PSA Jakl Pistol in .300 Blackout

Sadly, still a work in progress

A while back, Keith and I did a video in which we compared several alternative firearms for people who, like both Keith and I, had always wanted a Bushmaster ACR but never managed to get our hands on one before production ended. Since production ended, the prices have skyrocketed and availability has dwindled.

In came multiple other guns that are similar in appearance and function. The guns we compared to an original ACR were the FN SCAR 16, the CZ Bren 2, and a Palmetto State Armory (PSA) Jakl rifle, all chambered in 5.56 NATO.

Much to our surprise, the Jakl came out as the top choice for an ACR alternative based on the criteria we were using. That result hinged on two factors that hurt the other two alternatives: price and availability.

In fact, I liked the Jakl so much after that comparison, I decided to get my hands on a .300 BLK pistol version with the intention of turning it into an SBR and potentially putting it into service as a truck/trunk gun. The gun arrived and I equipped it with an optic, a light, a folding brace (until I can SBR it), installed a Geissele SD-C trigger and a Radian 45° throw safety and I hit the range.

I managed to zero the optic with no hiccups using S&B 145grn supersonic ammo. After zeroing it, I fired off the rest of that first box as a quick function test. Once that was done, I moved to another bay at the range and began filming.

Sadly, things did not go well. As soon as I tried to run some subsonic ammo through the gun, it began to have problems. To further compound the bad range day I was having, my wireless microphone died about halfway through filming.

I continued trying different things to get the gun running until I encountered a second issue with the gun. While turning the gas adjustment knob to try a different gas setting, the detent that keeps the knob from spinning freely became stuck and no longer held the knob from turning.

At that point, I threw in the towel and called it a day. I only managed to get about 40-45 rounds through the gun in total. I took the gun home and talked about what had happened on camera. My plan was to send the gun back to PSA via their warranty repair program to see how that goes.

While the warranty program is easy from the end user standpoint, it is painfully slow which was only exacerbated by the Christmas holiday season with limited hours of operation. Since I was waiting for the authorization to ship the gun back to them, I figured I would do some investigating myself to see if I could identify any problems.

I started by checking the chamber using Go/No-Go gauges. Those functioned as they should. Then I tried chambering live rounds by placing them in the chamber and letting the bolt and carrier close. All the rounds chambered fine, including both supers and subs from multiple manufacturers.

The next step was to try and manually cycle some rounds through it from loaded magazines. Bam, instantly ran into problems. I was using .300 BLK specific mags from both Magpul and Lancer and the problem persisted no matter which mag I used or which round I was trying to chamber. The round from the left side of the mag would feed okay, but the round from the right side of the mag would hang up.

I did a little more inspecting and I found that the leading edge of the bolt carrier, the part that is supposed to glide over the top of the next round in the magazine, was machined at an odd angle. I do not know if that is intentional, but I can’t imagine a reason that part would intentionally be non-symmetrical.

Seeing as I have a perfectly functioning 5.56 Jakl rifle here at the house, I grabbed the BCG out of that gun and compared the two. The difference between the two is painfully obvious.

In the photo above, the top BCG is out of the 5.56 rifle and the bottom one is from the .300 BLK pistol. Notice the place the red arrow is pointing. That is a sharp corner and is the part that is riding over the top of the round in the left side of the mag when feeding the round from the right side of the mag.

At this point, I am pretty sure I have identified the cause of the feeding problems. I am not sure why this only causes issues with subsonic rounds as compared to supersonic rounds. Perhaps it has something to do with the different shape (the ogive) of the heavier bullets in the subsonic rounds.

In any case, the gun will be going back to PSA in the next couple days and I will see what they say. In addition to the BCG needing to be replaced, they still need to fix the gas knob detent.

I am still hopeful that I can get this gun running reliably. Once it comes back, and if it is running good, I plan on giving it a very hard workout to test the reliability. I will definitely report back with updates.

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For those interested in the original ACR alternatives comparison video, here it is.