I always enjoy getting my hands on a rifle I’ve never fired before. The Keltec Su-16CA was a unique experience. The Su-16CA is a 5.56mm rifle weighing 4.7 pounds. The most notable thing about this particular rifle is the ability to transform its heat shield into a bipod.
The concept is very neat, though it needs to be implemented better. The bipod is made of plastic and feels like it would be prone to breakage. Furthermore the part of the bipod that touches the ground comes to an awkward point. This makes getting stabilization a little more tricky, even more so I’d imagine on uneven ground. One major flaw with this design is the exposed barrel. If one were trying to move quickly and didn’t have time to retract the heat shields, then one’s hands would be in mucho pain.
I do have a couple minor complaints about the rifle. The rear sight aperture is slightly too big for my taste. This makes precision shooting more challenging. It’s in-between the M-16’s day and night aperture, so I’d imagine it would be okay for day or night shooting. The second complaint isn’t really a complaint, I suppose. But I really like pistol grips. I think that a pistol grip would greatly improve on the handling of this rifle.
There were a couple of things I really liked about this rifle. Firstly, the charging handle being on the side. Not a surprise to anyone who has seen my name (Saw Gunner). In my humble opinion, the M-16 and M-4’s charging handle makes chambering a round too damn complex of a movement. Secondly, the built-in magazine holder in the buttstock. You can put two ten-round magazines in there. Having an extra 20 rounds of ammo on hand is never a bad thing.
Despite my criticisms this is still a really fun rifle to fire. I wouldn’t go carrying this rifle into combat, but for a nice relaxing day at the range the Keltec Su-16CA isn’t a bad choice.