Since the Makasi is apparently the only semi-auto available in Canada right now, I’ve been getting a lot of questions, so I thought I’d follow up with a quick article on where my Makasi is at now.
I covered in a previous article that I switched out the trigger, safety, and grip. For those of you that don’t want to go read it, I put in an ALG ACT, a Sons of Liberty Q lever safety, and a B5 grip. After that article, I also switched the stock out to the Magpul UCS. I did that in response to a comment I received on my video that the original left-folding stock made it impossible to operate the charging handle when folded. The UCS fixed that issue.
As far as reliability – I had an individual email me from Canada. He said that there are reports from gun guys up there of reliability issues (especially within the first 500 rounds) and out-of-spec MLOK. Let me give my experience on those.
Reliability – I’m somewhere north of 700 rounds right now, and the only issue I’ve had is the one I reported in my other videos. I link that directly to the magazine I was using, as I have not had a recurrence since removing that mag from my rotation. That’s not to say that current guns may not have issues, but mine has been reliable. Now, it has been (and it remains) a really gassy gun. I think that’s just a product of having a carbine length gas system. As long as I’m wearing gloves, I usually don’t have any issues with heat or the gas.
Out-of-spec MLOK – This one is a little murkier. I mentioned in my earlier videos that a lot of the holes in the gun were really tight, especially the safety. When I mentioned it to customer service, they said that they had a few guns that had coating issues and they were working to fix it. Since then, the safety has worn in pretty well. It’s at the point where I don’t even feel the stiffness anymore. What I didn’t mention in the video was that the MLOK slots were similar. I had a lot of trouble getting the nuts through the slots. It wasn’t a huge deal back then, as I assumed it was being worked on and if I needed to I could just find a way to thin out the coating.
However, if there are still issues with the MLOK slots, then that means one of two things is going on: 1) they still haven’t fixed the coating issue, which is unsat after two years, or 2) the issue is with the machining and not the coating, which is almost worse than the first. I honestly don’t know which it is, but it is a little worrying this far into production. I also saw that they had their handguards on sale individually, so maybe I can order one and see if it’s in spec.
Conclusion
I still say that mine has been a fun, unique gun to own. In general, I can deal with not mounting many accessories, as it’s mostly a range toy anyway. I would be a little wary of the MLOK issues, but I know that Canadian customers are kind of screwed and having this gun might be better than not having any gun at all.
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