Alright everyone. I finally got to shoot this thing on Friday. It was hovering around freezing and was very windy. I only shot out to 100 yards, and I was limited on time between work and Halloween festivities. My initial impressions are below; sorry for the length of post! I was encouraged by @Formidilosus to post my totally honest feedback. The TLDR/summary is at the bottom.
Stock:
It’s a Rokstok, and enough has been written about the stock in other threads. I still think this is the best stock I’ve ever shot from in terms of recoil reduction without a massive weight penalty. I’ve owned several Rokstok’s that had no spacers and never had an issue with them; however, I wanted to try the spacer system to see what I thought adding length. Ultimately, I ended up not needing many spacers and would again be totally fine without them.
This was also the first railed Rokstok I’ve used, and it comes with the Trinity rail. I don’t have any picatinny attachments, but I did play with the Spartan and Arca for it. The Spartan works perfect – no issues. The Arca attachment space is just really short. Given the rail is at the far forend, I find it challenging to smoothly and quickly attach it into a tripod. I wish the rail was an Arca/Spartan combo instead; it would essentially double the mounting surface for Arca. Overall, though, I don’t plan on using the rail much, as I usually shoot off a bag or sticks.
The barrel contour, as I mentioned in another post, does not leave much space for the barrel. It’s free-floated, but not by much. I can pinch the barrel and stock together at the forend with just my pointer finger and thumb. @Formidilosus has indicated that it hasn’t impacted his accuracy during field use, and I’m sure that’s true. But my other Rokstok’s have all been cut for Sendero, and I wish I had that extra space. When the stock was at @Unknown Munitions for fixing the spacer system, I requested that they remove some material to open up the barrel inlet, but they declined to do so. I will eventually get around to doing this myself. For now, though, I opted to shoot it as it came.
Magazine
Both magazines have worked flawlessly thus far. The spring on the extended mag was stiff out of the box (e.g., hard to load with gloves) but got much better after a few uses. The flush mag is fantastic, and coming from Tikkas, it’s so nice having a truly flush mag. This is one of my favorite parts of the system.
Safety
The three-position safety is a great feature. Not much to say here other than it’s nice to have one.
Action
Out-of-the box, the action wasn’t what I would call smooth. It wasn’t particularly rough, but it wasn’t as smooth as a Tikka is. I racked it a couple hundred times and it’s much smoother now. I’m sure it will continue to do so over time. I haven’t had any binding with the action. The action is also very “tactile” in the sense that you can get “feedback” from it. It’s hard to describe and may be normal with CRFs – I don’t really know. But it’s nice and I really enjoy it.
Trigger
Mine came at 2.75lbs. There is very, very minor creep that I only occasionally notice. But overall, it’s one of the nicer triggers I’ve used. And I love that it’s a drop safe system. I’m impressed with it.
Barrel / Accuracy:
I shot on a very windy day at >10k elevation. My target was blowing around quite a bit (relatively speaking) as it was on a cheap aluminum pole that I couldn’t drive very far into the now-frozen ground. I’m also not nearly the shooter that a lot of guys here are. That said, my 10-rd groups averaged between 1.2-1.5 MOA with factor ELD-M. There was a couple that were higher than that when the wind was really gusting, but I’m not concerned with that as the target was visibly moving.
My rifles for the last several years have all been 16” barrels. I really wish this gun would come with an option for a 16” barrel, as I do prefer shorter when possible. Not a big deal and I’m sure many folks would appreciate the extra velocity of an 18” barrel.
Unfortunately, my Garmin Xero was dead so I didn’t capture velocities. But I’m pretty meticulous about record keeping and will report velocity at some point down the road. Right now there’s only 70 rounds through the tube, so I’m sure it’ll speed up regardless.
The barrel is cerakoted black which looks really slick. That said, I dropped it day one (oops) and put a nice scratch through the cerakote. I’ve been pretty vocal here that I think cerakote is dumb, and I’d rather not pay for it. But it does look nice!
What would I change:
Comparison to Tikka?
I sold an awesome 6creed Tikka in a Rokstok to justify this purchase. So, naturally, the question exists of whether it’s worth it compared to the Tikka. The answer for me is yes, and going forward I’ll purchase new Marshalls over new Tikkas for a few key reasons:
Summary
Stock:
It’s a Rokstok, and enough has been written about the stock in other threads. I still think this is the best stock I’ve ever shot from in terms of recoil reduction without a massive weight penalty. I’ve owned several Rokstok’s that had no spacers and never had an issue with them; however, I wanted to try the spacer system to see what I thought adding length. Ultimately, I ended up not needing many spacers and would again be totally fine without them.
This was also the first railed Rokstok I’ve used, and it comes with the Trinity rail. I don’t have any picatinny attachments, but I did play with the Spartan and Arca for it. The Spartan works perfect – no issues. The Arca attachment space is just really short. Given the rail is at the far forend, I find it challenging to smoothly and quickly attach it into a tripod. I wish the rail was an Arca/Spartan combo instead; it would essentially double the mounting surface for Arca. Overall, though, I don’t plan on using the rail much, as I usually shoot off a bag or sticks.
