SCAR 17S or SCAR 20S

[03Lightningrocks]

Then addition to the rifle, one needs a sturdy optic and mount, which aren't cheap.

Exactly. Mine has a nice Vortex Viper PST II on it, on a BOBRO mount. And then there's the cost of a suppressor. And new magazines for the OEM lower receiver run about $40/ea. And then there’s the whole new lower receiver you have to buy if you want to use SR25 or PMAG magazines. Those have come down in price to only $235. They used to be over $400. Do you want a longer rail system? That’ll run you another couple of hundred $$. And then there's the ACR stock conversion kits, and on and on....

[The Annoyed Man]

Then addition to the rifle, one needs a sturdy optic and mount, which aren't cheap.

Exactly. Mine has a nice Vortex Viper PST II on it, on a BOBRO mount. And then there's the cost of a suppressor. And new magazines for the OEM lower receiver run about $40/ea. And then there’s the whole new lower receiver you have to buy if you want to use SR25 or PMAG magazines. Those have come down in price to only $235. They used to be over $400. Do you want a longer rail system? That’ll run you another couple of hundred $$. And then there's the ACR stock conversion kits, and on and on....

....but otherwise it’s a perfect rifle.....

I am largely kidding, of course. The scope I put on my SCAR was one I already had. The suppressor is a Form 1 I was building anyway. I had purchased 3-4 extra magazines on my own, but then a friend of mine put a Handl Defense lower on his, and he sold me another half dozen OEM mags for cheap. So I’ve already got about 10 OEM magazines that didn’t cost me that much. Plus, I saw the other day that Promag now makes an inexpensive aftermarket polymer magazine that fits the OEM lower.

As far as the "Ugg Boot" OEM buttstock goes, it’s actually a pretty nice stock, and I have no problems with mine. My friend who sold me his magazines was medically retired out of MARSOC after sustaining a devastating arm injury from a land mine. He has multiple tours in Iraq/Afghanistan under his belt, and as MARSOC, he frequently worked alongside Army Special Forces units....and they had SCAR Heavies on their trucks. Apparently, they also carried a spare OEM buttstock on their trucks because there had been some instances of SCAR buttstocks being more easily damaged by combat abuse than say an SR25 buttstock. I don’t know how prevalent the problem actually was, and it may be that having a spare was only out of an abundance of caution. It only takes a minute or two to swap out the stock, so they carried a spare. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that the weakness is at the folding hinge-work. But realistically, the buttstock works just fine and is more than strong enough.

Anyway, you can buy an adapter that allows you to mount the folding stock from a Bushmaster ACR. It IS a nicer looking stock, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a functional improvement. I’ve left my OEM stock on, and have no plans to replace it. I don’t think it’s that ugly, and it is comfortable and works just fine.

I haven’t bothered with modifications like the Handl lower receiver or the rail extension because they add weight to an otherwise fairly light .308 battle rifle. I weighed mine when I first got it, and it came in at an honest 8.0 lbs even without a scope or magazine. It weighs 9.25 oz less than my iron-sighted 20" M16/A4 replica....weighed on the same scale.

The only significant upgrade I’ve made to mine is the addition of a Timney 3.5 lb drop in trigger. The OEM triggers on SCAR 17s are horrible. They’re not even as good as a mil-spec AR15 trigger. Pull weight is a gritty 8+ lbs, so the Timney is a VAST improvement. I don’t count swapping muzzle devices out to accommodate a suppressor as a "necessary" upgrade. The OEM PWS muzzle brake is excellent, and is one of the reasons that a light .308 recoils about like an AR15. If I wasn’t trying to suppress the rifle, I’d have left the PWS on.

The real reason that the SCAR 17S aftermarket isn’t so expensive is the economies of scale. Not that many people will buy a $3000 battle rifle, when they can get a perfectly good one for less than half that price—think AR10/FAL/M1A/Etc—even though the SCAR is a VERY nice rifle, and in my opinion, better than those others for several reasons. Similarly, now that the numbers of SCAR 17S has slowly increased, the cost of major upgrades has come down....hence the Handl lowers which used to be priced between $400-$600, now costing in the mid-$200 range. But you would still have to spend a fair amount of money to upgrade any one of those platforms to features that you get right out of the box with a SCAR. OTH, those other rifles are all pretty nice. I’ve owned an AR10 and an M1A before and enjoyed them. I’d like to pick up a FAL some day....preferably a Para with the 18” barrel and folding stock.

[C-dub]

I still want one. I'm still saving for one. It might take me another 2-3 years at the current pace since I spend a good chunk of what I'd already saved on a Colt Competition discussed in a separate thread. We'll see how priorities and other things go.