I went to the range with Spencer today, and I brought along a new rifle I had just purchased to try out.
It's the IWI Carmel.
The Carmel is a short piston operated semi-auto rifle in 5.56. Fully ambidextrous, it also has a folding and highly adjustable stock where you can adjust the comb height as well as the length of the stock.
The Carmel can also be easily fired with the stock folded. Due to it being able to do so, and with its overall length with the stock folded, it has the interesting dual identity of being a rifle under federal law but a pistol under Michigan law.
This means that with a CPL, you could have it loaded in your vehicle or elsewhere where you normally must keep a rifle in unloaded condition in Michigan. Rather convenient, that
I put a Vortex 1-8 LVPO on it, and likely will add a red dot mounted in an offset mount soon.
Shooting 62 grain 5.56 I bought from Widener's at a good sale price, I soon had the scope zeroed in at 25 yards.
It's very fun to shoot, easy to handle, and recoil impulse is even less than a comparably sized AR-15. Accuracy was excellent, and the trigger is darn nice for a box-stock trigger.
Spencer also liked it quite a lot as well.
Right out of the box, with just a little lubrication applied to the bolt and carrier, 200 rounds through with zero malfunctions or any issues, as would be expected. Shooting it with the stock folded was no problem, either.
Spencer also had a new to him SIG MCX in 5.56 that he had purchased used.
The rattle-can paint job came with it.
It worked fine for the most part. but had a weird habit of the bolt locking halfway back which caused lots of issues.
Hitting the bolt catch, you could lock the bolt so it was half of the way clear of the ejection port and then you'd seat a mag, send the bolt home, and it obviously would not pick up a round, as the bolt was on top of the rounds in the magazine and not behind it. You then had to work the bolt all the way back to do so. I haven't seen that before and it may be due to it being used and someone may have messed with it, or it is a quirk of the MCX. Still, it is quite a nice firearm, even with the recoil impulse being noticeably different, than the Carmel, but still not bad, just a bit more thumpy, as much as a 5.56 gets thumpy, which isn't much.
In any case, we zeroed both rifles, shot them, and enjoyed the experience.
I'm rather liking the IWI Carmel and its quite a fun, reliable (200 rounds isn't much, but it's a positive start), and accurate rifle so far.
2 comments:
Interesting little carbine. Thanks for the update.
I like the idea of a loaded "car" gun, in a rifle length, but legal here in Michigan. I recall many people who had a truck gun in the rack in the back window of their pickup. Often it was a .22 rifle, sometimes with a straight power scope on it, in the 2-4 power range.
One man I knew kept a Winchester 30/30 lever action in his rear window. This had to be in about 1968-1970 or so. I suspect it was not legal even then, but it was a much different time and a very tiny village in the middle of nowhere.
Our school system even shutdown on November 15th each year, for the opening day of deer season. A teacher friend told me that it was due to no female teachers wanting to be on the bargaining committee for the union, and he and the other male representatives were hunters.
I myself don't have a dedicated "car" or "truck" gun, but if I find that things get to the point where I want one, your newest find would be a good choice.
Have a great summer and be well.
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