm. Is that confirmation of my theory? Not necessarily. I tried firing the JAKL as a pistol, from the hip, with the Accessory folded, and..it ran 100%. Now thats a bit curious. Clearly one of two things has happened (or, really, a combination of the two):

a) the added weight of the Accessory made the gun heavy enough that the rearward motion was retarded enough to allow more energy for the gun to cycle

and/or

b) firing 150 rounds through the thing ‘broke it in’ enough to smooth everything up and get it where it needed to be.

I suspect mostly b with a degree of a.

A couple other things of note. Last shot hold open was non-existant with Pmags, but 100% with GI aluminum mags. I suspect that is a function of the follower design rather than the material that the magazine is made from.

At this point I had he gas setting at it’s most wide open. I’ll try dialing it down one setting and see if things still run well since I don’t want to beat the thing up by having the gas system open all the time.

A lot to be said for that HK gasless system. Just saying.

And, finally, a few rails of pic should be added to to the foregrip to keep the gas from coming out the bottom and sides of the handguard. Alternatively, I could wear gloves. Or, better yet, some sort of foreward foregrip.

This was interesting. It was not the quick and easy “Take it to the range and make sure it works” trip I as expecting.

Loaded up a Pmag with some Federal 55 gr, racked a round in, pointed downrange, pulled the trigger and -bang-. Just so. Pulled the trigger again. -click-. Round ejected but didnt feed next round. Hmm. Racked it and ran it again. Same result. Over and over.

Ok, now I’m annoyed. You spend a grand on a gun you expect it to work, y’know. So, when something doesnt do what you expect it to, you start methodically changing the circumstances. I tried different magazines, different ammo, and different gas settings. (Say what you will about HK stuff….lack of a gas system to futz with is a nice thing.)

Took it home, disassembled, lubed it all up, read the manual (again), and headed back to the range. Annnnndd…I think I figured it out.

It’s short-stroking, but why? Well, its a ‘pistol’ right? But you don’t hold it like a pistol. You hold a pistol with two hands out in front of you with, usually, one arm locked. (yeah, yeah, I know…but work with me here.)

But a ‘pistol’ like this doesn’t lend itself to that sort of thing. You basically hold it at your hip like a submachine gun. And thats where, I think, the issue was. By holding it that way, the guns recoil carried it backwards to such an extent that energy that would go into throwing the bolt all the way back was throwing the gun back as well and the gun was short stroking. Or, in pistol terms, limp-wristing.

Interesting theory, right? How do we test it? Well, we hold it in an isoscoles stance and, sure enough, reliability was suddenly there. I experimented some more, different mags, ammo, etc., and quite clearly the gun functioned much more reliably (not 100% but pretty close) when there wasnt enough ‘give’ in the way I was holding the gun for it to move backward very much.

For those of you who are physics challenged, look at it this way: if you’re in a swivel chair, put your feet on the wall, and shove off, you go sailing down the hallway, right? Because the wall had no give you wound up with all the energy going into moving your fat butt. Now, imagine your coworker is also in a swivel chair and you put your feet against his chair and kick off…same amount of force exerted but you don’t go as far because some of your energy went into pushing the coworkers chair away from you.

So, to cut to the chase, this thing is really meant for a wrist brace but we all know how that turned out.

So, without putting a stock on this thing, what can I do? Well, I can be aware that I need to hold it in such a manner as to give a rock-steady hold that will allow the gun to cycle with all its energy going into the operating system…or…I suppose I could contact the folks at PSA and see if they offer a gas plug with a slightly larger setting.

But, its also entirely possible I simply need to shoot a few hundred dollars rounds through this thing to ‘break it in’. I guess I’ll just have to experiment and find out.

Also, the handguard heats up a it so a VFG would be a nice touch but, due to VFG not being kosher on a pistol, you’d have to go with an angled foregrip.

So, for now, it’s a ‘pause’ on if this gun is a buy or not buy.

Ok, a .223 that isnt an AR or an AK. Why not?

Yes..given a choice I will cerokote everything in green.

The lack of a buffer tube would seem to suggest this thing uses the AR-180-style system that every 5.56 in the last thirty years seems to use but, no…..Its actually a long-stroke system just like the AK.

Why? Well, I wanted a .223 that was more compact than the AR pistols out there which require buffer tubes. The lower on this is pure AR15 so parts, including the lower, interchange. Its only the upper that is unique. This, by the way, is quite similar to Brownells BRN-180, which is a short stroke system, which I hope to also have at some point.

This is a relatively new offering from Palmetto State Armory…the guys that make the Dagger pistols that I’ve been picking up here and there. PSA designates it as the JAKL. Its offered in carbine and pistol versions. With the maybe-maybe-not arm-brace situation the pistol’s utility is questionable but I’m an optimist and got the pistol version anyway. Worst case i can always SBR it.

Gonna take it out this weekend and test it out. But, others have beaten me to it:

It comes across as sort of a poor man’s SCAR, at least aesthetically. Does it do anything an AR doesnt do? Nope. But for a pistol, it provides a smaller package than your typical buffer-tube’d AR pistol so it does wind up being a bit more compact. The gas system is, in theory, a bit less prone to fouling issues than the AR’s direct impingement (yeah, yeah, I know…not a true DI, but…) but with an accuracy tradeoff due to the moving parts up on the barrel.

I’ll take it out this weekend and play with it. In a world of $600 M4 clones everywhere I’m not sure this amounts to much more than a niche gun, but, hey, its new, it’s .223,  and it isn’t an AR so thats kinda noteworthy.