The barrel contour, as I mentioned in another post, does not leave much space for the barrel. It’s free-floated, but not by much. I can pinch the barrel and stock together at the forend with just my pointer finger and thumb. @Formidilosus has indicated that it hasn’t impacted his accuracy during field use, and I’m sure that’s true. But my other Rokstok’s have all been cut for Sendero, and I wish I had that extra space. When the stock was at @Unknown Munitions for fixing the spacer system, I requested that they remove some material to open up the barrel inlet, but they declined to do so. I will eventually get around to doing this myself. For now, though, I opted to shoot it as it came.
Magazine
Both magazines have worked flawlessly thus far. The spring on the extended mag was stiff out of the box (e.g., hard to load with gloves) but got much better after a few uses. The flush mag is fantastic, and coming from Tikkas, it’s so nice having a truly flush mag. This is one of my favorite parts of the system.
Safety
The three-position safety is a great feature. Not much to say here other than it’s nice to have one.
Action
Out-of-the box, the action wasn’t what I would call smooth. It wasn’t particularly rough, but it wasn’t as smooth as a Tikka is. I racked it a couple hundred times and it’s much smoother now. I’m sure it will continue to do so over time. I haven’t had any binding with the action. The action is also very “tactile” in the sense that you can get “feedback” from it. It’s hard to describe and may be normal with CRFs – I don’t really know. But it’s nice and I really enjoy it.
Trigger
Mine came at 2.75lbs. There is very, very minor creep that I only occasionally notice. But overall, it’s one of the nicer triggers I’ve used. And I love that it’s a drop safe system. I’m impressed with it.
Barrel / Accuracy:
I shot on a very windy day at >10k elevation. My target was blowing around quite a bit (relatively speaking) as it was on a cheap aluminum pole that I couldn’t drive very far into the now-frozen ground. I’m also not nearly the shooter that a lot of guys here are. That said, my 10-rd groups averaged between 1.2-1.5 MOA with factor ELD-M. There was a couple that were higher than that when the wind was really gusting, but I’m not concerned with that as the target was visibly moving.
My rifles for the last several years have all been 16” barrels. I really wish this gun would come with an option for a 16” barrel, as I do prefer shorter when possible. Not a big deal and I’m sure many folks would appreciate the extra velocity of an 18” barrel.
Unfortunately, my Garmin Xero was dead so I didn’t capture velocities. But I’m pretty meticulous about record keeping and will report velocity at some point down the road. Right now there’s only 70 rounds through the tube, so I’m sure it’ll speed up regardless.
The barrel is cerakoted black which looks really slick. That said, I dropped it day one (oops) and put a nice scratch through the cerakote. I’ve been pretty vocal here that I think cerakote is dumb, and I’d rather not pay for it. But it does look nice!
What would I change:
- Muzzle brake – The gun comes with the SRS SS Pro 3-port muzzle brake, 6.5mm caliber, with an OD of 0.760. It’s a nice-looking brake and I’m sure it works fine. However, it also retails for $120 on SRS’s website and I have zero interest in a brake. Making the end-user pay for the brake when the system is heavily advertised as targeting the Rokslide group is silly and just adds cost.
- Thread protector – This a silly nuisance but I can’t believe the gun at this cost doesn’t come with a thread protector.
- Barrel cerakote – The barrel is staineless, so the cerakote is essentially just for aesthetics. I’d much rather see the cost savings of no cerakote, or a better treatment like nitride.
- Stock barrel contour – I wish this was a more spacious cut.
- Barrel length – wish there was a 16” option.
Comparison to Tikka?
I sold an awesome 6creed Tikka in a Rokstok to justify this purchase. So, naturally, the question exists of whether it’s worth it compared to the Tikka. The answer for me is yes, and going forward I’ll purchase new Marshalls over new Tikkas for a few key reasons:
- I like the CRF. I’ve shortstroked the Tikka a few times (never on live game), so I feel a little better having a CRF.
- Three-position safety – For obvious reasons.
- Build-in picatinny rail – It opens up the options for good rings, seems more robust than the Tikka dovetail (though I never had issues), and makes changing scopes between guns much easier.
- Customer Service – I called MRC to ask them something about the rifle and got through to a real human in 10 seconds. They were also thrilled to hear about their gun being in the wild and were eager to chat about it. In today’s day of customer service and going through bots to try to get a live agent, this goes an incredibly long way for me.
- USA company – Similar to the customer service remark above, I like supporting local when possible.
Summary
- So far, in my short time with the gun, it’s probably my favorite rifle I’ve owned. I’m really impressed with the overall package. I will continue to buy more of these if they come out in additional calibers that I’m interested in – most notably 6arc and 223. I’d be happy if this was the only rifle I owned in a multitude of calibers.
- A 16” version in a Rokstok Lite with a Sendero inlet contour that costs less (due to no cerakote, muzzle brake, or front rail) would be the absolute bees knees.
